If Your Kids Wrote to Santa...

[Melody]

:grinch: Read the letters that come in from Santa before your child does. Some sick $%#&$# at Canada Post has sent obscene letters to them. They have shut down the 'Write to Santa' program until they figure out who it is.

It might be a good idea to reply to your child on Santa's behalf just in case the his mail can't get through, or worse:mad: . Chuck it into a local mail slot and and your child can still have the thrill of finding it in the mail.:smile: Can't let these demented rejects win by letting them take that thrill away from kids.

[Melody]

Oops, forgot the story link :coffee2: ...

Canada Seeks Author of Nasty Letters From Santa (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071214/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_badsanta)

[Canadian]

thats sick! just plain mean.

[CACAdmin]

All it takes in one creep to spoil something wonderful. What a sick-minded jerk!:realmad: This has been a great program and kids get such a kick out of writing to and receiving mail from Santa. Targeting children is about as low as someone can stoop. I hope they find out who it is and nail him/her for it. My guess is that he/she could be charged with something like interfering with the mail (a federal offense, I think).

In the meantime folks, as Melody suggested, be on the alert to screen incoming Santa mail. I think replying to your kids letter in the case that no reply or an obscene one arrives, if a great idea. That way the kids won't miss out on the fun.

Also, if an obscene one arrives, keep the evidence and make sure you notify the Post Office and the RCMP.

[happy_pitbull]

To be a bit more specific, this is concerning Ottawa area only, all other areas should be fine, unless other sickos start doing this... but I doubt it. (but still screen the letters first before giving them to the kiddies!)

I myself am one of Santas elves, and am replying to some childrens letters this year from children in my home town. We even try to contact the parents and get tips from them on specific details that only Santa would know ! :yes: So we can tell little stories like "Last year Blackie, your pet bunny, tried to take my cookie you had left me!! HoHoHoHo!! What a silly Bunny you have !! "

This is the first year I have been able to help out, for the last few years I have been too busy. But I am happy to be able to do it again this year :)



MIn

[Melody]

As the article says, so far the 10 most nasty letters have been in the Ottawa area. There's no way I'd take the chance if my child was receiving one no matter where in Canada they are, however.

Hopefully Canada Post will learn something and not allow people to do this unsupervised. Anything to do with contacting children should be strictly controlled and they should not be handing out a child's contact information to every Joe Blow who raises their hand to volunteer. They could easily block that info from the person replying via computer and have the letters sent from a centralized location.

I am very surprised to hear that they give that info out and if I'd known it when my kid was writing, I wouldn't have let him. It was only a matter of time before this happened and it will go down in history with Rudolph as the most incredibly stupid thing Canada Post has ever done.

[Slipstream]

(a federal offense, I think).


We dont have federal offenses here, thats in the US :wink:
But I dunno if its illegal as they arent really tampering with anything.. Just sending bad letters out, but it IS WRONG as anything can be, so i think they should be shot. :yes:

[happy_pitbull]

Anything to do with contacting children should be strictly controlled and they should not be handing out a child's contact information to every Joe Blow who raises their hand to volunteer. They could easily block that info from the person replying via computer and have the letters sent from a centralized location.


That is a very good idea ! Why dont you contact Canada Post and toss some of these ideas at them? Most of the time no changes are made in the way things are done because people dont speak up and voice their opinions. If more people spoke up, maybe changes would be made.

This idiot that did this may very well have ruined the Santa Letter writing activity permanently. Your correct on that as well, people wont ever forget this one. The amount of time and effort some of us have put into this for the kids is incredible... I have a co-worker who uses all of her breaks to write letters for the kids. I myself give up a few hours in the evenings towards this... shame to think it may all be for nothing all because of one moron. :no:

Where has the Christmas spirit gone.... ??



Min

[Katalyst]

We dont have federal offenses here, thats in the US
Actually we do have federal offences here, they are just called something different. There are Summary Offences & Indictable offence's. :wink:

[happy_pitbull]

they arent really tampering with anything.. Just sending bad letters out,

We do have criminal offences for tampering with the mail, as Kat said also.

