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by hak8or 2875 days ago
This will bite you in the ass in the future. If you are in the USA, some entities who you should defneitly pay attention to do initial communication only through mail.

For example, if the IRS wants something for you they will never call you first. Heck, they defneitly won't send you an email first. Instead, they send you a letter.

If you are in the process of identity theft, you will want to keep a close eye on your mail to verify there aren't any letters about an account you just opened.
1 comments
Rjevski 2875 days ago
Yep, I imagined it would be a problem in the US. I am in the UK though, where you pretty much don't have to do anything as far as taxes go when you're a simple employee, and if you do have to deal with the taxman, you can do pretty much everything online and get email notifications.

However, wouldn't important letters (like urgent communication from the IRS or similar government agency) that could have consequences if unread be sent as registered letters (where at least in the UK and France the mailman personally hands it to you and asks for a signature)?

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NSAID 2875 days ago
Not in the US. I've received one or two important letters from the IRS (that is, I unintentionally owed them money) that arrived via regular post. I'm not sure if that speaks to the reliability of the USPS or a lack of imagination on the IRS's part (or maybe the government trusts the government postal service?). Certainly people and businesses do use registered and certified mail, but not everyone.
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hakfoo 2875 days ago
I think it's a matter of "they'll try normal mail, then if it doesn't get a response, they'll resort to registered mail."

It's a legal CYA matter probably, more than a government-collusion thing- registered mail comes with a tight chain of custody ending in a signature confirmation, so you couldn't claim "I never got the notice" when they started to ask for a judgement.

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wink 2875 days ago
Same in Germany though. I get my voter registration paper thingy via snail mail, or new bank/credit cards, or the PINs to the new cards. A lot of important stuff, compared to the amount of spam I get.

I've not tried to eliminate paper stuff from the electrial company, neither the yearly report from the landlord. But I spend maybe 10 minutes combined per week reading mail, including spam I throw out. I'm confused now :P

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