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Junk mailers and scammers will always be here, but we need to better protect the vulnerable in society and make sure there is a way to report and stop this nuisance.

Win Win possibility for Royal Mail - Suspected Fraud Mail (from Intelligence) could have a large yellow warning sticker attached at the sorting office. Criminals would be thwarted. recipients warned and Royal Mail still has the revenue.

I think that I have the perfect use for junk mail.
It is put through a shredder and added to our compost heap - the strawberries this year have been absolutely fantastic thanks to some excellent compost made from compost that gets put through our door.

i am a postman and agree it is about revenue for royal mail. we as postman do spot the scam mail but if we bring it to managers attention they either cant be bothered as it is not their job or the threaten the postmen with wilful delay if we fail to deliver
it.plus most royal mail centres have had their staff cut so much in revenue protection dept that it is now impossible to high light these scams now. i am not surprised that royal mail refused to comment on this .

Absolutely ridiculous! Royal mail is compelled to deliver all post, thanks to it's universal service agreement. Has the EXTREMELY one sided documentary maker never heard of the phrase "don't shoot the messenger"? Direct mail or junk mail if you prefer obviously does work, otherwise companies would have stopped using it by now, surely? And as for crucifying them for delivering "scam" letters to the vulnerable, how is that worse than off licenses selling to alcoholics or newsagents selling multiple scratch cards? Scraping the barrel of desperation tonight, beeb!

The King had the answer...

Junk mail delivered by Royal Mail can be marked "RETURN TO SENDER"
Post it in a mailbox, the Royal Mail will bill the sender for the return postage...!

Imagine how much additional cost this will impose on Readers Digest..(?)

I think this story is over the top, firstly if my mum had issues with junk mail then I would get involved to stop her falling for it. At the end of it there are so many scams out in the world with text messages and emails as well as phone that everyone should be on their toes.

Lastly I highly can't agree with burning your junk mail. The show talks about how this is damaging the environment.... And burning all of it is much better?! The amount of toxins which would come of some of mail would be immense.

Watching this program has left me dissapointed with what seemed to me as a sloppy peice of journalism that started with a conclusion and then found the evidence to support it. I work within the Direct Mail (DM) industry and know how hard it has worked to ensure that mailshots are targetted to individuals based upon consent and previous behaviour. There was no distinction made between scam mail and the legitimate advertising of products by trusted organisations. It was all tarnished as junk mail, which is not the case. There was little consideration of how everyday brands use direct mail and it's impact on the uk in terms of sales and employment. There was also no comment advising viewers to ensure personal information is only given to trusted parties in order to protect themselves from the cowboys. Also could I advise everyone to recyle their "junk mail" rather than throw it into the general waste (or burning). Much more eco friendly :)

if people were not so gulable then the scammers would go away!! this is not royal mail's problem. Everything that comes into a sorting office in the morning has to be delivered, if not then this would be willfull delay, which you get the sack for and for your presenter to sit behind a letter box and watchpiles of junk mail coming through his door is just a joke as we do not deliver more than three pieces of junk mail to any one household in a weeks period! Maybe the program should of mentioned how much it cost the tax payer last year to keep a blue flag beach in cornwall. Also what the cutting down of tree's does to the environment as your presenter did and trying to fool us into thinking they were dead tree's.

Has anyone thought of setting up a strong public campaign against this mail? I would definitely offer my support to the MP that is going to bring this matter to the notice of the parliament - has she thought of an online petition? - have any of the newspapers taken up this cause to raise awareness? (Come on Newspapers - we'd rather read about this than what colour Cheryl's hair is this week)!!!! Also, surely the Queen should offer some support for this, after all, it is the 'Royal Mail' which is delivering this scam mail, along with all the heartache and misery that goes with it for vulnerable people and their families. I am not a Royalist, but I do think that the Queen has a genuine concern/love for this country and it's people; if the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ sent an 'official' account/request to Her Majesty, I think that it would have a good chance of her actually seeing it - I would write myself, but I doubt that a letter from Me would get past the 'ladies in waiting' response team........

Number 6 ... the cost for return mail isn't billed to the sender. The cost is covered by Royal Mail.

Poor documentary overall.

Was it about marketing / advertising mail? If so, the presenter clearly ran out of things to talk about as he filled a good few minutes with his "look how i turn paper into brikettes so i don't have to chop my trees down" piece.

Or was it about scam mail, which is a different subject entirely? To hold Royal Mail to account for it displays a poor grasp of the subject - they have a legal obligation to deliver all mail. Before Royal Mail can be blamed for delivering it, you need to change the laws to make them responsible for what they put through your letterbox. And that will change the whole set up of RM and the universal postal service. The upshot will be that you'll no longer be able to post a letter in Cornwall and have it delivered the next day to Abderdeen for 40p (or whatever a 1st class stamp costs these day).

