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Reading Your Postal Mail Online 173

Posted by kdawson from the now-you-really-better-do-backups dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Remote Control Mail gives us one more reason not to leave our computers. Their service lets you access your postal mail on the Web. They offer scanning of mail contents, shredding, recycling and shipping. There's a good writeup on Techcrunch, complete with a CAD animation showing some robotics technology (Flash Movie) that RCM is developing to automate mail handling. The service costs $25 to get started and $20 a month for individuals." Now if we could only reply the same way.
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Reading Your Postal Mail Online More

Reading Your Postal Mail Online

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  • wait till NetFlix hears about this! (Score:5, Funny)

    by yagu ( 721525 ) * <yayagu@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Monday November 27, 2006 @04:12PM (#17006202) Journal

    This is very cool! But I'm not sure what NetFlix and Blockbuster (among others) are going to think about this! Finally, an easy way to get DVD's onto my computer!

    • think of all the people who get their checks mailed to them instead of direct deposit...

      Wow, that check looked nice... Sure wish I could deposit it electronically.

      They probably have something to allow you to get a desired item forwarded to you and not shredded, it's probably mentioned in TFA if I weren't to lazy to read it.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by damirl ( 988199 )
        "They probably have something to allow you to get a desired item forwarded to you and not shredded, it's probably mentioned in TFA if I weren't to lazy to read it." Indeed they do, I thought the same thing but apparently they allow you to choose before the mail is even opened, if you want to: open then scan, shred, forward, or store. I do wonder if their system can shred cds though ;-)
    • Weird. Who gets mail anymore?

      Only thing I use the USPS for anymore is Netflix, Taxes, and the sundry documents associated with being a good citizen like jury summons, election packets, etc. I write about four checks per year, and haven't gotten on in the mail in years.

      Mail is so 1999. Although I could see this being useful for people who are sailing aroud the world or deployed in the military, and aren't fortunate enough to have someone to volunteer to serve as their mail drop.

  • Doubleplusgood! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pair-a-noyd ( 594371 ) on Monday November 27, 2006 @04:14PM (#17006234)
    And we all know that our mail contents will be kept 100% private.

    Snail mail is the ONLY private form of communications we have left.

    • Re:Doubleplusgood! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Broken scope ( 973885 ) on Monday November 27, 2006 @04:15PM (#17006256) Homepage
      You think they don't open letters sometimes?

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by krell ( 896769 )
      "Snail mail is the ONLY private form of communications we have left."

      And as long as they keep destroying or losing my letters, or as long as they remain in Hefty trashbags stacked around Newman's living room, they will remain private.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Legatic ( 318255 )
      but will they use genuine Ministry of Information memory holes? I won't accept imitations!

    • Re:Doubleplusgood! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by NiteShaed ( 315799 ) on Monday November 27, 2006 @04:41PM (#17006628)
      Snail mail is the ONLY private form of communications we have left.


      Until of course someone steals your mail, reads through it all, and steals your identity. But hey, at least it keeps the crystal meth users [msn.com] busy. If someone wants to steal your mail, they'll find a way.

      Also, Doubleplusgood? How do you equate the police of the Ministry of Love reading messages specifically looking for "crimes" against Big Brother, with automated document scanning by a private company that you hire? There are plenty of times when 1984 references are on target, but this doesn't seem to be one of them.....

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by kfg ( 145172 )
      Snail mail is the ONLY private form of communications we have left.

      Unless you are deemed "suspicious." It's a Brave New World.

      KFG

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by Firehed ( 942385 )
        That explains the spam for CH32P S0M4.
      • It is neither brave nor new. It is the same old tyranny of wealthy cowards relying on fear mongering for personal and corporate gain.

        Want to be really scared? Go re-read Huxley's book and realize that the world he describes would be quite welcomed by a majority in many countries today.

        "Brave New World" has lost its shock factor, and "1984" isn't nearly paranoid or intrusive enough.

    • Re:Doubleplusgood! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Josh Lindenmuth ( 1029922 ) <joshlindenmuth@NOSpam.gmail.com> on Monday November 27, 2006 @04:52PM (#17006782) Journal
      Snail mail would be private if it got to the desired recipient 100% of the time. About 1/2 of my mail ends up in a neighbor's mailbox (and vice versa). I can't tell you how many times I've had an important bill (such as property tax) delivered by a neighbor who accidentally received it. Every time we call the post office, they ask us to file a report (which we do), but nothing changes. Luckily we live in a pretty trustworthy neighborhood, or I'd be in trouble.
      • Newman!
        (makes fist and clenches teeth)
      • Snail mail would be private if it got to the desired recipient 100% of the time. About 1/2 of my mail ends up in a neighbor's mailbox (and vice versa).

