The only thing worse than junk mail is paying taxes, getting a colonoscopy and passing a kidney stone. Yes, I hate junk mail so much.
Junk email is bad enough, but at least thanks to the wonders of technology, most modern email clients are very good at identifying spam and directing it to a special spam email folder that you can quickly toss in the trash once in a while. Traditional junk mail, on the other hand? Not so easy.
In 1775, the U.S. government appointed the first postmaster general. It seems like a pretty long time ago, but in Europe, the Royal Mail was founded back in 1516. You'd think in the nearly 500 years that civilization has had postal service, someone would have found a way to direct junk mail to the recycle bin. Well, that never happened. Every day when you get home from work, you have to lug a stack of envelopes into your house to throw away just three-quarters of the paper stack. Damn the trees.
Does it really have to be that way? Isn't there something that one person can do to put an end to this madness? Well, every country is different, but believe it or not. There are a few specific things you can actually do to stem the flow of tree-destroying paper entering your mailbox.
Most of these solutions focus on the direct mail system in the U.S., but there are some solutions for people in Europe as well.
Services that get rid of junk mail
There aren't many laws to protect you from junk mail, but there are two that help consumers a little bit. You are the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) and Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003. It's about informing you, the consumer, if a company or organization you do business with intends to use your information for marketing purposes and giving you the option to opt out.
You've probably occasionally received "opt-out notifications" from companies like credit card companies – documents filled with legalizations in tiny print – and immediately thrown them away without reading them. At the very least, companies hope you will do this. If you have actually taken the time to send a letter to the company telling them you wish to decline, you must not sell your contact information to marketing companies.
Sounds easy enough, but when you multiply contacting companies to formally decline the many companies you do business with, the task can feel overwhelming. This is why most people don't even bother to do it and just tolerate their mailboxes being filled with garbage.
DMA choice
Fortunately, there are some organizations that legitimately help you with this process. For example, the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) actually offers consumers a free service you can sign up for that promises to reduce your junk mail by over 90%. This is because the 3600 largest direct mail companies in the industry use the DMA "Optical Output" list to filter who they actually send junk mail to. Companies do this voluntarily to adhere to the DMA's goal of "driving and protecting responsible data-driven marketing". It is a way for these companies to retain some accountability.
To that end, the DMA offers DMAChoice.org on which you can sign up not to receive emails from companies in four categories – credit offers, catalogs, magazine offers, and other mail offers.
The service is free and from everything I've read online from people who have tried it, it definitely works. People have reported that junk mail has been reduced by at least 90% after signing up. The equivalent organization in the UK is DMA.org/uk, but unfortunately I could not find a corresponding opt-out service there.
41 pounds
In 2006, three brothers living in Ferndale, Michigan, learned that on average, a person in the United States receives about 41 pounds of junk mail each year. That's 41 pounds of paper that ends up in the trash can (or turned into recycled Christmas ornaments. 10 Christmas decorations you can make from recycled materials. 10) Christmas decorations you can make from recycled materials materials you can save money and the environment. Continue reading!) and then in the landfills. The three brothers founded 41pounds.org to reduce the environmental hazard they consider significant. The service that 41Pounds.org offers is not free. Registration costs $ 35. – However, if you sign up, they will contact all the major direct mail companies directly and represent you by getting your name and address removed from the mailing lists.
The $35 is a one time fee that applies to each adult living in your dorm. You can provide a list of specific catalogs and charities that you want 41Pounds to contact specifically for you. For direct mail companies that require a customer signature, 41Pounds will send you pre-addressed postcards that you simply need to sign and place in the mailbox.
Mailing Preference Service (MPS)
Live in the UK and are tired of all these services being for US customers only? Don't worry, you have a service called Mailing Preference Service or MPS for short. This is a free service that has been around in the UK for a long time. This is a service endorsed by Royal Mail and the Information Commissioners Office as an effective way for UK consumers to get so much junk mail from the direct mail industry.
Unfortunately, the service does not cover any other country – only the UK. If you live in the UK, sign up today and save some trees! If you have noticed that a company is sending you marketing directly after you have been specifically asked to do so, you can file a complaint with the Direct Marketing Commission.
Trusted ID
Another useful US service to stop direct mailings to your address is the TrustedID service. As with DMA Choice, this is a free service that allows you to search for the company that will email you directly and then select them for unsubscription. TrustedID will then contact the company on your behalf and request the removal of your address. Better yet, if the company does not comply with the junk mail and continues to send emails, TrustedID will actually contact the company to make sure they comply with your request.
TrustedID has one of the largest databases of direct mail companies – an impressive list of 8.000 names -. So chances are, the company you want to deactivate is probably in this database.
Other options for stopping junk mail
If you're a proud credit card holder in the U.S., chances are pretty high that one of the major credit reporting agencies like Equifax, Experian or TransUnion has your name, address and credit score and rating on file for any company available to verify. Whenever you receive a pre-screened offer for a loan or credit card from a bank or credit card company, chances are that the company has already run a check on your credit information to not only learn your credit score, but to get your credit score name and contact information from one of these consumer credit reporting companies.
The preferred place to specifically decline these credit reporting companies that provide your information is OptOutPrescreen.com. This opt-out service specifically addresses these "pre-screened" offers for credit. You can either opt out electronically using the online form, which lasts five years before your name is removed from the opt-out list again, or you can sign up for a permanent opt-out. However, to reject permanently, you need to print it out and send it in paper form.
If you hate email as much as I do, you can also sign up for and donate to the Private Citizen organization at. This is a group that not only sends your opt-out authorization to the eight largest junk mail companies in the industry, but also to Congress, just to let the U.S. Congress know how annoyed you are with junk mail. Private Citizens is actually more of an activist / lobbying organization, so you should sign up there if you simply want to oppose paper junk mail.
If you tend to give money to a lot of charities, you may be late to realize that charities are often the worst offenders when it comes to reselling contact information to third parties. To protect yourself from this, simply sign up for a service like NetworkForGood.org to participate anonymously to your favorite charity. So your personal contact information is not sold to direct marketers.
The bottom line: to avoid junk mail, always remember to fill out and send in opt-out forms with any company you do business with. If you haven't already, you can use the services above to fix your junk mail problem. Remember, however, that any company you do business with is a potential source of junk mail. Always ask for their privacy, disable forms and fill them out. You'll be very glad you did, and your mailbox will thank you for it.