What is the Logic of Return Evelopes with Windows?

Noddy, I could just scream. I do that every check run, and sometimes more than once. Our statewide gas & electric utility does this. All credit card companies do the same. So, they are sending out something like 500,000 to several million window envelopes, and they all go back to the same place. Now, window envelopes cost more, and the cost of adding the address to an envelope that is already going through the printing process is negligible. I mean, when you multiply the extra cost by five million, you're still looking at a negligible sum.

And furthermore, about 20% of the invoices have little tear strips to return with the remittance. Some at the top, some at the bottom, and some on the right side of the page. All this while I have a 5 inch high pile of invoices, checks, and envelopes wait for a chance to slid of onto the floor. Do I use them? Sure. If they are on the right side and perforated, I use them. If they are on the bottom, maybe, maybe not. If they are on top (where the paper clip is holding everything together, probably not. If the bill has a dotted line and a cute little picture of a pair of sissors, in lieu of perforations, I return them on one condition only - if the return address says Internal Revenue Service. Otherwise, they can just do their own bookkeeping. I do mine.

Your comments made me think perhaps they are willing to spend the extra pennies on envelopes because it means they get their very own silly pieces of paper back?

I have one bill, Working Assets long distance, which has a counter-intuitive payment stub. Usually, you have the info about your bill for the month AND the return address on the same side of the stub. But, Working Assets has, for some unfathomable reason, put their return address on the backside of the pay stub. I have to open that sucker up all the time. Actually, I think it's been a few month, I can learn, but seriously, what a pain!

As far as the original topic, the window envelops, I think they're just fine and dandy so long as they make sense (to me).

The theory of the window envelopes, at least on the initial send-out, is that it's one less thing to type (100 or 1000 or 1000000 times). Used to matter a lot when people actually typed envelopes instead of doing a mail merge as they do now. Now, they save a bit of ink, but not so much time any more.

You have hit on one of the bains of my life (or is that bane?) Little puffs of steam emerge from my ears as I aim the tear off part of the bill into a glassine windowed envelope in the correct direction while trying not to get it stuck on some inner envelope tab. Snarls riffle out between my lower and upper sets of teeth. Lights flash from my eyes. Frowns wave upon my brow. Soon the drool will start..

I know the answer is automatic deduction from one's bank account, but I have never been able to do that as my income is sporadically received depending on gallery sales and client payments, so I can't just count on a steady sum in the account.

My most irritating bill is my monthly water/sewer bill to my fair city. They send no envelope, only a tearapart postcard, and I always have to go dig one up to mail the bill.

Gggggggrrrrrr.

Type? But the enclosed envelopes could be printed...

grrrrrrrr.

I do online banking - no problem with envelopes any longer!

Speaking of bills, can't these idiot vendors figure that the date goes in the upper left corner of the invoice, with the invoice number immediately below? Some go so far as to put both in the upper left, immediately below the staple.

They can now, but people used to have careers typing addresses. <sigh>

Sometimes we forget why we started doing something, and don't change it when it doesn't make sense anymore.

My favourite Loretta LaRoche bit of knowledge ^^

Roger--

The Hunt the Number game could occupy a thread all by itself. Mr. Noddy has a number of medical bills and most of the medical offices have clerical help that approaches medical reimbursement in a very haphazard way.

Consequently I'm talking to Medicare and I'm talking to Blue Shield and unless I've had the foresight to circle the case number/account number/patient number/billing number before the call, I sound disorganized and moronic.

Bane, it is spelled bane.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

So, um, here's a thought. I've got three different accounts with American Express. I'm not sure if they all come from the same place or not, but the payments go to locations in three different states (one is Arizona, I forget the other two, and I'm starting to wonder if I paid one of them this month).

So, all the return envelopes are the same. Which might be very useful for American Express, because who knows how many payment centers they have? Moreover, since many people (like me) have multiple accounts, the risk of mixing up the envelopes and sending payments to the wrong locations would be considerable.* So, put the address on the piece of paper that has all the other information specific to each of my accounts (account number, amount over-limit this month, number of months since my last payment, mailing address, etc.) and you don't have to worry about the payments ending up in the wrong place.




* Of course, I am firmly convinced that a number of credit card companies -- but not American Express, which irritates me for other reasons -- make a killing off of late fees, overlimit fees, etc. On several occasions I have sent payments 5-7 days before they were due, and the company then registers them as arriving 2-3 days after the due date. (You hear me, Bank of America and Chase Manhattan Bank? You bastards!) So they get to charge me a late fee and penalize me with a higher interest rate. On a couple of occasions, the late fee has put an account over its limit, for which they get to ding me with a late fee, as well.** Now, when I send things to my family in California, they usually arrive within two, sometimes three, days. Someday, when I am wealthy and retired (ha!), I am going to open several dozen credit cards, pay the USPS to confirm delivery on all payments, and compile evidence toward a class-action suit against the bastards. I know -- I know, damn it -- that they've got built in lag between their mail getting delivered and them, you know, acknowledging receipt. And really, all you've got to do is hire the laziest people you can find to deal with your mail, and they'll take care of it for you. Et voila, late fees, higher APRs on existing accounts, higher APRs on new accounts opened by people who's credit rating is shot, higher rates on loans to those people. Sh!t, I'm gonna start borrowing from the mob. At least they're up front about things.



** There's also that time Bank of America charged me a minimum payment which was not sufficient to cover my next finance charge, which put me over limit and once again in bad graces.















Oh, dear. Did I go on a rant?

Rant corroborated from here.

sounded like on to me too.

I think every job and every life needs a measure of "idiot work" in it, just for a spotbalance, like the dot of other-color in the yin-yang symbol. Perhaps one could think of all the payment scutwork as a bit of idiot work.

Better still, it could be peacemaking, on the principle of "Chop Wood, Carry Water". Doing it mindfully/mindlessly could zen you into a meditative state.

This whole procedure is nuisance making more than challenging, so its mechanistic nature, at best, might be soothing as a cup of tea.

Or not.

Aa-

When you mindlessly put the check and the bill in the envelope with the window.....

.....you have to unseal the envelope and take out the check and the bill and reconfigure and reinsert and find the scotch tape....

What is the sound of one envelope flapping?

I would guess that the logic is that it saves on printing. The statement is already being printed, so adding the address to it costs nothing. To go through the whole process for the envelopes is additional work, I guess.

But I have the same exasperations as others. I pay three different bills, all of the post card style without return envelopes, for my water. I can only imagine how much they would save if they all agreed to allow one agency to collect for all of them. Just ridiculous.

And the credit cards with their delayed payment receipt. There have been class action lawsuits that were won for this very thing and it might be a good idea to remind them. My husband is very good about complaining to them about ever single fee they try to charge him. Even if he really is late, he'll call them up and complain and threaten to close the account and they almost always take it off rather than stay on the phone with him another minute. What a pain in the arse, though.

I pay some bills on line now, especially credit card bills because I can be sure that they are paid on time and avoid the jacked up interest rates. But I won't pay anything with direct debit from my account as that is just a nightmare waiting to happen.

In general, ug, I sympathize with all the complaints here. The shere volume of mail I get, most of which is junk, is just overwhelming!