        I've actually had to call the Postal police (or whatever you call them) because either the postman was not delivering the mail or throwing it away. Of course I live in a major city, but my room mate found that a credit card she ordered had been tried in an ATM about 50 miles away so obviously something happened to the mail being delivered.

        I'm not sure what be

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by zecg ( 521666 )
      Snail mail is the ONLY private form of communications we have left.

      Many people replied to say how stupid that is, so I'll skip that part. If you want private communication, exchange private keys with your correspondents and encrypt your electronic mail. That's the only private form of communications you have and it's not "left", it's a fairly recent one.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by zecg ( 521666 )
        If you want private communication, exchange private keys

        Or, you could do it with public and avoid looking like a moron.
    • I had to re-read the title a number of times. I was sure it should have read, "NSA reading your postal mail, your rights online".

  • Does anybody have tinfoil hat instructions (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HolyCrapSCOsux ( 700114 ) on Monday November 27, 2006 @04:15PM (#17006254)
    Normally I'm not a super-huge privacy advocate, but something about this makes me a bit uncomfortable.
    • I'm not worried. Now if we were forced to subscribe to it, I'd be joining you in making the tin-foil hats...

    • Maybe that "something" is the apparent potential for abuse?

      ...or is it that it requires complete trust in a mechanical system?

      We must consider that, being a mechanical system, it will have failures.
      Ergo... we must put complete trust in the system's technicians.

      Would that trust be appreciated by the technician that "goofs", performs a C.Y.A. and makes your critical check/legal-document/other-correspondence disappear completely?

      Count me out.

      • Re:Does anybody have tinfoil hat instructions (Score:4, Insightful)

        by HairyCanary ( 688865 ) on Monday November 27, 2006 @04:30PM (#17006498)
        Errr... all of your postal mail is already routinely handled not only mechanically, but by real live people.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Duggeek ( 1015705 )

          Sorry, but that's irrelevant. Those employees are bound directly by Federal Law to deliver the mail to you, un-opened.

          We trust the folks at USPS, and the UPS store (et al) to handle mail, not open and scan it. To me, that's a HUGE difference when you're talking privacy and secure correspondence.

          If there's a better example for your comparison, it would be payment-processing facilities. (a.k.a. lockboxes [wikipedia.org])

          Their operations are strictly controlled, managed and audited, yet heavily automated with mail-openi

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by kevin_conaway ( 585204 )
      Normally I'm not a super-huge privacy advocate, but something about this makes me a bit uncomfortable.

      Yeah, the instructions are simple: Don't sign up.

      Are you really hurting that much for Karma that you have to pander to the tinfoil hat crowd?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by garcia ( 6573 )
      Normally I'm not a super-huge privacy advocate, but something about this makes me a bit uncomfortable.

      It's not like the USPS is putting this out there and mandating that we all use it. Instead, stupid people are paying someone else to do it for them. I'm not sure why you are concerning yourself with stupid people who are willing to pay for something pointless.

      • I'm not sure why you are concerning yourself with stupid people who are willing to pay for something pointless.

        Not at all pointless for people who have temporarily or permanently left the USA. Mail delivery to many countries is unreliable and slow. Being able to see important things right away would be tremendously useful.

        I have to rely on trusted people to receive my mail, use their judgment to sort the useful stuff from the spam, and deal with everything intelligently. I would much rather take the bur

    • ... something about this makes me a bit uncomfortable.

      If your mail is anything like mine, you get lots of credit card offers - or even in rare cases, actual credit cards - that you did not ask for. I trust my wife to sift through all this crap and properly dispose of it, but would I trust employees at some company like this to do the same? Nope. Sure, someone can raid your mailbox, but that's different than consistently passing all the stuff through the hands of a low paid employee at a 3rd party company.

  • Excellent (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sitturat ( 550687 ) on Monday November 27, 2006 @04:16PM (#17006272) Homepage
    Hopefully this idea will prompt the companies that still send out bills by post to reconsider this pointless waste of money/paper/time. Then this service will eventually become redundant, but will have served its purpose.

