Re: The thing is... it's nothing new.
"I had a great business mentor years back that taught me to bin all of the junk mail straight away on the walk back from the mail box."
They're getting sneaky, though. They try to disguise the junk mail as government mail, and since there can be consequences for not replying in a timely manner to government mail (say a tax audit notice), it makes things difficult. As for trying to return it, they'll probably just repackage it and RE-resend it. They have the infrastructure you lack to outwait you.