Plus I'm sure they could come up with other offences, such as verbal assault towards a child even? I know it will be bad if they find out who did this... heres hoping.



Min

[Katalyst]

That is a very good idea ! Why dont you contact Canada Post and toss some of these ideas at them? Most of the time no changes are made in the way things are done because people dont speak up and voice their opinions. If more people spoke up, maybe changes would be made.

This idiot that did this may very well have ruined the Santa Letter writing activity permanently. Your correct on that as well, people wont ever forget this one. The amount of time and effort some of us have put into this for the kids is incredible... I have a co-worker who uses all of her breaks to write letters for the kids. I myself give up a few hours in the evenings towards this... shame to think it may all be for nothing all because of one moron. :no:

Where has the Christmas spirit gone.... ??



Min

Me thinks Ms. Melody has enough on her plate at the moment. I'm sure Canada Post has enough ad/marketing execs that could figure it out if they really cared to. Unfortunately letters to Santa isn't a money making venue which is probally where part of the problem lies. Its a shame that nothing is sacred anymore, I can only hope one of two things.

-They catch the nit wit
-Karma

Or both

[Melody]

That is a very good idea ! Why dont you contact Canada Post and toss some of these ideas at them? Most of the time no changes are made in the way things are done because people dont speak up and voice their opinions. If more people spoke up, maybe changes would be made.


Contacting Canada Post gets you a form letter from underpaid call center staff. The complaint went to my MLA right after I posted here. I don't think people speaking up will be a problem over this one. We've been very aware of the dangers of sharing a child's information since the entrance of Internet connections in Canadian homes and there is no excuse for this.

[happy_pitbull]

Contacting Canada Post gets you a form letter from underpaid call center staff. The complaint went to my MLA right after I posted here. I don't think people speaking up will be a problem over this one. We've been very aware of the dangers of sharing a child's information since the entrance of Internet connections in Canadian homes and there is no excuse for this.

So true. And contacting your local MLA... I would have never thought of that ! Kudos to you Melody... honestly. :yes: There could have been a lot worse things that happened besides those nasty letters... and now is the time to do something before it does go to far.


And back in the day when all we used were box numbers, things were different. Now with civic addressing, your mailing address is where you live .... and that information is very sensitive and confidential, especially for children.

Scary....:confused:


Min

[Melody]

Me thinks Ms. Melody has enough on her plate at the moment. I'm sure Canada Post has enough ad/marketing execs that could figure it out if they really cared to. Unfortunately letters to Santa isn't a money making venue which is probally where part of the problem lies. Its a shame that nothing is sacred anymore, I can only hope one of two things.

-They catch the nit wit
-Karma

Or both

Bingo on the money, even though their parcel rates are going up AGAIN. Nevermind that our economy is booming and everyone else is lowering prices. The prices are already ridiculously high :rolleyes: . I wonder what they'll do when they put small businesses out of business and there's nobody left to gouge? Might as well ship via courier at this point. It was funny though, on the increase notice they were oh so pleased to announce that the letter rate would remain unchanged....lol....they have nothing to say about that since its regulated. You can bet if they could raise it, they would.

As for my plate, I need a bigger one:twitcy: .

[Katalyst]

Bingo on the money, even though their parcel rates are going up AGAIN. Nevermind that our economy is booming and everyone else is lowering prices. The prices are already ridiculously high :rolleyes: . I wonder what they'll do when they put small businesses out of business and there's nobody left to gouge? Might as well ship via courier at this point. It was funny though, on the increase notice they were oh so pleased to announce that the letter rate would remain unchanged....lol....they have nothing to say about that since its regulated. You can bet if they could raise it, they would.

As for my plate, I need a bigger one:twitcy: .

They're going up???!!! Jeeze can you say 'extortion?' Your're not kidding, might as well opt for courier. Maaaannnn that's insane.

As far as your plate goes you are past plates Missy, you need a 5 tiered serving platter or something. :laugh:

[Slipstream]

Actually we do have federal offences here, they are just called something different. There are Summary Offences & Indictable offence's. :wink:
Yah, i know all about that, i took Criminology in college... lol

We do have criminal offences for tampering with the mail, as Kat said also.
Min

Reading the addresses on letters isnt tampering with mail. But i agree with the fact that they should charge them with something at least.


