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Written by Miranda Huey   
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Friday, 20 November 2009

Junk Mail: Your Guide to Stopping it Today!
junk mail stuffed in mail box Junk mail might merely seem like a tiny, daily irritant, but just stopping those few pieces of paper from getting into your mailbox can have a lot of surprising benefits. Here are a few:

Benefits for environment: 100 million trees are cut down each year and used to print junk mail.1 Considering the small percentage of junk mail that people actually respond to,2 that's a huge waste. What's worse is that a lot of junk mail is printed on virgin paper, and sometimes with toxic inks that can seep back into the environment when so much of it goes to a landfill.3 Even recycled paper requires energy, water, and other resources. Stopping junk mail at your household is one small way to help reduce its major impact on the environment.

Benefits for your identity security: More than three million Americans have had false credit accounts opened in their name in the last year.4 It's become even easier when so many advertisements like credit card or insurance offers include valuable information that can be used for identity fraud. Unless you shred your junk mail, your information is vulnerable to theft in the mailbox, trash, or recycling bin. Stopping junk mail can help put your mind at ease.

Benefits for your convenience: Every American receives an average of almost 560 pieces of junk mail every year,5 and can get pretty frustrating to have to weed out junk mail from real mail. Eventually, you still have to carry all that junk mail back out to the recycling bin, and you'll sometimes even recycle out bills or important letters by accident. Stopping junk mail altogether is a great way to streamline and simplify the process of getting mail.

Cost: None to Low
You can contact various companies and take many preventative measures for free. Thanks to a very old Supreme Court decision, most direct mailers will heed any request to have your name taken off their mailing list.6 However, you may have to pay postage to mail certain mailers. You could also pay a fee if you hire a junk mail removal service to do it all for you.

Time and effort: Low to Medium
Reducing your junk mail is literally just a matter of contacting companies that send you junk mail asking them to stop sending it to you. Even though you could go through every single company, this article will provide you with some helpful shortcuts and tips on how to do it more efficiently.

Stopping the Most Common Junk Mailers: If you're like most people, the majority of your mail comes from a few major national direct mailers. To reduce the bulk of your junk mail, contact the following companies and ask them to remove you from the mailing list and not to sell, rent, or exchange your personal information.

  1. Direct Marketing Association: This contains the largest national mailing list that companies use to send you junk mail, made up of 5,200 companies.7 Submitting a request with DMA alone should take care of a large majority of your junk mail. Registering online is free, but it expires after 3 years.8
    ◦ online registration

  2. Flyers and Advertising Supplements: Flyers and advertising supplements are usually addressed to “resident” or “occupant”. Even after your name is removed from the company's mailing list, you probably should also remind your postal carrier not to deliver the advertising flyers. If you still want coupons, those coupons can all still be found online.
    ◦ Valassis or Red Plum
      ▪ phone: 800-437-0479 during the hours of (8:30 to 5 EST)
      ▪ online form
    ◦ PennySaver or The Flyer
      ▪ phone: 800-422-4116 for CA and South Florida or (813) 626-SELL in West Florida
      ▪ address for California and South Florida region: Harte-Hanks Shoppers, Attn: Consumer Preferences, 2830 Orbiter Street, Brea, CA 92821
      ▪ address for West Florida region: Circulation, The Flyer, 201 Kelsey Lane, Tampa, FL 33619
    ◦ ADVO
      ▪ phone: 1-800-285-6100
      ▪ address: ADVO Consumer Assistance, POB 249, Windsor, CT 06095-4176
    ◦ Carol Wright
      ▪ phone: 1-800-67-TARGET.10
    ◦ Val-Pak: Look on the Val-Pak envelope to find a regional address you can use to mail the company a request to be taken off the mailing list. Or, you can use their online website form.11

  3. Mail Order Catalogs: Usually, each catalog lists a toll-free number where you can cancel your subscription. Keep the label handy. If you get a lot of mail-order catalogs, consider using one of the following tools:
    ◦ Abacus Database: A major organization for catalog and publishing companies called Abacus will probably have your information if you've ever ordered something in a mail-order catalog. You can email or mail them a request to be taken off their list if you provide your full name with middle initial, current address, and any previous address if you have recently moved. If you've already registered with the DMA, you don't need to worry about this database.
      ▪ email: abacusoptout@epsilon.com
      ▪ address: Epsilon Data Services, P.O. Box 1478, Broomfield, CO 80038.12
    ◦ Catalog Choice: Catalog Choice is a non-profit website designed to stop unwanted catalogs. If you sign up for free,13 they'll send opt-out requests to the catalogs you list on your behalf.

