Snail Mail As E-Mail 309
techcon writes "An Australian startup Planetwide has launched an interesting product called Scan Me. The idea is simple, you redirect your snail mail to them and they scan your physical mail and email it all to you as a text searchable PDF. Targeted at the world wide traveller, it also looks like a good way to help prevent identity theft and getting nasty white powder in the mail."
Stop identity theft? (Score:5, Insightful)
Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
E-Bills. . . (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The real question! (Score:2, Insightful)
Think of all the spam you get...
and picture getting that in your REAL mailbox...
and sorting through that for your bills and such...
**shudder**
Are you mad? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you mad? You mean having someone else read your mail and then send it in a searchable format over the Internet is a good way to prevent identity theft? Is today opposite day?
Re:Stop identity theft? (Score:5, Insightful)
Digital business and personal mail (Score:3, Insightful)
There's just a little something that you get from actual mail, especially hand-written mail. True, it's terribly archaic, but when you're far, far away, a letter is one of the nicest things to receive someone willing to spend a buck and some time. Maybe it's just the amount of time invested in handwriting, or the lack thereof when typing an email, but the physical presence of personal mail is something people should not, in my opinion, be so eager to discard.
That being said, business mail, provided it is sent via secure trasnmissions, seems perfectly suited for movement towards digitalization. The businesses themselves, though, should take more initiative to move themselves away from the massive and expensive paper usages and try billing electronically. I can only imagine the vast amounts of paper used by banks every month for high-speed printed glossy credit card applications.
Re:Stop identity theft? (Score:5, Insightful)
A decent shredder with two sets of blades will reduce your bills to the size of punched card chads. For extra points, mix it with vegetable scraps and put it into your compost bin. Or reduce it to paper pulp by mixing with water, and boiling it for a few minutes :-).
Is October 1st in Australia like our April 1st? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yea, like this is really going to work. And how much is it going to cost me to have them forward each rebate check I get, not to mention what it cost for them to scan it in the first place? Think spam was expensive before? Wait until you pay for scanning all the junk mail that you get in snail mail, or all the crap packed in with your bills. Say goodbye to ever getting a magazine subscription. No free samples in the mail any more, and no cookies from Mom at Christmas time. And I'm paying for this why? Because I fear identity theft? So that then they can e-mail my private mail to me as clear text? So that an unknown number of people at that company I know nothing about all see all of my mail?
Face it, the always-on-the-go world traveler who just might (but I think it unlikely) get anything out of this has other means to deal with it: a personal assistant, express shipments that can catch up to the next hotel he will be at, faxes for some documents, he doesn't need an outside company poking through his business. The average smuck (like most of us) wants that mail, and knows that some of it needs to be dealt with on a timely basis (If someone sends me tickets, for example, I want them before the event, not a week after), and that some of it will get "lost" if an outside company is opening it and going through it.
Bad idea. Oh, also, the company will be out of business in six months.
Re:I use a similar service already (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder why people in other countries has to still use checks, bills and etc. I haven't seen a checkbook in Norway for about 10-15 years.
My sister lives in San Francisco, and boy do the US need to get into the modern age when it comes to banking and payment.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
So you get the mail immediately wherever you are and have Internet access but also get the physical stuff a few days later if you really want it.
At least that's how I understand the product site.
Re:Stop identity theft? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, I agree about the electronic issues (i.e. email not being secure) but your snail mail passes through MANY hands and has far more opportunities to be physically stolen or opened. It even sits right there out in the open in your mailbox for several hours.
No Thanks: If They Scan It, They Can Read It (Score:3, Insightful)
And what about all those times when the recipient really needs hardcopy, not email.
Besides, if I'm in, say, the UK, how long is it going to take for my mail to get to Australia?
europeans get US credit cards; USPS good candidate (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:explain again why this is a value add?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You have got to be kidding!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
spam? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Stop identity theft? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I use a similar service already (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're a small business, a few days of float can make a big difference. You know that you'll have $foo days (3 = $foo = 7) between when you put that check in the mail or a suppliers hands and when it clears. This allows you to "pay" your bill, knowing you won't get the cash until tomorrow or the day after. You're getting 0% interest short term loans with virtually no hassle.
Small businesses like checkbooks. It allows them to pay their bills "late". Many a small business need this float to stay above boards, if only from time to time.
Re:Stop identity theft? (Score:2, Insightful)
True, but I would be more worried about the security credentials of the company. Given that many security firms have had experience with staff of negotiable honesty - and they have to have police clearance (at least here in Australia) I would be intensely suspicious of this type of company.
For this kind of service to be useful, it would have to be hitched up to a heavy-duty encryption algorithm and have an equally heavy-duty audit trail listing everybody who has had contact with the mail.
In my own case (even though my mail is probably quite boring to others, and I don't have anything in particular to hide) I still wouldn't like the feeling that someone has read my mail first.
Re:Stop identity theft? (Score:2, Insightful)
Sounds like you need to get a decent mailbox with a lock on it.
Anthrax in the mail (Score:3, Insightful)
Are we really so blinded by fear in this country that Joe American is afraid he'll be targeted with an envelope of anthrax? Jeez!