from Hacker News

Hacking Business Reply Mail

by dpapathanasiou on 6/10/14, 6:39 PM with 45 comments

• by mberg on 6/10/14, 6:52 PM

  Nice one! Try this one. When I was living in NY, I'd always want to bring a magazine for the long subway ride downtown. So one day I took one of the magazines that get delivered to my home and enjoyed the read on the way downtown. When I got to my destination I'd just pop the magazine in the nearest mailbox. Usually a day later it would delivered back safely back home to be read another day. I've done this dozens of times without fail.

• by panarky on 6/10/14, 8:38 PM

  Back in the day, people would use business reply mail to get a small amount of revenge on companies that wronged them.

  1. Wrap a cinderblock in brown paper

  2. Tape a business reply envelope to the top of the package

  3. Drop off the package at a mailbox or post office

  4. Recipient pays first-class postage

  I don't know if it's true, but I heard of people mailing used truck tires and big boxes of rocks or bricks this way.

  Probably wouldn't work today, since anti-terror regulations require identification for packages above given dimensions.

• by ChuckMcM on 6/10/14, 8:11 PM

  A realtor I knew used this to send loan documents to the bank. She would just use clear tape and tape the envelope on top of the big fat manilla envelope of papers and drop it in the mail. Clearly the postage was different but the post office seemed to process it fine.

• by jack-r-abbit on 6/10/14, 8:20 PM

  I've wondered for a long time if one could "hack" (or more like "exploit" or "cheat") the "Return To Sender" feature of the USPS to get free postage. Suppose I want to send a letter to John Doe without paying postage. I address the envelope to my own address and use John's address as the from address. I don't put a stamp on it. Without postage, the USPS should not deliver it to me and should return it to the sender for proper postage. BAM! John gets my letter.

• by jasoncartwright on 6/10/14, 8:21 PM

  Posting cheques! How quaint. Do your financial institutions not support electronic money transfers?

• by azunds on 6/10/14, 7:06 PM

  Does it work if you send it to your own address?

• by free2rhyme214 on 6/10/14, 8:55 PM

  I wonder if this guy is from the bay area. Because there's a Muji in SF and downtown San Jose.

• by honoredb on 6/10/14, 9:51 PM

  Not particularly unethical as described, but I'd imagine this is technically a federal crime.

• by _dztf on 6/12/14, 12:51 AM

  Link is dead.

• by rapcal on 6/11/14, 6:36 AM

  404...

• by comrade1 on 6/10/14, 8:34 PM

  This brings up an embarrassment I have, being an american that's moved to Europe. I've had colleagues that have worked short-term in the u.s. and when they receive a 'check' from their workplace they think it's the most fascinating, interesting thing. A check! It's almost like they're holding the money in their hands... (their words, not mine)

  I don't think my bank even has checks - at least they're not a standard enough feature that they mention them.

  Thinking about it though, they did let me deposit a check from the u.s. once. It took about three works for it to go through. Wire transfers to anywhere in the world (I regularly send money to the u.s. and India) go through in two or three days.

  In fact, the check I deposited was about $50K, so it's understandable it took awhile, but a wire transfer I received from the u.s. for the same exact amount only took two days.

  So, why use checks?

  We have a system where every bill is payable by bank transfer, and the bill you receive only contains the bank transfer information.