    • Re:Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)

      by planetmn ( 724378 ) on Monday November 27, 2006 @04:23PM (#17006392)
      With few exceptions (Taxes are the only thing that comes to mind), I can get all of my statements paper free. This includes Credit Card, Cable, Phone, Gas, Electricity. In fact, they would prefer (and push) the electronic methods of receiving your bill. Some people (me included) just prefer paper bills. An easy to store and reference method of your account history.

      -dave

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 )
      The only thing that will solve that is someone going and physically beating the crap out of the executives and Finance departments at these companies. Here in Michigan several of the utilities CHARGE EXTRA for you to pay electronically. Yes, the payment method that is cheaper for them costs you more! There are 3 companies I still send a check in the mail for them to have someone physically handle,open and input the payment instead of having it 100% electronic and therefore cost less.

    • check out paytrust... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by pw700z ( 679598 )
      http://www.paytrust.com/ [paytrust.com] - They receive your bills, open them, post them online, and allow you to pay them. It's awesome... i've moved 4 times since i started using the service, and only had to notify the gas/electric company!

  • Shredding Is Now Easier (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hondo77 ( 324058 ) on Monday November 27, 2006 @04:21PM (#17006354) Homepage
    I bought a new shredder [fellowes.com] a few months back (thanks for the bargain, eBay). It's powerful enough to shred the whole envelope and its contents without opening, even with those fake credit cards inside. Junk mail management is now so much easier.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Deagol ( 323173 )
      I usually send any junk mail with a postage-paid envelope back to the sender. Just fold, spindle, and mutilate everything to fit it in the envelope, then drop it back in the mail box. Let someone else deal w/ the trash. If you're lucky, you may jam up one of those big mail handling machines at the credit card processing shop. Everything else gets tossed into the wood stove. As much as I like shredding, fire (being old tech) is much less prone to malfunction, and I don't send yet more crap off to the

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by King_TJ ( 85913 )
        Sure, you can do that ... but don't kid yourself about the "environmental advantages" of it. That "crap" getting sent off to the landfill is biodegradable paper! It's not going to be a problem. On the other hand, your action of mailing the junk mail back to the sender means an increase in the amount of mail to be transported. Sure, your individual letters won't have much impact -- but if everyone started taking your suggestion, the post office would waste a *lot* of fuel delivering unnecessary mail arou

        • but if everyone started taking your suggestion, the post office would waste a *lot* of fuel delivering unnecessary mail around
          Actually what's more likely is that the people sending out junk mail would likely be a lot more selective in who they send out junk mail too.

          As far as the environmental thing is concerned, if that's your only concern in life you should probbably just shoot yourself in the middle of a forrest full of hungry bears. You'll quickly be re-cycled and won't contribute to any further useage

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Mr. Slippery ( 47854 )

          That "crap" getting sent off to the landfill is biodegradable paper!

          Paper in landfills does not degrade [csun.edu] significantly; newspapers have been dug up after 50 years, still legible.

          Please recycle your paper and cardboard. Thanks.

          if everyone started taking your suggestion, the post office would waste a *lot* of fuel delivering unnecessary mail around.

          The point is that if everyone started doing it, junk mailers would be paying for a lot of return postage, and would perhaps finally have an incentive to

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by King_TJ ( 85913 )
            Except, are you sure the post office is really sending all those junk mailers back to the sender?

            I remember reading a story on /., a year or two ago, where some people who worked for the post office explained that when items arrive "bulk rate mail" and you scribble "return to sender" and throw them back in a mailbox, they only get so far in the system before the post office just trashes them. They aren't willing to return them to a sender who only paid the discount bulk mail rate in the first place....

            I re

  • There's some sort of loop involved... (Score:4, Funny)

    by krell ( 896769 ) on Monday November 27, 2006 @04:23PM (#17006388) Journal
    There's some sort of pointless loop involved if all I use this service for is to read my paper-mailed ISP and "Remote Control Mail" bills online. A veritable Mobius-strip of "what the hell FOR???!?!?".
  • Now if we could only reply the same way.
    How? By "shredding, recycling and shipping?" I already answer most of my mail that way.
  • Hi there, I just sent you some dollar bills through snailmail... What? You shredded them?
  • So this means I don't get checks, or origional documents.

    Don't find that very appealing.

    • It's not like they remove your ability to have mail sent to your house or anything. The service is that they give you a new address to which you can have things shipped. So if you have checks or original documents, you can give them your home/business address, but if you have other mail you just want to be able to read/archive/shred, you give this other address, and then you can access your mail from anywhere.

