Please leave some internet for the rest of us!

Regarding all the companies you’ve critized: isn’t that unfortunately the case for many if not most bigger companies?

I don’t live in the US, so I can’t guarantee that the following statements are all correct and up to date. However, after a quick research many of the issues apply to FedEx as well.

FedEx donates far more money to republicans than democats and did so historically (source).

FedEx critized Trump in 2018 on some specific ideas but couldn’t find anything like that in the recent past.

If you sign up with FedEx, they may share all your data with their partners. According to Reddit even including your including your credentials (wtf). (source).

FedEx may scan the ID of the recipient (source).

FedEx requires an ID when sending in store (source).

Cash shipments are officially forbidden as per the FedEx ToS, no matter if the package is insured or not. If money is shipped anyhow it is not covered by the insurance. (source .

Didn’t find infos on memberships but FedEx promotes digital payments and the ‘Better than cash’ alliance source).

According to this petition FedEx and Pfitzer are among the biggest funders of ALEC and Project 2025.

TBC. Just wanted to list a few of the quick findings.

Regarding acceptance of cryptocurrency or other forms of payments, I think that’s similar for sending cash in a box. Again, I don’t live in the US, but in Germany you’d be having a hard time to find a jeweler or other professional entity that accepts such a form of payment. First, they won’t want to have discussions if packages are lost or valuables are partly stolen from the package. Second, they don’t want to be associated with dubious businesses. Furthermore, there’s a legal limit for cash payments of 10,000€ to avoid money laundering.

I think to get back to the original topic, it’d be interesting to see some statistics on what percentage of the cases where police seized cash from packages were legal (although against FedEx ToS) and how many were related to criminal activities. If it’s like 90% crime and the 10% legitimate senders/recipients have a chance to reclaim their money after providing further details, then I’m fine with that. If the numbers are the other way around, I’m siding with you. ;)

Thanks a lot for the detailed answer! It helped me to better understand your perspective.

Regarding (1) I can somehow understand why it’s often a percentage. The more valuable the goods that you transport, the higher the associated risks. Insurance costs are higher and also the employees are more endagered of being robbed.

Regarding (3) I would say that’s only in very specific scenarios like international money transfer from/to sanctioned countries or if the recipient is on some kind of watch list. PayPal, Credit Card, Crypto Currency etc. should typically all process within seconds. International bank transfer also shouldn’t take more than a few days. And if we’re talking about delays caused by sanctions, then physical deliveries are affected as well.

What is still hard to understand for me is that people would send ANYTHING valuable in a non insured package, especially money. As you mentioned yourself in point (5), there’s a huge risk of it being lost or stolen. Also independent of (potentially unlawful) police officers. Therefore, my intuitive feeling was, whoever is willing to take that risk, has a lot of money to transfer and is willing to lose some in favor to stay invisible.

If you use a courier service that’s specialized on valuables which offers also insurance etc. that’s a completely different story to me. But insured FedEx packages full of cash are still suspicious to me and I find it fair to question the legitimacy.

Isn’t that the fork’s ring finger? Maybe it’s demanding jewelry for compensation.

I don’t know about the US but in Germany the context of things is definitely considered to judge if something is common or suspicious.

It’s perfectly legal to own a clown mask and to wear it during carnival would be common. If you wear one outside carnival and walk towards the door of a bank, that’s pretty suspicious.

It’s perfectly legal to stand around in public. If you do it alone, at night in an area that’s known to have many drug dealers and you suddenly start to run away if the police strolls along, then that’s suspicious again.

And if the police considers you to be suspicious, they will ask what you’re doing and to explain your behavior. They won’t straight away throw you into jail obviously but they have the right to do a routine check.

For me, the cash in a regular package is really similar. If they seize your cash and you can proof that it was a weird way to pay for a car or that your aunt forgot her pile of cash when she visited you and you send it after her, then I’m quite sure, they’ll have to hand it back. If you object to explain who sent you $10.000 and why, then I agree to find that pretty suspicious.

Assuming criminals do use FedEx etc. to transfer illegally earned money anonymously from one place to another, what would be the alternative to intervene? Or would you just let it happen?

Okay, valid point. But is the police seizing such packages? If we assume the police is stealing it out of greed, that wouldn’t be too profitable for them to steal 5 USD in Zimbabwe dollars.

I thought they’re confiscating cash with a higher value, like bundlSe of USD/CAD/EUR/AUD etc. In the article they wrote 6 million USD and on the picture I see only US notes as well. And if that’s the case, I somewhat agree that that’s a bit suspicious.

Still, they shouldn’t just take and keep it, but if they confiscate it and then contact the recipient to explain the background of the transaction, I’d be fine with that.

If you carry large amounts of cash on a flight you also have provide reason and papertrail for that.

