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Comment by joncrane | Hacker News Reader

Common fallacy. The USPS will not deliver anything significantly heavier than the expected weight of the mail piece.

They do, at least if done properly.

I once when I lived in a rural area, with a small PO received a despicable scam focusing on elders, containing a return-postage-guaranteed envelope. The postmistress couldn't provide direct instructions, but enough for me to surmise that anything I could actually fit in the envelope would work.

I filled it as full as possible with thin lead sheet (often used for flashing around chimney-roof intersections), a bit of reinforcing clear packing tape around the edges, and a nasty note. When I brought it back for mailing, I got a bit of a smile and assurance that it would go properly.

Satisfying, and if everyone did it...

How much would that lead weight and how much would it cost them?

Some might slip through the cracks. But in most cases they'd just give the receiver a postage due notice and those junk companies wouldn't pay so it get trashed anyways.

Better to make sure the company gets it so they have to pay someone to open it.

How could it slip through the cracks and still charge the company the full charge?

I meant usps might miss it. It happens, sometimes they don't catch overweight items. Fun fact, there's some businesses that take advantage of this fact. I ordered two huge rolls of bubble wrap and the shipper stuck a first class label on it. I weighed the bag and it was 3lbs. All depends on if the postal employee feels like bothering with it.

Interesting, I assumed that it was an automated system to reject it ("sorry, the computer won't accept it unless the scale has a lower weight than what was paid, nothing I can do"). But if it's manual that makes sense

> The USPS will not deliver anything significantly heavier than the expected weight of the mail piece

Do you have a source for this? What do they do with it then?

That's poorly worded. I think what the OP was getting at is that the prepaid return envelopes are some sort of commercial first class flat rate, not meant to cover packages of a higher weight and larger dimension (drawing from extensive eBay packaging shipping experience, here).

Hassling the USPS by making them dispose of a brick seems like suitable enough punishment for them delivering junk mail in the first place.

USPS wouldn't exist without junk mail. I thank the junk senders for their patronage of our postal system.

They could charge a reasonable price, or receive [more] funding from taxes. The notion that scam/junk mail is essential to the system is moronic.

They could, or they could let private companies subsidize it.

The only ("only") problem I personally have is that it generates soooo much waste. It is always so frustrating checking the mail, and immediately dropping 10 or so sheets of paper in the trash before I even close the mailbox (the safeway mailer is especially bad at this...)

If we could avoid junk mail, that would definitely be ideal case scenario. I find a little comfort in believing that what I throw in the recycle bin (which is all the junk mail) gets recycled into new paper.

You're saying it's the USPS fault that customers demand service for unconscionably low price?

It’s not their fault their underfunded.

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