Tip o’ the Day: Please Mister Postman, No More Junk Mail!
No longer are the days when we go to our mailbox and find it full. If you find yourself with a full mailbox, it is unlikely that your friends and family have suddenly switched back to snail mail. The more likely culprit is junk mail, and it comes in all shapes and sizes.
Junk mail comes from many different sources, and while it should be easier to remove yourself from the mailing lists, it is possible to get rid of junk mail once and for all. However, we must warn you - there will be days that you go to the mailbox and find it absolutely and completely empty!
First, visit the Direct Marketing Association's Mail Preference Service, fill out the form, pay $1 and your name will be removed from most mailing lists. Second, call 1 (888) 5-OPT-OUT to remove your name from those never-ending credit card offers. Third, any other mail you receive such as store catalogs or items from organizations of which you are on their mailing list, you'll need to contact each one directly and request removal.
Finally, you'll want to get rid of those local fliers. These seem to be the most bulky and frequent of all junk mail. These local fliers arrive with a "Current Resident" address card. Use the return address information on this card to find out who is sending these fliers and contact them directly. (If the company is ADVO or Shopwise, remove your address here.)
Rebecca says: The few minutes that it takes to go through these steps is really worth it. Imagine the trash and trees that you are saving, not to mention the headaches! Follow these steps and in 6-8 weeks, your mailbox will be almost empty!
Tags: ADVO, credit+card, junk+mail, mail, mailbox, mailing+lists, Shopwise, snail+mail
March 29th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
Thanks Rebecca! That took about 2 minutes and will hopefully reduce my mail by 50%! -Clayton
April 24th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Thanks for the article Rebecca.
Do you have any tips how to get rid of junk _e-mail_?
April 27th, 2007 at 3:32 am
Do Not Mail Opt-Out Law would be fair to everyone.
The proposed recent “Do not mail” is an Opt-Out law. Only those not desiring advertising mail need opt-out. Anyone desiring advertising mail can do nothing - and continue to receive it. Why deny those wishing to avoid advertising mail the power to do so?
I do not consider handling unwanted advertising placed against my will on my personal property to be a civic obligation!
The US Supreme Court said in the Rowan case in 1970, ““In today’s [1970] complex society we are inescapably captive audiences for many purposes, but a sufficient measure of individual autonomy must survive to permit every householder to exercise control over unwanted mail. To make the householder the exclusive and final judge of what will cross his threshold undoubtedly has the effect of impeding the flow of ideas, information, and arguments that, ideally, he should receive and consider. Today’s merchandising methods, the plethora of mass mailings subsidized by low postal rates, and the growth of the sale of large mailing lists as an industry in itself have changed the mailman from a carrier of primarily private communications, as he was in a more leisurely day, and have made him an adjunct of the mass mailer who sends unsolicited and often unwanted mail into every home. It places no strain on the doctrine of judicial notice to observe that whether measured by pieces or pounds, Everyman’s mail today is made up overwhelmingly of material he did not seek from persons he does not know. And all too often it is matter he finds offensive.”
Furthermore, the Supreme Court said, “the mailer’s right to communicate is circumscribed only by an affirmative act of the addressee giving notice that he wishes no further mailings from that mailer.
To hold less would tend to license a form of trespass and would make hardly more sense than to say that a radio or television viewer may not twist the dial to cut off an offensive or boring communication and thus bar its entering his home. Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit; we see no basis for according the printed word or pictures a different or more preferred status because they are sent by mail.”
We need a nationwide “Do Not Mail” law to create a one-stop, convenient place for homeowners to give senders the aforementioned affirmative notice that we do not want certain kinds of mail sent to our homes.
http://www.newdream.org/emails/ta19.html
Signed,
Ramsey A Fahel