Blalron, just out of bizarre curiosity, what type of, er…instrument were you interested in getting? I’ve had curiosity about getting a sex toy- but wanted to get something that would be, uh…satisfying since I doubt stuff like this can be returned :eek:
There is a product called a Fleshlight- perhaps you heard of it. Looks pretty pleasant- and it even looks like just an ordinary flashlight!
Actually, about the mailings . . . the “plain white envelopes” are just that: plain white envelopes. And when was the last time you’ve ever gotten one of those in the mail? Ads come in colorful decorated envelopes with logos everywhere, bills at least have a company name on the return address, and personal mail has a colorful stamp and a handwritten address.
It’s their plainness that makes them stand out. It’s like finding a playing card in a deck with no design on the back. The only mail I’ve ever seen like that is from porn catalogs. It stands out. Hit the store in person.
You guessed it. That’s what I was thinking about getting.
Boy, youse guys make this tough.
Balron, you do NOT need to rent a PO box, just to have the anonymity required by yourself to make this purchase. This is what you do.
Order the item. In the space where you give a mailing address, write the following:
Balron The Most Urgent
C/O GENERAL DELIVERY
Yourtown, Yourstate
Yourfreakin’ Zip
When you are sent a package to your local Post Office, and you do NOT have a PO box, simply have your name appear above the wording, " C/O General Delivery ". You go to the PO, ( every few days, to see if it has arrived ). You will have to produce whatever I.D. your local PO wants you to, and voila, the box is handed to you. Lacking a street address, and with the instructions ’ C/O General Delivery ", the box is held there for you, for some reasonable amount of time. No, they won’t call your home to tell you it’s there. It is up to you to go and get it. Safe, n’est pas? 
You do NOT have to rent a PO box. Sheeeesh.
My PO does this, it is fair to presume that most if not all United States PO’s do this. YMMV, please call first to check and make sure yours offers this service.
Been there, done that. 
Cartooniverse
Harli, I wasn’t out to paint all online retailers as thieves.
For the record:
I purchase cigarettes online (to circumvent the NY confiscatory taxes) and the 4 or 5 I do business al require the same Sold To: / Ship To: Address…A policy they say helps cut down on fraud.
I also buy most of my CD’s online from reputable retailers & have had at least a dozen e-bay purchases all done via PayPal.
But I refuse to shop from small online retailers for the following reasons:
I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve clicked a sponsored link on Google (here’s an example) only to find a HTTP 404 Error “The page cannot be found” message. What this tells me is it was a small, fly by night company, who took the trouble of subscribing with google on a per hit basis and folded / went under. I don’t wannna be the scrub who pays $ to a company & have them disappear or go bankrupt prior to them shipping my purchase & then have to fight for a refund.
Aren’t the 16 numbers on the front of the card enough? What do they want these for? I don’t know, call me paranoid.
I feel relatively confident sending my info securely, I just don’t know what type of employees at the online retailer have access to it at the other end. Yesterday’s news about ID theft complaints rosing to 162,000 last year is cause for alarm.
I have a very good idea what it costs to ship UPS, these small timers are making windfall mark-ups on freight and use the S+H to increase the bottom line.
Way too much of a pain in the ass, to even start describing.
I’ve got nothing against anyone using toys for masturbatory or mutaul pleasure, but it’s always concerned me. How the heck do you clean the things?
Oh sure, women can just get a rag and wipe off ol’ long dong, but guys with our fake orifices…seems like it’d be more trouble than it’s worth having to get out the long q-tips and alcohol and what-not.
Isn’t it just easier using a bunch of disposable TP?
One argument in favor of the post-office box is that, as an 18-year-old, it might be really useful having a non-changing address for when you move out, go to college, live with roommates, change to an apartment, find a better house, change schools, move across town, etc., as is frequently the case for people up until the age of about 25.
Those three digits are an additional security precaution. They do not appear on an imprint of the card, nor are they embedded in the info encoded on the magnetic stripe. So, anyone using a “carbon copy” or reprint of a receipt from a swiped card won’t have that (unless they thought to write it down). It’s just an additional line of defense–can’t be too careful these days.
Along time ago I sent for some free XXX video samples. They sucked. But after that I kept getting tons of XXX ads in the mail. Eventually, I went to college & instead of forwarding them to me, my folks read them themselves. The ads said something on the front about sexually orientated stuff inside.
But remember if you order something, you might start getting mailings of those ads.
There are special cleaning solutions for adult toys. But it really is just a basic rinse and sterilize kinda thing.
“But it really is just a basic rinse and sterilize kinda thing.”
I would hope they do this before giving them to our thrift shops