Overall, cheap journalism with little insight and few strong arguments. He clearly made up his mind first and then made a programme to fit. I'd have expected more from the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ.

I think I have a pretty neat way of dealing with junk mail...There are plenty of junk mailings that contain return envelopes. Simply save all the junk, fill a selection off return envelopes with various junk including their envelopes and put them in the post. Doing this means Royal Mail carry even more mail, getting paid for it and the best part is that all the junk gets back to the companies responsible for sending it in the first place! Then finally, they have to pay to dispose of it.Neat, simple and very satisfying. Lee

Royal mail have been unfairly portrayed within this documentary.
Companies send leaflets through local news papers advertising supermarkets and takeaways and yet you dont hear the beeb reporting about this.
It is certainly not the fault of royal mail if people choose to respond to these items of mail.
It seems like Mr Heap is trying to justify his salary to the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

To No. 13,
Local newspaper advertisers, supermarket adverts, local takeaway ads, etc. do not scam people into sending them money........ These scams are not aimed at people like you & I, they are aimed at vulnerable people.
As for the person (No. 9) who stated that no households are receiving more than three items of junk/scam mail per week - where on earth do you live? I have to move much more than this directly from my letterbox to my waste bin in any one week.......

Many many years ago I sent a fiver to an Australian Lottery scam.
I soon realised it was a scam, but I landed on the biggest sucker list known to man!

I was bombarded with the stuff for years. Even when I moved they managed to send mail.
I simply recycled it all (no time to do anything else then!)

Nowadays, I don't get so much, but it still gives me great pleasure to open the envelopes, remove my name and address, switch the contents, reseal and post!
Even better, some actually enclose a prepaid envelope, so I fill this up with current junk.
Don't know if it ever gets to them, but it certainly makes me feel better.

Why should the Royal Mail care? They must be making a packet.

Wow, so many are passionate about the Royal Mail! In my opinion, the Royal Mail should take some responsibility as an accomplice to fraud. It is knowingly taking money from criminals who use it's services to commit a crime. What does that say about our society when we all look away when a crime is being committed. Sad! It's so easy for corporations to hide beyond the cloak of ignorance.

The day will come when to post will no longer exists. Maybe not in my lifetime but possibly my grand-children. The virtual world is coming and we'll will need to change with the times.

The programme joined together two different subjects here - Scams - which frankly Royal Mail and postal operators should do more about and should be stamped out ASAP - and advertising mail which brings in far more ££££ for UK plc and the Royal Mail than the recycling costs by a large factor.

I admit it: I'm employed in the industry and am one of 280,000 UK citizens employed, mainly (apart from Royal Mail and a couple of others) in SME's up and down the country.

The half-cocked and one-sided programme did all of these people a grave disservice. The silence of Royal Mail was also disappointing as they of all people should be willing to stand up for the industry out of which they make their living.

I always mark junk mail return to sender, the R Mail peel the label off and deliver it back to me. If I buy online, I then get mail, not emails. A camp my now 21 year old son went to at 7 is still sending catalogues to tempt him back. I do sometimes ask for one catalogue, and then 20 similar will also fall on the mat. Ticking the box for no mail makes no difference. I do not see why by the way of our council tax should subsidise Royal Mail by paying for the disposal of junk mail.

Firstly I must declare that I am involved in the supply of marketing data albeit to the business field.
I found this to be a very disappointing report on the Royal Mail as it concentrated on 2 issues which are only connected by the delivery method. Advertising or Junk mail is a necessary part of business, it is a legitimate and effective way of contacting people if it is used correctly. The SCAM mail is exactly that, it is designed to get to the gullible and desperate, who are the people that generally cannot afford to be ripped off.

It was a poorly constructed piece of journalism from a programme of normally high standards.

I must firstly declare that I work in the direct marketing industry.

However, can I say how biased yet confusing the entire programme was and that it did not adequately represent views from all sides.

Tom Heaps is very obviously anti receiving direct marketing communications on one hand, yet has time to ask for more (and then complain again!), but ultimately finds them useful for all the wrong reasons.

The programme morphed from door drops to scam mail, with the MP also introducing inserts at one stage, but was utterly dis-jointed, poorly thought out and mis-leading.

Did the MP deliver leaflets when he was seeking election and how many recipients of other political persuasions regarded his leaflets as "junk" - probably more than actually voted for him?

