Transcontinental trash
It takes a certain warped genius to send out junk mail in an envelope that looks for all the world like it contains a W-2 form — in January, of course. Inasmuch as I already have my W-2 for 2011, I could easily have justified consigning it to the circular file, but curiosity won out. (The terrorists have won.)
Inside was a “VA Mortgage Payment Reduction Notice,” offering me some sort of refinancing offer that is “guaranteed by the Veterans Benefit Administration.” There is, it appears, no such agency: a va.gov page identified as such redirects to the US Department of Veterans Affairs, which is at 810 Vermont Avenue NW in Washington and has a proper government ZIP code: 20420. (The Feds run 20200 through 20599.) This, um, Notice has a return address of 2020 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, 20006, which according to the Oracle of Google is shared by, among others, Comcast, Hmong National Development, and World Net Daily.
Punchline: I don’t even have a VA mortgage. Nor is it FHA, Fannie, Freddie, or any of those F-ers. I do have, however, the ability to read the postage-meter imprint, and this particular example of tree waste was mailed, not from the District of Columbia, but somewhere near the Columbia River, from deepest Portlandia.
fillyjonk »
13 January 2012 · 7:28 am
People who send out mail that looks like “official” mail, when the mail in question is actually likely a scam: yet another candidate to be sent to that series of deserted islands I like to imagine the vexatious people being sent to.
My parents get a frightening volume of that kind of stuff. I suppose it’s because the scammers figure they are Old, and are therefore Likely To Fall For It.
My dad bought a shredder specifically to deal with that kind of junk mail.
McGehee »
13 January 2012 · 5:21 pm
The Island of the Phone Sanitizers.
Jeffro »
13 January 2012 · 9:17 pm
What is even more comforting is knowing someone who works for the USPS approved that envelope – all bulk mailings have to be inspected. As long as it’s not a total ripoff, they’re ok with it. Thus we get “Priority Express Overnight” mail, which isn’t a direct ripoff of any one of the Post Office’s products.