My building has six apartments, numbered 1 through 6. Why am I getting mail for #13?
July 6, 2010 3:48 PM Subscribe
My building has six apartments, numbered 1 through 6. Why am I getting mail for #13?
Today I got in the mail an advertisement from Comcast; it was addressed to [my building], Apt 13.
I live in Apartment 1; there are six apartments in this building, numbered (rather unoriginally) 1 through 6.
Junk mail frequently comes to my builiding addressed to apartments with very high numbers; at least once there were copies of some mailing addressed to each of the apartments 1, 2, ..., 20. (If I remember correctly our mailman just put all the extra ones on top of the mailboxes.)
Where are advertisers getting the idea that these are legitimate addresses? You'd think that they'd want to buy a mailing list that doesn't have these.
Today I got in the mail an advertisement from Comcast; it was addressed to [my building], Apt 13.
I live in Apartment 1; there are six apartments in this building, numbered (rather unoriginally) 1 through 6.
Junk mail frequently comes to my builiding addressed to apartments with very high numbers; at least once there were copies of some mailing addressed to each of the apartments 1, 2, ..., 20. (If I remember correctly our mailman just put all the extra ones on top of the mailboxes.)
Where are advertisers getting the idea that these are legitimate addresses? You'd think that they'd want to buy a mailing list that doesn't have these.
Response by poster: A) Seems unlikely, unless they're systematically doing it with a bunch of fake addresses that agree only in the apartment number.
B) I do live at an address with "South" in it, so after reading this idea I checked if the corresponding "North" address exists (at the postal service's zip code lookup and at my city's web page which lists all its properties for property tax purposes); it doesn't.
posted by madcaptenor at 4:17 PM on July 6, 2010
B) I do live at an address with "South" in it, so after reading this idea I checked if the corresponding "North" address exists (at the postal service's zip code lookup and at my city's web page which lists all its properties for property tax purposes); it doesn't.
posted by madcaptenor at 4:17 PM on July 6, 2010
You'd think that they'd want to buy a mailing list that doesn't have these.
That kind of checking is extremely expensive. It is cheaper to send out advertising to a percentage of bogus addresses than it is to clean the mailing list.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 4:29 PM on July 6, 2010
That kind of checking is extremely expensive. It is cheaper to send out advertising to a percentage of bogus addresses than it is to clean the mailing list.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 4:29 PM on July 6, 2010
Is it possible that units may have been combined in the past to make larger apartments?
posted by nulledge at 4:43 PM on July 6, 2010
posted by nulledge at 4:43 PM on July 6, 2010
There are databases of residential addresses, often maintained by city and county governments, that include unit numbers of apartments/ condos/ whatever that are in a single building. These are available online, and can often be accessed by pretty much anyone. The unit numbers are frequently inaccurate, but it's pretty cheap to print out postcards or whatever it is that the junkmail is on, so overall the sender can expect that the ad will reach a certain percentage of households in the area.
Since GIS is becoming a more commonly used tool for government agencies, it wouldn't be surprising to see an increasing amount of data available on individual addresses in the future, and also an increasing number of commercial agencies taking advantage of this sort of openly available data--and targeting advertisements to the sort of demographic that they think will be likely to use their product.
posted by _cave at 4:48 PM on July 6, 2010
Since GIS is becoming a more commonly used tool for government agencies, it wouldn't be surprising to see an increasing amount of data available on individual addresses in the future, and also an increasing number of commercial agencies taking advantage of this sort of openly available data--and targeting advertisements to the sort of demographic that they think will be likely to use their product.
posted by _cave at 4:48 PM on July 6, 2010
Could be someone in your building signed up for something, one advertiser took a gamble that there were more apartments in your building than there actually are, then sold a list that included the erroneous apartments to other advertisers.
posted by xingcat at 4:49 PM on July 6, 2010
posted by xingcat at 4:49 PM on July 6, 2010
Response by poster: nulledge: I doubt it, the building is two one-bedrooms and four studios.
posted by madcaptenor at 4:54 PM on July 6, 2010
posted by madcaptenor at 4:54 PM on July 6, 2010
It could just be that the mail carrier is saying "....fuck it."
Do you know your neighbors aren't also getting random mail for weird numbers? It's possible that a lot more such junk mail is coming in, and the carrier isn't allowed to throw it out, so he just shoves it into a different random mailbox each day.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:51 PM on July 6, 2010
Do you know your neighbors aren't also getting random mail for weird numbers? It's possible that a lot more such junk mail is coming in, and the carrier isn't allowed to throw it out, so he just shoves it into a different random mailbox each day.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:51 PM on July 6, 2010
Yours is the only apartment number with a "1" in it, so it's the most likely out of all of them to be misprinted as "13." I bet that's what the mail carrier is thinking.
posted by hermitosis at 9:43 PM on July 6, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by hermitosis at 9:43 PM on July 6, 2010 [1 favorite]
Are the apartments themselves recently renovated? I know that's the case for the apartment I'm currently living in. I get occasional mail for Apt. 1B when I'm now in Apt. 114. The land lord changed it for some odd reason after the renovation...
posted by astapasta24 at 10:20 PM on July 6, 2010
posted by astapasta24 at 10:20 PM on July 6, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
B) What's your street address like? You could be '4 N. Main St.' and there was a mix-up with an address on '4 S. Main St.'
posted by Solon and Thanks at 4:07 PM on July 6, 2010