  4. Prizes and Sweepstakes: Contact the following major national sweepstakes mailers. Almost all of these have mailing lists that get sold or rented, so if you keep getting this kind of mail, you're probably still on some other mailing list. Save the mailing label and reply device, which probably have codes identifying the original company's mailing list that sold your information.
    ◦ Publisher's Clearinghouse
      ▪ phone: 800-645-9242
      ▪ email: privacychoices@pchmail.com
      ▪ address: Consumer & Privacy Affairs Publishers Clearinghouse, 382 Channel Drive Port, Washington, NY 11050
    ◦ Reader's Digest Sweepstakes
      ▪ phone 800-310-6261
      ▪ address: Reader's Digest P.O. Box 50005 Prescott, AZ 86301-5005 14
    ◦ American Family Sweepstakes
      ▪ phone: 1-800-237-2400 15
      ▪ address: American Family Publishers, PO Box 62000, Tampa, FL 33662 16

  5. List Brokers: List brokers are companies that compile information from phone books and public records: tax files, birth certificates, real estate transactions and sell that information to companies so they can send you marketing material.
    ◦ Write individually to each of the list brokers to request your name be removed from all their mailing and telemarketing lists. Preprinted mailing labels can be found here.
      ▪ Metromail Corporation, List Maintenance, 901 West Bond, Lincoln, NE 68521
      ▪ R.L. Polk & Co. / Name Deletion File, List Compilation Development, 26955 Northwestern Highway, Southfield, MI 48034-4716
      ▪ Database America, Compilation Department, 470 Chestnut Ridge Road, Woodcliff, NJ 07677 17
      ▪ Info USA, Attn: Product Quality, PO Box 27347, Omaha, NE 68127 18
    ◦ Acxiom U.S. requires you to phone or fill out a request online to receive a form in the mail. Once you fill it out and send it back, Acxiom will take you off their list.
      ▪ phone: 877-774-2094
      ▪ website: http://www.acxiom.com/ 19

Stopping Junk Mail from Various Mailers: Now that you've taken care of the biggest junk mailers, it's time to address various other types of mailers, each of which requires a certain strategy to contact.
  1. Charities and Professional Organizations: Charities or professional organizations can send you a lot of mail, and even rent and exchange lists. You can usually find a toll-free customer service number on any material they send you that can be used to take you off their mailing list. Inform them that not only do you want to be taken off their list, but you want them to stop providing your contact information to other companies. If that doesn't work, try the mailing label or reply device technique as detailed in the prizes and sweepstakes section. Sometimes, donation forms for charities will offer a box for you to check if you don't want your information shared with third parties. 20

  2. Magazines: Magazine companies will also sell the information you filled out on the subscription card to other companies. If you are already or plan to be subscribed to a magazine, write and mail to the magazine a note that you do not want your name and address rented, sold, or exchanged with third parties. 21

  3. Financial Institutions: By law, financial institutions are required to send you an option to opt-out of their mailing lists, although these are usually packed in with a lot of other things and go easily unnoticed. Sometimes, they offer an opt-out for having your information shared with unaffiliated third parties. If they do, take that option. You can also call them anytime to opt-out, but this won't prevent them from sharing the information with third party affiliates. 22

  4. Phone Books: Mailing list companies use phone books to find your name, address, and phone number. To avoid this, ask your phone company to have your number unlisted. If you have to pay a monthly fee to have it unlisted, you can instead ask the phone company to use a fake name in the listing or to only list your name and phone number. Also, make sure to ask to be removed from any street address directories as well. 23
    ◦ DEX: 1-877-243-8339
    ◦ Yellow Book: 1-800-929-3556
    ◦ Verizon: 1-800-555-4833 24

