Fortunately there’s an easy way to dispose of junk mail – return it to the company that sent it to you. It’s their problem in the first place. Some of them are kind enough to even provide you with a prepaid return envelope. How convenient! Here’s how it works:

The fine Finnish Tiede science magazine sent me a “special” offer in a nice giant envelope. If I subscribe NOW, I could win an amazing car, 50000€ in cash and whatnot. No thanks, I’ll pass this time.

The envelope is full of stuff. There’s a subscription form already filled out with my full name and address, a bonus “double your chance of winning” card and some stickers that you need to stick to the subscription form. How nice.

Here’s what we do next. Crumple up every pice of paper that they sent to you and stuff them in the return envelope like so:

You probably need to step on it in order to properly seal the envelope.

That’s one hell of a heavy and thick envelope, but the postage bill is already paid for by the magazine. This is a nice way of letting the company now that you don’t want them to send you any junk mail. Maybe they’ll leave you alone. Probably not, but at least it’ll make you feel better.

Hyvä asiakas, Tehdessämme rutiini tarkastusta ohjelmaan joka käsittelee sähköpostimme, huomasimme teknisen vian joka valitettavasti on tuhonnut viestinne sisällön. Onglenma on nyt korjattu ja pyytäisimmekin teitä lähettämään viestinne uudelleen, jos vielä tarvitsette apua Sonyn asiakaspalvelusta. Pahoittelemme tapahtunutta ja siitä koitunutta vaivaa. Ystävällisesti Sony Support support@sony.fi

My loose translation:

Dear customer, While running a routine check on our e-mail software, we found a technical error which had unfortunately destroyed the contents of your message. The problem is now solved and we ask that you send your message again if you still need help from our customer service. We apologize for the inconvenience.

No need to apologize, I’ll take the quality of your customer service into account next time I’m considering to buy a product from Sony. Just wondering, perhaps it was a Sony rootkit that deleted my message? Mybe somebody had popped a DRM infested Sony CD in their mail server. Just a thought.