How to Stop Junk Mail in Its Tracks

I keep meaning to sign up for Green Dimes, but haven’t done it yet. I’ve gone the route of calling every catalog and asking them to stop sending (and some companies, like Lands End and LL Bean, have options — you can choose to receive the back-to-school or holiday catalog only). But the catalogs seem to reproduce after I’ve canceled them – I cancel one known quantity and receive two or three I’ve never heard of!

I think catalogs will decline once there’s a sea change in our culture, so that companies can understand that maybe people WANT to look online rather than in a print catalog, for environmental and convenience reasons — and then businesses will need to think of new ways to remind us they exist.

It’s happened with bring-your-own bags — stores used to be shocked when you had one, and now nobody bats an eye, just a year or so later.

Nice tips. I have managed to greatly reduce my junkmail and credit card offers by using OptOutPrescreen.com. I like the feeling of going to the mailbox and knowing the only thing in there is legitimate correspondence (with a few exceptions).

Thank you for the info. I am one of the target markets that the credit card companies like-Young college graduate. Everyday I get a minimum of two credit card offers so hopefully this will help put a stop to this.

My wife and I did these things a few years ago (back when you had to send a letter to the DMA, before their website existed). We no longer get credit card offers, junkmail, or junk phone calls – it’s GREAT!

Good thread.

Is there a way to earmark a thread so that others can see it?

There are plenty of people that I know need this information desperately.

I’ve been using CatalogChoice for about 6 months and generally it works. It’s very gratifying since you can go in and look at every catalog you’ve opted out of. It’s free, and seems to be making good headway.
My volume is down, but be forewarned that every time you buy something online, the catalog stream is activated. If you’re a regular customer of a company you can ask them to reset your account, but it’s really a nuisance to do that, especially since it requires phoning customer service.
My dream is someday catalogs will be OPT IN, not opt out. I get so few catalogs that I actually sneak off to look at them, like they’re a rare treat! True confession and more CatalogChoice info below.
http://moneychangesthings.blogspot.com/search?q=catalog choice

i’m so relieved to not have a mailbox full of junk mail anymore!!

my biggest complaint now is the local flyers the postal carrier has to put in everyone’s mailbox 3-4 days a week. i just throw those out, but i would prefer to not get them at all…

If the junk mail in question comes with a pre-paid envelope then stuff everything they sent you and mail it right back to them.

This is what I do even though it probably has little effect of actually getting the junk mail to stop. It still makes me feel a little better for seeking revenge-> http://www.russellheimlich.com/blog/how-i-deal-with-junk-mail/

Here’s a series of posts where a guy weighed and cataloged all the junk mail he received each week for an entire year. Interesting stuff.

From the conclusion:

If every household in America gets as much CRAP as Skor does each year, then a minimum of 4.56 billion pounds of CRAP are received each year, occupying a volume of 156.88 million cubic feet, enough to completely fill the ill-fated Kingdome two and a third times.

I managed to get off almost all the legitimate mailing lists out there..my snail mail box only gets about one junkmail letter every other week now. I followed these steps

http://lifelessonsmilitarywife.blogspot.com/2007/08/opt-out-completelyit-actually-works.html

Another point, the businesses you do business with (your phone company, internet provider, etc) are exempt from this. You’re going to have to call each one directly to stop their junkmail. You can even request they not send all those mail inserts when they send you your bill (I didn’t even know that was a possibility til a phone rep asked if I wanted to check that block too).

Does anyone know how to insure that credit card statements or other junk mail isn’t going to old addresses or being sent under your maiden name? We regularly receive offers under the previous owner’s maiden name. It bothers me that the same is most likely occuring at my previous addresses.

I seem to be in the minority here, but I actually like getting “junk mail.” There are always coupons that I can use, or ads for various sales and other good deals. Further, I love getting credit card offers, and I apply for all sorts of 0% balance transfers and such.

In short, I save tons of money by browsing through all my junk mail.

