h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

good you should have included a section on what a lot of us suspect is the improper use of postcodes - as an arbitrary way of defining the worth of people from the postcode area trhey live in, or to set insurance premiums. Surely postcodes were never designed for these purposes, and any inferences drawn from them are going to be innaccurate and discriminatory?

Personal experience: my postcode area is SK4, which is held to be an affluent and upmarket part of town. Compared to SK6 where I used to live (perceived as more downmarket) I can't beleive the amount of crap I get through my door, for banks, loans, credit cards, high-cost goods and holidays and jewellry, et c. The junk mail burden has gone up five or six times since I lived in the perceived downmarket SK6. The inescapable conclusion is that it's not me, it's the bloody postcode, that's attracting the upmarket junk mail for expensive goods and services... you'd need a lot of local knowledge to be aware that Reddish SK6 is perceived as being a scruffy bit of town, whereas Heaton Moor SK4 is perceived as being extremely affluent, and I can't beleive EVERY bank and credit card firm works from a gazetteer that has ticks against areas where people are perceived to have a lot more disposable income. But you COULD do it with a simple computer database, and hang it on Outbound postcodes... the joke is, of course, that I'm ther same scruff who used to live in Reddish, I've just moved a mile or so up the road... and I still bin the junk mail!

May I suggest that you fight back.
1. Register with the mailing preference service (http://www.mpsonline.org.uk/mpsr/) which stops the majority of junk mail.

2. Register with the Royal Mail to prevent items of junk mail being delivered by them. See http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/content1?catId=400126&mediaId=500081 for further information.

3. Nail your letterbox shut.

Don't forget the telephone preference service to prevent the phone calls.

Oh, and don't bin the mail. Place it in their reply paid envelope and send the whole lot back!

cool!
that will stop all of my sis's junk mail
thank you!

perhaps if Reddish had kept its old name of Heaton Reddish, then it would have less difference.

Then again, I have enough trouble with Heaton Whatsit, Heaton Something, Heaton Thingy and Heaton Theotherone that a fifth will do my head in