What was the most painful part of moving is the sudden in-flow of junk mail in the first few weeks. Investigating this phenomenon a little further, I found that there are a number of ways in which spammers can get my mailing address:
- Change of Address. The US Postal Service is a willing participant in this little scam. Of course, mail spam is a great thing for them, bringing is what I can only guess is millions of dollars per year.
- Record of Purchase. Public record also does its part by plastering it out there for maillist builders to grab and steal.
- Mortgage "Partners." My mortgage company, First Horizon gave me a disclosure form saying that providing my name to partners would only occur in cases where they are jointly selling something. Well, now that I have counted my 150th Horizon related peice of mail, I am more than annoyed.
What I have trouble understanding is why email spam is getting so much attention when in fact we have a much larger problem with mail spam. Email spam is easy to delete in bulk, and no one gets hurt. REAL MAIL spam overloads your mailbox to the point that you cannot weed through to find the mail that really matters, such as bills and personal mail!!!
Of course no one with any authority in the government would ever touch this, despite the millions of trees per year that are being wasted...
