9 ms·

There's a new feature they just rolled out that emails you images of the mail whenever it comes. Just as little security. You can spy on someone's mail indefini

by koboll 8y ago

There's a new feature they just rolled out that emails you images of the mail whenever it comes. Just as little security. You can spy on someone's mail indefinitely and they'd be none the wiser.

reaperducer 8y ago
Yep. I get e-mail every few days with pictures of the mail headed for the people who now live in an apartment in another city I haven't lived in for close to 10 years. I've tried to get it fixed online, but so far no results.
craftyguy 8y ago
My favorite part of this feature is that I now get to see images of junk mail before it is delivered to my mailbox. Too bad the USPS is so serious about maintaining their leadership as the 'leading deliverer of junk mail' to offer a way for recipients to reject it since they can literally see it in transit.
- tetrep 8y ago
  If you could reject junk mail, junk mail senders wouldn't pay to, well, send it. And the USPS would lose a lot of money. Imagine how terrible GMail's spam filters would be if spammers paid Google for delivery... Oh wait, Google literally has a dedicated tab for that! For those that find it useful (and I don't doubt it is), imagine what the alternative would be for the spammers, you'd be 100% ignoring it by unsubscribing or filtering it as spam. Now that it's corralled off, you can look at it at your leisure, and Google can keep advertisers happy by offering them a non-zero chance you'll look at their spam.
  - r00fus 8y ago
    How about I get first right of refusal to outbid the spammer? I mean, ok so USPS is getting $5/mo for my address from a dozen companies. Can I just pay them that $5? Not today. I'd be happy to open the discussion on opting out of the junk mail without going to a costly service like earth-class mail.
    - spacehome 8y ago
      Check out Traveling Mailbox. Same basic idea as Earth-class mail, but cheaper and targeted more towards individuals rather than businesses. I'm not affiliated, but a satisfied customer.
      - msandford 8y ago
        What's the biggest missing feature or "complaint" you have? I'm doing some research.
        spacehome 8y ago
        On the whole, the service is brilliant, and exactly what USPS should have become in the mid-90s. Mail is auto-scanned and delivered as a pdf attachment to my email. When I need something physically forwarded to me, the prices are only a small markup from what it costs to mail the package, and it's mailed promptly. On the whole, it's awesome, and I'm very happy to be a customer. I'll give you my two big complaints: 1) The time delay. My Traveling Mailbox address is in the western half of the US. Mail has to be delivered to that address, then shipped cross country to North Carolina where their headquarters and mail scanner is. You can count on an additional 3 to 14 days after USPS thinks the mail has been delivered before a scan of it shows up in my email inbox. A couple years ago, this was much worse and less consistent; occasionally letters were 3 weeks late. However in the past 2 years or so, I've noticed the time delay has been much more consistent, centering around 3-5 business days. They maintain addresses all over the country, and there's probably only the scale and margin to maintain one scanning facility, so I don't know what TM could realistically do to address this problem. If I didn't need an address where I have it, I would have already moved my address to Sanford, NC, where their headquarters is. 2) Some banks don't like the address. Due to KYC laws, banks and financial institutions need a residential address for their clients. I'm homeless and don't have such an address, so this is difficult for me. Traveling Mailbox is nice in that they give you a street address, not a P.O. Box. To a casual glance, it looks like a normal street address, but if one researches the address online, one will find that it's a business. When I changed my address over to use my TM address as my home address, about half the financial institutions I worked with rejected the address as not being my residence and said they couldn't do business with me anymore. Some asked for a driver's license as proof of the address. I said no problem and faxed my driver's license (which has my TM address), but the institutions still closed my account without further explanation. I'm still a little salty about the hubris of the politicians who enacted the KYC laws, assuming that everybody conforms and has a permanent residential address.
  - viraptor 8y ago
    But promotions is something completely different from spam. Almost every single email you get there, you subscribed to or didn't opt-out of. And if you don't have an unsubscribe linkk in those emails, you can still create a manual filter to auto-delete them. And those senders don't pay Google to end up in promotions anyway.
    - PascLeRasc 8y ago
      Not to mention emails don't require killing trees and burning fossil fuels to get there.
      - jlgaddis 8y ago
        Energy is still required to transmit those (e-mail) bits.
- jngreenlee 8y ago
  The most offensive part is that you can't unsubscribe from bulk mailings. It's like the USPS turned into the govt in Snow Crash.