Avoid Doing These: People have tried certain techniques to send junk mail back to the sender, with limited results. If you've heard these tips before, be warned that they generally don't work.
  • Writing “return to sender” and putting it back in the mailbox: Although first-class mail will be mailed back to the sender, this won't remove you from the sender's distribution list. Also, most bulk mail isn't first class, and USPS policy is to discard any returned third-class bulk mail in the trash. 25
  • Place junk mail in a return envelope with postage due: The USPS doesn't send any mail that has postage due, so they'll just return it to you for the correct postage or send it to the mail-recovery center. This will do nothing to prevent future junk mail. 26

Hiring a Junk Mail Removal Service: If you have a lot of junk mail that and you really don't want to contact a lot of different companies, consider using these services.
  1. 41 Pounds: For $41, this service stops junk mail and catalogs for 5 years. A third of the fee is donated to environmental and community organization of choice. 27

  2. Precycle: For a one-time fee of $43, this service stops most junk mail and sends you a reusable bag and two CFL bulbs. 28

  3. Private Citizen: For $10 a year, this service will stop junk mail from the most common mailers and list brokers. 29


Preventing New Junk Mail: Now that you've stopped a lot of junk mail, you probably want to prevent any more of your information getting into the hands of junk mailers. Here are a few places to look out for that you might not have known about:

  1. Warranty Cards: Many new products come with a warranty card, which ask you to register your product with the company by filling out your personal information on the warranty card. Don't fill out that card. Companies usually just sell that information to others, and a product will remain under warranty whether or not you actually return the warranty card, as long as you keep the receipt. 30

  2. Contests: Many contests that offer free prizes actually use it to gather personal information and send junk mail. To prevent that, avoid entering a contest that requires you to put down addresses31 or other contact information without any opt-out option for being put on their mailing list. 32

  3. Consumer Surveys: Consumer surveys can ask you to answer a few questions in exchange for free coupons or entry into sweepstakes. These can ask for very detailed information such as income, education, health, and product purchases. Since that information often gets sold to third parties, try to avoid responding to consumer surveys.33

  4. Catalogs: Whenever you buy something from a mail-order catalog, it's more likely that other companies will start to send you their catalogs, since they can establish that you are a potential customer. Whenever you order something in the mail, make a specific request in writing that the company not rent, sell, or trade your name and address. 34

  5. 5. Bills: Monthly bills can often come with an advertisement. If the company offers an online statement, sign up for it so you can cancel your bill by mail. If they don't, ask companies to e-mail you a statement.35 This also helps to prevent people from stealing any account information from your mail.
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1 http://www.greenamericatoday.org/programs/woodwise/consumers/whatyoucando/stopjunk.cfm
2 http://www.junkbusters.com/self.html
3 http://www.obviously.com/junkmail/
4 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18530707/
5 http://www.greenamericatoday.org/programs/woodwise/consumers/whatyoucando/stopjunk.cfm
6 http://www.junkbusters.com/dmlaws.html
7 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18530707/
8 http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs4-junk.htm
9 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18530707/
10 http://www.obviously.com/junkmail/
11 http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs4-junk.htm
12 http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs4-junk.htm
13 http://www.ecocycle.org/junkmail/index.cfm
14 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18530707/ns/today-today_technology_and_money/page/2/
15 http://www.obviously.com/junkmail/
16 http://www.nativeforest.org/stop_junk_mail/nfn_junk_mail_guide.htm
17 http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs4-junk.htm
18 http://www.junkbusters.com/self.html#mail
19 http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs4-junk.htm
20 Id.
21 Id.
22 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18530707/ns/today-today_technology_and_money/page/2/
23 http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs4-junk.htm
24 http://www.ecocycle.org/junkmail/index.cfm
25 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18530707/ns/today-today_technology_and_money/page/2/
26 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18530707/ns/today-today_technology_and_money/page/2/
27 http://www.ecocycle.org/junkmail/index.cfm
28 http://precycle.tonic.com/
29 http://privatecitizen.com/auth-s.htm
30 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18530707/ns/today-today_technology_and_money/page/2/
31 http://www.ecocycle.org/junkmail/index.cfm
32 http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs4-junk.htm
33 Id.
34 http://www.ecocycle.org/junkmail/index.cfm
35 http://www.greenamericatoday.org/programs/woodwise/consumers/whatyoucando/stopjunk.cfm




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