I’ve heard earthclassmail is a great tool as well. I haven’t used it because I am mostly paperless and don’t receive much paper mail anymore anyway. You can do/view just about everything online (bills, email, invitations, banking…) Other than the guilty pleasure/convience of having magazines and package deliveries shipped to you, there shouldn’t be much that you need to have shipped around the country (or worse, the world) in an envelope. This is more of an environmental concern than a monetary concern as stamps for letters are pretty cheap but still worth trying to get others to catch up to the digital age and stop needlessly wasting so much paper and time (save the earth quickly! otherwise you won’t have enough time to get rich slowly!)

I can’t help but wonder how much of the US Postal Service budget is covered through junk mailings. Does the insane amount of junk mail help subsidize postal rates for the rest of us? Or does it just compound problems for the post office (needing more carriers, using more fuel, etc.)? Does anyone have any info on this they could share?

Well… During a period a few years back, I began wrapping the information they sent around a big handful of gravel … And then putting it back in their return mailer and sending it back.. They get billed by the weight at the post-office.. If everyone did this, they’d soon stop.. Presently, they get the business discount (cheaper than the price you or I pay) for mail..I really tried to get all my friends and family to join in, but they’re just a bunch of party-poopers!

One of my friends did suggest using the enclosed mailers with a gummy label re-directing it to an address of your choice, thereby using their envelopes for your own mail, but this won’t work according to another friend in the post-office.

Don’t suppose we’d like to start a movement???

Thx jegan

I signed up for GreenDimes and it was great. Within 3 weeks I stopped receiving offers for things, and virtually no junk mail gets to me now. I think its worth it, they only charge I got was for the service, and I like that they plant trees.

That OptOut Prescreen site REALLY looks like a phishing site. I wonder if the mailing companies did that on purpose to make sure that not many people would sign up?

@Philip
What’s not frugal about jail? Rent out your house while you’re gone, and the government pays for your food and lodging. =) Meanwhile, your investments are all compounding annually!

I would also like to know how to stop the grocery store flyers – they are only addressed to “Resident” and don’t have a contact address on them. Some days my lockable mailbox is stuffed full of them and the legitimate mail gets left right on top of the stack, where an unscrupulous person could reach in and take them.

Don’t use the USPS Mover Kits. From what I understand they market the new address information.

@djc

I totally agree with Mike, that’s def. not cool that they would stuff your box with the fliers and then leave your ‘real’ mail out in the open for thieves to grab. That’s exactly how your identity can be stolen.

Regarding opting out of the coupons and circulars, ProQuo does have several of them on their site which you can opt out of such as ValPak, the PennySaver, Red Plum (formerly ShopWise, etc. You might want to give ProQuo a try, its free so it can’t hurt!

The po box thing looks interesting. I did the opt-out thing and have notice a reduction in mail offers.

For an ultimate solution to junk mail, sign up for a national Do Not Mail Registry at donotmail.org .

The truly eye-popping facts:

Deforestation accounts for 20% of global carbon emissions.

US junk mail accounts for 30% of all the mail delivered in the world.

That, my friends, is insane. Why are we receiving nearly a third of the world’s mail when we don’t want it and never asked for it?

Some direct mailers are refusing to honor catalogchoice requests.

The DMA site is….an awful lot like the fox guarding the henhouse.

The direct mail industry is going to continue to want to capitalize on waste and our annoyance. Of course, someone out there wants the junk mail. But when a 0.25% response rate is sufficient for junk mailers, and they know that 99.75% of their product is just garabage, is this 20th century practice something that can help us meet the challenges of the 21st century?

donotmail.org

We need something enforceable. And Americans will demand a choice.

Junk Mail is truly becoming an epidemic. I just spent the last 4 days researching ways to combat Junk Mail – for free. It doesn’t have to be horribly time consuming, if you know where to go.

I just finished publishing a Squidoo Lens on this subject. Check out, but be warned – some of the information could make you as angry as I got researching it.

http://www.squidoo.com/do-not-mail