Sheesh.. pretty soon its going to be cheaper to drive somewhere to deliver it than it is to ship it.. LOL.. not too mention faster :laugh:

[Melody]

Well Heavens, why worry? Canada Post has addressed the issue by telling their volunteers to record the names of the children they send mail to. :rolleyes:

Reminds me of gun registration - LIKE the bad guys are going to do it? DUH.

Update as per Yahoo news:

...The company received nine complaints Thursday about letters containing inappropriate language. Four more were discovered Friday, and one more letter containing inappropriate language was found at a local sorting plant.


Canada Post is urging parents to open letters from Santa themselves before their children can do so. The delivery of Santa letters has been temporarily suspended while the company searches for other inappropriate Santa letters that might still be in the postal system...

[Slipstream]

Good that they are doing SOMETHING at least :yes:

[KnaveTO]

Well first off I do hope they can catch the person that wrote those letters... maybe take a handwriting sample of the individuals that are handling the letters to the kids for that area to assist in the investigation.

As for contacting your MLA... Canada Post is a Federal Crown Corporation. Your MLA has no jusridiction in that area... better to contact your MP.

There is no tampering charge involved here... however the might be some some sort of charges relating to minors and obscenity... possibly closely related to lewdness behavoir in the presence of a minor.

As for the program... all my neices and nephews have over the years gotten a letter from Santa via that program. I would hope that for the future that they can come up with a better screening system for the volunteers as well as tracking who writes to whom. I don't however wish to see it cancelled as it has brought joy to a lot of children over the years.

[Melody]

The title kinda gives the Fed association away...lol...so I had that figured out :wink: . My MLA represents me, they are the first level of Government - chain of command and all that. They take the concerns of their local voters on up through the levels of Government. You also get more personal 'service' . You're lucky to get an MP's secretarial pool. They can also kick first level fed management into gear simply by mentioning their intent to persue the issue. I've seen them do that actually and its very effective. However, their official capacity is to take the concerns of their constituents to the powers that be.

They don't have to cancel the program, they just have to run it responsibly. Handing out the information of a child is incredibly irresponsible and totally unnecessary. Until they correct that, I wouldn't suggest that anyone participate in the program.

[Slipstream]

Correct me if i am wrong, but Canada post is actually a private organization not run at all by the government.

[Melody]

Its a federal crown corporation.

[CACAdmin]

That's right, Canada Post became a Federal Crown Corporation in 1981. Prior to that it was a simply just another department of the Federal Government. I happened to work for them years before they became a crown corporation.
Additional info (http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/report/CROWN/06/cs-se20_e.asp#_Toc152467860).

[Slipstream]

ok, whats a Federal Crown Corperation?.. :laugh:

[ChrissyFishy]

That's horrible!!!! I can't believe they tell people about the kids and they are even local!!!!:mad: Some people are soooooooo N A S T Y!!!! A federal crown corporation is owned by the federal government but isn't a department and they are run differently. :yes: These new smilies are so festive!!! Did you do them melody?

[CACAdmin]

ok, whats a Federal Crown Corperation?.. :laugh:
A Federal Crown Corporation is a company owned by the federal govenment. For a more detailed definition see: http://canadaonline.about.com/od/governmentorgfed/g/crowncorp.htm

[Slipstream]

As much as i support the current gov, they should really tell Canada Post to get better.. IT SUCKS.. :laugh:

[Melody]

They tracked them down, a bunch of teenagers. Very responsible of Canada Post to let teens volunteer. :rolleyes:

http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_18490.aspx

[KnaveTO]

It is appaling that the kids are getting off scott free. Their names should be turned over to the authoritied for criminal prosecution

[Melody]

And Canada Post certainly shouldn't come out smelling like a rose either - they should be at the very least called on their methods of selecting volunteers, not to mention the information they're releasing to them.

But yeah, if they can raise a kid who finds that funny, I highly doubt they'll seriously punish them for doing it. My Son's first question was a concerned "Did the kids read them?" That's a well brought up kid <BEAMING...lol :biggrin: >.