  • Reply online too! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tedhiltonhead ( 654502 ) on Monday November 27, 2006 @04:32PM (#17006524)
    > Now if we could only reply the same way.

    You can, with USPS's (US Postal Service) NetPost service [usps.com]

    • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by krell ( 896769 )
      "You can, with USPS's (US Postal Service) NetPost service [usps.com]"

      Is that the "USPS Simulator" where they have an ingenious algorithm to ensure that 30% of the emails never make it, and that the typical delivery time to the destination inbox averages 5.5 days? And, of course, no delivery ever occurs on Sundays or during any one of 78 other designated Federal and/or other postal holidays during the year?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by patio11 ( 857072 )
      I've been using that to send in credit disputes from overseas. At $2.33 a letter (technically a lot less but their minimum for one "mailing" is $2, plus postage) its a wee bit steep. Then again I don't have to buy a printer or go out to the post office, and my time has value...

  • But.... (Score:2, Informative)

    by KeepQuiet ( 992584 )
    Who is opening and scanning the mail? Automated machines? How do I know they don't read my mail? How do we know that they don't lose any mail? Also wouldn't there be an additional delay before I get my mail (wait to be scanned and then wait to be delivered to you physically)?

    • Who is opening and scanning the mail? Automated machines?

      Meat based machines.

      How do I know they don't read my mail?

      Your life isn't that interesting.

      How do we know that they don't lose any mail?

      How do you know USPS didn't lose any mail?

      Also wouldn't there be an additional delay before I get my mail (wait to be scanned and then wait to be delivered to you physically)?

      If you wanted all your mail delivered physically, then don't use this service. The idea is that you'll get mail electronically and the majority of items won't need to be sent physically at any point.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mitreya ( 579078 )
      Who is opening and scanning the mail? Automated machines? How do I know they don't read my mail? How do we know that they don't lose any mail? Also wouldn't there be an additional delay before I get my mail (wait to be scanned and then wait to be delivered to you physically)?

      Humans, I imagine. I think you are missing the point of this service -- it is not necessarily designed to make your mail more secure (although that depends on security of your home address - personally I'd rather take my chances with

  • Extra services (Score:5, Funny)

    by edwardpickman ( 965122 ) on Monday November 27, 2006 @04:37PM (#17006564)
    For an extra $3 a month we can tell your creditors to bite you.

    For another $5 we can break up with your scary ex for you.

    And for an extra $10 a month we can forward your up coming invitation to visit Iraq from your Uncle Sam to an address in Canada.
    • For an extra $3 a month we can tell your creditors to bite you.
      Seems high, I'd rather do that personally.
      For another $5 we can break up with your scary ex for you.
      Sweet!
      And for an extra $10 a month we can forward your up coming invitation to visit Iraq from your Uncle Sam to an address in Canada.
      Can you relabel it and forward it to the whitehouse instead?

  • I'm in favor (Score:3, Funny)

    by Hennell ( 1005107 ) on Monday November 27, 2006 @04:37PM (#17006572) Homepage
    I think this is a brilliant idea. I'll be perfectly safe from all those angry letter bombs I'm sent...

    Do they have a form of penalty system if your mail blows-up the shredder?

  • Non-letter contents (Score:5, Funny)

    by identity0 ( 77976 ) on Monday November 27, 2006 @04:39PM (#17006592) Journal
    But if someone mails me anthrax, will they convert it to a Outlook macro for me?

    If my gf sends me panties, will someone sniff it for me?

    When the brother of the ex-president of Nigeria sends me his check, will they PayPal it to me?

    See, unless it does all the things I use my snail mail for, it's useless to me.

  • And why did I want this ? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by richg74 ( 650636 ) on Monday November 27, 2006 @04:41PM (#17006630) Homepage
    Let's see. When I get postal mail now, I:
    1. Get it from the mail box
    2. Open it
    3. Read it
    With this service, I would:
    1. Get it from the server
    2. Open it
    3. Read it
    4. Pay $20 per month
    BRILLIANT ! Where do I sign?

    More seriously, I can see that this might appeal to people who travel a lot, but for everyone else ?

    • More seriously, I can see that this might appeal to people who travel a lot, but for everyone else ?

      I think it would be useful to somebody who has a P.O. Box, and doesn't want to go down to the post office to pick up their mail. That way, it could be even more private, since they won't have to be seen opening their box.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by richg74 ( 650636 )
        That's an aspect I hadn't thought of. It's a fair point, but that's another niche market.

