This TV station runs contests and things and has added this notice:
How would a return address help anyone? Do “evildoers” use a valid return address?
It seems silly, to say the least.
This TV station runs contests and things and has added this notice:
How would a return address help anyone? Do “evildoers” use a valid return address?
It seems silly, to say the least.
Matter of fact, didn’t all those letters that went to the congressional mailroom have return addresses on them? I seem to recall that.
It is a false sense of security for the public as well as station staff.
There will always be a certain percentage of law-abiding citizens who assume that everyone is law abiding, and anyone who doesn’t “follow the rules” is an evil-doer. You can find this way of thinking all over the place.
OTOH, as the OP already stated, what is to prevent anyone - do-gooder or evil-doer - from providing a false return address?
The policy is a feel good placation with no relevance to the real world. I wonder if the station created the policy on the advice of their lawyers?
Doesn’t sound like the work of lawyers as much as public relations drones.
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I was recently on the NIKE site…they sell over the internet if you can’t find a style you want in the NIKE store. Reading their return policy, it firmly states that if you return a pair of Nikes, and you fail to have a return address on the package, they will ‘toss the whole thing in the trash and you get no exchange or refund’.
At just about any government (and I expect large business) mailroom, there will be a poster with a bunch of warnings about what packages or letters one should be careful about opening.
Some of the warning signs include no return address, lumpy packages, oily spots, excessive postage, poor handwriting, or certain oddities in the “addressed to” area, among other things.
Since it would be rather odd to say “we don’t accept packages with excessive postage or poor handwriting,” indicating that there must be a return address on the package isn’t that bad a heads-up to give to legitimate mailers.
Yes, it’s not going to foil a group of smart and dedicated mail bombers, but these guidelines are useful for dealing with the significant amount of mail that cranks and weirdos send. And believe me, there are a hell of a lot of people with bizarre or violent tendencies who put strange or dangerous items in mail addressed to authority figures, be they the IRS, politicians, or the bank that just foreclosed on someone.
There’s been at least one “dumb crook” story where the bank robber scibbles his account number on the deposit slip he’s using as a hold up note. Look at it this way, it makes it easy for the cops to track down the really stupid criminals and hopefully keep them from breeding.