by koboll 8y ago

There's a new feature they just rolled out that emails you images of the mail whenever it comes. Just as little security. You can spy on someone's mail indefinitely and they'd be none the wiser.

reaperducer 8y ago

Yep. I get e-mail every few days with pictures of the mail headed for the people who now live in an apartment in another city I haven't lived in for close to 10 years. I've tried to get it fixed online, but so far no results.

craftyguy 8y ago

My favorite part of this feature is that I now get to see images of junk mail before it is delivered to my mailbox. Too bad the USPS is so serious about maintaining their leadership as the 'leading deliverer of junk mail' to offer a way for recipients to reject it since they can literally see it in transit.

tetrep 8y ago
If you could reject junk mail, junk mail senders wouldn't pay to, well, send it. And the USPS would lose a lot of money. Imagine how terrible GMail's spam filters would be if spammers paid Google for delivery... Oh wait, Google literally has a dedicated tab for that! For those that find it useful (and I don't doubt it is), imagine what the alternative would be for the spammers, you'd be 100% ignoring it by unsubscribing or filtering it as spam. Now that it's corralled off, you can look at it at your leisure, and Google can keep advertisers happy by offering them a non-zero chance you'll look at their spam.
- r00fus 8y ago
  How about I get first right of refusal to outbid the spammer? I mean, ok so USPS is getting $5/mo for my address from a dozen companies. Can I just pay them that $5? Not today. I'd be happy to open the discussion on opting out of the junk mail without going to a costly service like earth-class mail.
  - spacehome 8y ago
    Check out Traveling Mailbox. Same basic idea as Earth-class mail, but cheaper and targeted more towards individuals rather than businesses. I'm not affiliated, but a satisfied customer.
    - msandford 8y ago
      What's the biggest missing feature or "complaint" you have? I'm doing some research.
      - spacehome 8y ago
        On the whole, the service is brilliant, and exactly what USPS should have become in the mid-90s. Mail is auto-scanned and delivered as a pdf attachment to my email. When I need something physically forwarded to me, the prices are only a small markup from what it costs to mail the package, and it's mailed promptly. On the whole, it's awesome, and I'm very happy to be a customer. I'll give you my two big complaints: 1) The time delay. My Traveling Mailbox address is in the western half of the US. Mail has to be delivered to that address, then shipped cross country to North Carolina where their headquarters and mail scanner is. You can count on an additional 3 to 14 days after USPS thinks the mail has been delivered before a scan of it shows up in my email inbox. A couple years ago, this was much worse and less consistent; occasionally letters were 3 weeks late. However in the past 2 years or so, I've noticed the time delay has been much more consistent, centering around 3-5 business days. They maintain addresses all over the country, and there's probably only the scale and margin to maintain one scanning facility, so I don't know what TM could realistically do to address this problem. If I didn't need an address where I have it, I would have already moved my address to Sanford, NC, where their headquarters is. 2) Some banks don't like the address. Due to KYC laws, banks and financial institutions need a residential address for their clients. I'm homeless and don't have such an address, so this is difficult for me. Traveling Mailbox is nice in that they give you a street address, not a P.O. Box. To a casual glance, it looks like a normal street address, but if one researches the address online, one will find that it's a business. When I changed my address over to use my TM address as my home address, about half the financial institutions I worked with rejected the address as not being my residence and said they couldn't do business with me anymore. Some asked for a driver's license as proof of the address. I said no problem and faxed my driver's license (which has my TM address), but the institutions still closed my account without further explanation. I'm still a little salty about the hubris of the politicians who enacted the KYC laws, assuming that everybody conforms and has a permanent residential address.
- viraptor 8y ago
  But promotions is something completely different from spam. Almost every single email you get there, you subscribed to or didn't opt-out of. And if you don't have an unsubscribe linkk in those emails, you can still create a manual filter to auto-delete them. And those senders don't pay Google to end up in promotions anyway.
  - PascLeRasc 8y ago
    Not to mention emails don't require killing trees and burning fossil fuels to get there.
    - jlgaddis 8y ago
      Energy is still required to transmit those (e-mail) bits.
jngreenlee 8y ago
The most offensive part is that you can't unsubscribe from bulk mailings. It's like the USPS turned into the govt in Snow Crash.