  • Other variations have been around a while. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ScentCone ( 795499 ) on Monday November 27, 2006 @04:41PM (#17006634)
    An interesting example is Anybill.com [anybill.com], which runs a service handling accounts payable for you. Basically, you have your company's invoices sent to their postal address, and they open them and do some data entry and document scanning. You get e-mail whenever stuff lands there, and surf to their web app to review and authorize payment of the bills (some of which get paid electronically, some by having checks sent out on your behalf, as appropriate).

    This sort of service-economy stuff is popping up in lots of little corners. If you're an office-less operation (say, a consulting group that work from the road or from your home[s]), it's pretty appealing. But yes, you've got to really trust all the players. But it does (gaa!) help you to "concentrate on your core competancies," assuming that dealing with the physical paperwork of billpaying isn't one of them.
  • ...is called Postbutler [postmail.ch], and costs a damn sight more (CHF 162.- per month, CHF 486.- for up to 12 months, divide by 1.25 per dollar) but they email it to you.

    I think I trust the Swiss post office a lot more than a private US company in terms of privacy, but to be honest, being able to check your mail on a website is way more practical than getting a bunch of PDFs -- I'm thinking about using this while I'm spending 3 months travelling around South America next year and don't relish the thought about grabbing

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pjt33 ( 739471 )
      I realise that Bolivia is a bit poorer than Ecuador, but given the reasonable speeds I found in Ecuadorian internet cafes last year I doubt that Bolivian ones use dial-up.
  • I wonder if they use this already in the Mail-In Rebates Processing industry?

    If not, it's a huge opportunity for them.
    • I worked for a while entering medical forms from home. They were all scanned, even X-rays. The company also did subscription cards and rebates, but those were offshored. Their rates were very low, just a few cents a piece.

  • Missing the Point (Score:3, Insightful)

    by prichardson ( 603676 ) on Monday November 27, 2006 @05:02PM (#17006936) Journal
    One of the great things about snail mail for me is the physicality. For personal letters nothing beats having something that your correspondent spent time with.

    Of course for things like junk mail I'd much prefer it not be sent at all, but I'm happy to take the junk if it means being able to hold an occasional letter from an old friend or family member. To read it scanned on a screen would seem so wrong.

  • Oh my goodness, the fine print (Score:4, Informative)

    by jyoull ( 512280 ) <jim&media,mit,edu> on Monday November 27, 2006 @05:02PM (#17006940)
    um, it might LOOK like $20 a month, but keep reading. The price schedule has ten dense footnotes!

    http://www.remotecontrolmail.com/pricing.php [remotecontrolmail.com]

    Gotta learn all about mail induction, flats, storage days, document prep fees charged by the minute but billed by the second, the assumption that eveyr piece of mail weighs a minimum of one ounce for shredding-weight-per-day calculations.

    omfg

    Thanks but I'll wait til I can figure out if this will cost $20 or $200 per month since I have no control over my inbound mail.
  • or does anyone else think that this would make stealing your identity a snap?
    Just think of all the things you get in the mail that have sensitive information:
    Correspondance with the IRS
    Your debit/credit cards
    PIN numbers come by mail
    Health records
    X-rays
    Test results (both school and health related)
    Bills with your account numbers and buying habits

    I'm not subscribing to this...

  • Unopened mail may not necessarily be secure today. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Peter Trepan ( 572016 ) on Monday November 27, 2006 @05:09PM (#17007048)
    If I were Big Brother, I'd send each piece of mail past an extremely bright lamp, such as a projector lamp, and photograph it from the other side. Reading it would basically be text recognition, but with the added twist that the text to be parsed is overlaid in thirds, with the mailing address superimposed on top. Reading every letter might be beyond the power of even the best text recognition software running on the fastest computers, but the images could be saved until text recognition *is* powerful enough to do that.

    Conclusion: Although the system in TFA does none of this, it still wouldn't hurt to assume that snail mail is *not* secure.
  • Lots of companies scan their incoming mail in their mail rooms; this company is simply providing an outsourcing option for that kind of service.
  • I don't know about that... Up here in Canada(For those of you who don't know its that place north of you) our postal system has been doing that for years. We call it http://www.epost.ca [epost.ca] They will put all of our bills and registered mail online for us so they dont come to our house. They'll even do pay check stubs online. The only thing they won't do is personal mail.

  • NetPost (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Mr. Slippery ( 47854 )
    Now if we could only reply the same way.