Are there actually legitimate use cases to send larger amounts of cash in a regular package? Typically, such packages are not insured or only up to a rather small amount. So, if you want to transfer a large amount in cash, most people would probably use a dedicated cash transfer service. Or even more likely, do it electronically.

Or do they also seize small amounts of money from birthday presents and christmas cards?

Don’t underestimate the mid and long term effect of small changes. If there’s vegan options in supermarkets, restaurants and at festivities, then it’s much easier to be a vegan. The lower the hurdle, the less restricted people feel in their everyday life, the more people will adapt. So that one restaurant owner who doesn’t change his own diet, might still foster the journey of other new vegetarians and vegans.

Da hätte ich ja prompt auf zu verschenken geändert 😄

Und dann wieder mit dem Deutschlandticket zu einem Briefkasten irgendwo weit weg fahren. Und am besten eine brandneue Schere verwenden und anschließend entsorgen. Nicht dass man dich wegen Abnutzung anhand der Schnittkante zurückverfolgen kann.

Und in einem Reinraum arbeiten. Nicht, dass am Ende Haare oder Hautschuppen im Klebestift konserviert werden. Oder wenn, dann zumindest nicht deine eigenen. Kannst dir ja bisschen Staub aus dem Zug mitnehmen, wenn du mit dem Deutschlandticket unterwegs bist.

Ist eben subjektiv. Wir hatten schon 17 Grad in der Wohnung die Tage (allerdings auch mit Fenstern offen). Für mich ist das noch völlig OK (haben im Winter auch meist nur 16-18 Grad) aber wenn ich länger am PC sitze o.ä. Aktivitäten ohne viel Bewegung, brauche schon einen Pullover und ne lange Hose.

Bis die Ermittler anhand der Supermarktprospekte, die bei dir verteilt werden, deinen Wohnort triangulieren. :D

Mein Stand war immer, dass die Drucker bei den Patronen gar nicht den wirklichen Füllstand prüfen, sondern einfach einen Zähler mitlaufen lassen, wie oft (Anzahl Seiten) die Farbe schon zum Einsatz kam.

Ob man 10 Seiten mit einem kleinen gelben Punkt druckt oder 10 komplett gelbe Seiten, sei egal: 10 Seiten gelb “verbraucht” und am Ende zeigt der Drucker dann “leer” an, obwohl ggf. noch halb voll.

Schwarz/weiß-Druck geht zählt bei Druckern mit dedizierter Schwarz-Kartusche, so dachte ich, nicht den Zähler für die Farben hoch.

Ist aber Jahre her, seitdem ich das gelesen habe. Keine Ahnung, ob das noch richtig ist, oder je richtig war.

Entwicklung: Füllstand der Gasspeicher in Deutschland: 01.09.24: 95,05 Prozent 01.07.24: 80,77 Prozent 01.05.24: 67,21 Prozent 01.03.24: 68,99 Prozent 01.01.24; 91,00 Prozent 06.11.23: 100,03 Prozent 02.10.23: 95,72 Prozent 12.09.23: 94,05 Prozent 03.07.23: 80,52 Prozent

https://www.allgaeuer-zeitung.de/welt/wirtschaft/das-ist-der-fuellstand-der-gasspeicher-in-deutschland-aktuell-13-9-2024_arid-418852

Aber ich denke aktuell sollte auch ein dicker Pullover noch reichen statt der Heizung. :)

Yeah, makes sense in the end even though it’s hard to grasp for me. Especially if the object on top is freely rolling and therefore feels somewhat decoupled to me. I imagined the train below the bike to behave like a tablecloth pulled from underneath a glass and where the glass keeps in the same place thanks to inertia.

But coming back to my initial statement, if the train’s movement doesn’t impact the point of landing, does it increase the difficulty for the stunts? Or is it more for the nice effect in the video?

No one will bother you, if you take some fruits from a branch over the sidewalk. Especially in urban areas like the city centre. Still, legally it belongs to the tree owner.

In the countryside, it may get you in arguments if you take fruits from one’s overgrown tree. But in the countryside there are plenty of abandoned or wild trees far away from houses, where you can pick all sorts of fruit.

Oh, is it? I thought that’s just applicable in an enclosed space. So if I jump on top of a moving something, I should still land in the same spot?

I didn’t say they’re easy. I’m not a biker but from my outsider perspective - timing aside - this didn’t look harder than doing the same performance on the ground. If I’m wrong, please enlighten me, I’m willing to learn.

Eggs might be just annoing to be hit with but I’d rather be tear gassed than taking a stone/glass bottle/heavy cans to my head. A stone with a decent speed and weight can kill you. And I don’t think I have to elaborate what broken glass flying around can do to your skin/eyes etc.

In Germany at least, he is right from a legal point of view. All fruits on the tree belong to the owner of the tree. In reality probably no one cares if you take a bunch of apples.