The lady on the remote island ridiculed receiving Specsavers and Co-Op leaflets. Yet she wore glasses, so presumably does visit opticians and if Specsavers have a branch in the town she visits when she comes to the mainland, could she possibly in the future become a customer, if she is not already.

And similarly complete a major shop at the Co-Op?

Pizza leaflets predictably were criticised. Have the major companies Marketing Directors really got it that wrong that such regular activity does not provide solid return on investment?

Obviously it does and it helps pay the salaries of the people who take the orders, cook the pizzas and deliver them!

The problem in these situations is that so many people fail to recognise that just because they don't like a certain item, it does not mean everybody else has the same opinion.

I heard a radio interview yesterday were it was claimed that "nobody" uses Yellow Pages directories any more? What a ridiculous statement with absolutely no foundation.

There are reams of consumer research that prove how popular door drops and direct mail are, but yes the industry should be striving to ever improve targeting and cut wastage.

But if you receive an item you do not intend to use, just responsibly re-cycle. It does not take a huge amount of effort.

I think the main problem here is, most people who are writing about this issue have very little or no Knowledge of how the postal system works.
"Junk" mail is a problem to some people, but if they register with the MPS it will be reduced. "Scam" mail however is totally different.. Scam mail is addressed to the individual by name and the "ROYAL? Mail has a legal obligation to deliver all addressed mail.
Criminals based abroad work from UK mailing lists which categorize people as being elderly. Those who respond are then put on what they call "suckers" lists, they sell their lists to other criminals worldwide. Scam mail criminals work in organised gangs, they pose as fictional characters ie; lottery officials, bankers, solicitors and clairvoyants, sending out mail which collectively forms a delusional world which becomes a victims reality.
Scam mail tricks and threatens and clairvoyant letters can make terrifying predictions and swear the recipient to secrecy. They make phone calls and predict terrible things happening if there demands are not met. Because the vast majority of victims are not diagnosed as having a mental incapacity, there families are powerless to intervene. Redirection of the mail, gaining power of attorney or even bringing in outside help is not an option. I suggest anyone who says "I wouldn't let this happen to my parent or grandparent" visits www.thinkjessica.com and reads Jessica's story and all the other shocking truths behind scam mail, before they voice an opinion. 5 people are KNOWN to have committed suicide because of scam mail.. some elderly people are being delivered over 100 scam letters a day... yet the posties are powerless to sound the alarm. Victims start to display "cult" like behavior as they are brainwashed into being willing participants of their own exploitation. Yes there are warnings about scam mail...there is plenty on the internet ...not a lot of good to a 95 year old man who spends his days reading, sorting and replying to scam mail..forever worried he will not meet a time sensitive deadline to stop a secret curse that his hanging over his family.. who incidentally he only sees about 4 times a year.

My mum had a mental breakdown, she went to hospital and whilst checking her flat I found bags of scam mail. I threw it all away. She came out of hospital and was angry that I had destroyed all the post. I tried to explain that they were frausters but she said she looked forward to reading them, in particular the horoscopes. She does not have a bank account and had been sending postal orders to various addresses - well I said, they are so good that they didn't predict your breakdown!
How crafty she has become, she thought she would avoid the post as I found out about that so she turned to making making telephone calls instead - only thing was she asked me to check why her phone bill was so large - I found numerous calls to peak rate phone numbers and when I tried one - yes you guessed, it was a horoscope!

Junk mail – the facts

A Panorama programme on postal junk was compelling, but didn't mention that the market is skewed against Royal Mail

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What to do about junk TV adverts, junk telephone calls, junk journalism, junk everything else? Royal Mail is an advertising company and free market forces result in scam mailings. Postcomm has slowly destroyed Royal Mail, direct 'junk' mail is its only main resource flow kill one you kill both.

I live in the Isle of Man! Which has a government owned post office, which make a profit! with cheaper postage prices than the UK and no junk mail!

whenever i receive a junk mail letter with a freepost/prepaid envelope i stuff it full of junk mail from other companies and post it back. spread the joy.

I am shocked by the complacency and lack of appreciation of the seriousness of the issue of scam mail. Perhaps if some of the contributors found themselves in the position of having an elderly relative spending perhaps £300 per month on this rubbish then they might think differently. Most of us are lucky to be pretty sound of mind, but who knows what will happen to you as you get older- perhaps confused and taken in by these scam prizes. And however many times one is told, you either don't take it in or have forgotten previous warnings.
I suggest you have a look at this website for further info of why it is a good thing that this programme was aired

Why should Royal mail be kept afloat using criminal activities? It shouldn't work for NOTW and News Corp and it shouldn't work for Royal Mail.