    USPS's NetPost [usps.com] service lets you send letters, cards, and postcards from your browser.

  • I used a service, paymybills.com, back in the day. It was a bill-pay site that was about the same as the fees banks charged for online payment services. I would direct mail to the PO box. I don't recall exactly where, but it was east, maybe a Carolina. Everything they got would be scanned and emailed to me. I would tell them what to pay to whom (and could set up all the same automatic things as everyone else does now). They'd e-pay if they could or send out a check if they had to. The extra stuff wou
  • I'll be watching this to see how it turns out. I had the same idea about 7 or 8 years ago, and went as far as designing a prototype system and selecting scanning hardware, but I gave up when it came to the legal issues. It was looking like the ability to actually open and scan the mail would require some serious legal wrangling - as far as I can tell that's not covered by the normal commercial mail receiving agent stuff. And then the domain name I'd bought for it (back in the Network Solutions monopoly d
  • As cool as this is, I'd like to see a certified 'e'mail system that courts accepted. Maybe something from USPS.

    I'd like the target person to get an email saying he has an email to retrieve, go to the usps site to retrieve the message, have the option to save the message or delete, and have the sender get an email saying the message has been read.

    The key is something the courts would accept.
  • I can't wait to use this service to read the 3 $20 bills my grandma will send me for Christmas!
  • Does anyone know of a way to have all of my mail automatically sent to somewhere where they just pee on big piles of it before setting it on fire, because that is my current procedure. Thanks.
  • I proposed this in 1998 to a group of investors , they all thought me mad.
    In 2001 I proposed it again to several different groups, unfortunatley for me the timing was bad and it was right after the Anthrax scare, I was seen as being opportunistic even though my meetings had been scheduled before well in advance.........DOH !...well I cant say Why didnt I think of this......I friggin DID !
    • I proposed this idea earlier this year as well. What it came down to was recreating the wheel. The internet technology to handle this idea is simple. Mail sorting is the problem. Mail is already sorted before it gets to you so why do it again, scan it, then send it off. Surely USPS could more easily create a solution to bring snail mail to your desktop. Should USPS decided it wanted to compete, you would be screwed. It's surprising if not downright ambitious for RemoteControlMail to recreate a sortin
      • I worked in a place we handled mail and response devices on a 10k a day basis. That was the fairly easy part IMHO, but when you live and breathe it its not far off. I am a developer so as you said thats the easy part, the funny thing is there are a LOT of facilities already equipped for this that could be subbed out to. Think of non-profit donors and their response devices they include a letter in. Larger orgs (Salvation Army for example) Scan the remiitance (CC info or Check) Do OCR on the RD for notes, an
  • Employee at company A types a letter on her computer and prints it, mails it to company B. A robot scans the letter and puts it on someone's computer screen. Holy crap, how about using freaking EMAIL instead?

  • ...a web to paper mail gateway so that I could type and sign letters (with a previously uploaded signature file) without actually having to touch a piece of paper... oh man.

    Bonus points if it embosses the signature.

    Triple word score if it sends the letter certified / registered mail for you.

    Wet dream alert if they offer a service where they'll act as an unbiased third party that will let you prove that you sent someone a letter stating X on date Y confirmed received on date XXXX.

    Oh fucking shit if s

  • ..those that travel for business. Those that like to take extended vacations. Those that are in the military and deployed to Iraq. I can think of millions of people who this service could be marketed to.
  • Some people are talking about postal mail being private/secure. That's just BS! my wife and I recently had all our original supporting documents for our tax lodgement stolen from our mailbox (well they wouldn't've fit in the box but the postie left it lying around anyway). Yes my accountant should have sent it registered post but that's another matter.
  • most the paper in my snail-mail box is advertising. I fail to see why I should pay 20$/month to convert it into more SPAM for my e-mail box.

  • Old news in Europe (Score:3, Informative)

    by carvalhao ( 774969 ) on Tuesday November 28, 2006 @08:10AM (#17014558) Journal
    In Portugal, where I live, this service is already provided by the postal office... for free!
  • I've been using a billing service for the last six or seven years that essentially does this. They have an address where your bills are sent to. When they receive a bill, they scan everything in and then you can view your bills on-line and pay them. At the end of the year you can order a CD-ROM with images of all of your bills. This is perfect if you travel a lot.

    An added benefit is that they sort through and toss all your junk mail that you would normally get addressed to you.

    Check out paytrust.com.

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