Eliminating Junk Mail
Saving the Environment While Protecting Your Privacy
Eliminating junk mail from your mailbox can make your life less cluttered, reduce your risk of identity theft, and save the planet all at the same time.
How would you like to make your life less cluttered, reduce your risk of identity theft, and save the planet at the same time? Start by eliminating the piles of junk mail filling up your mailbox every day. To stop junk mail from coming to your home, try these steps:
- Opt out of Prescreened Credit Offers. One of the most common pieces of junk mail is the prescreened credit card offer. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the credit reporting companies are allowed to distribute your name and contact information to companies that offer credit or insurance. Although the credit bureaus claim they are helping consumers to “comparison shop” when they sell personal information to these companies, digging through junk mail is a terrible way to choose where to get a Visa or Mastercard. Making the credit bureaus stop selling your name to direct mail credit marketers will greatly reduce the flow of garbage into your mailbox, and will help reduce your risk of identity theft too. To end the sale of your personal information to credit and insurance companies, visit Optoutprescreen, or call 1-888-567-8688. OptOutPrescreen is a joint venture of Equifax, Experian, Innovis, and Transunion to facilitate removal of personal information from the lists they make available to other companies. Anyone wishing to opt out of receiving offers for five years can complete the entire process online. However, to permanently opt out of such offers, you must print out, sign, and mail their Permanent Opt-Out Election Form.
- Cancel the Catalogs. Anything for sale in a mail-order catalog is for sale online, and a few minutes of amusement walking in from the mailbox is not worth all the clutter it adds to the house. Epsilon Data Management, LLC, operates the Abacus Catalog Alliance, which maintains the largest database used for targeted marketing to consumers. Members of the Abacus Consumer Cooperative databases can obtain detailed information on consumer purchasing behavior to create a targeted mailing list of those individuals most likely to buy their products. To get off of the mailing lists being circulated among these companies, visit AbacusOptOut or send an email with your full name and address to the Abacus Catalog Alliance at abacusoptout@epsilon.com. You can also contact them by regular mail at Epsilon Data Services, P.O. Box 1478, Broomfield, CO 80038.
- Drop the Direct Marketing Association. To stop a huge percentage of the junk mail clogging up your mailbox, contact the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) to have your name removed from their mailing lists. The DMA has a very useful consumer information page which facilitates getting your name off of various lists. According to their website, it takes 30 to 90 days for registration with them to become fully effective. Removal of your name from the lists is only effective for five years, and there is a nominal charge of $1.00 for the service.
- Give the Axe to Acxiom. Acxiom Corporation is a leading provider of information management solutions to vendors, providing detailed data about the buying habits of consumers. To remove your information from their database, fill out their opt-out request form. They will then mail you a form to sign and return to them to complete the process.
- Watch What You Sign. You may not realize it, but when you signed up for that grocery store loyalty card, ordered that watch off the internet, or registered in a draw to win a free something or other, you may have inadvertently given that company permission to send you junk mail. Even worse, you may have given them permission to sell (usually phrased as “share”) your information to other companies. Look at the forms carefully to make sure you are not agreeing to receive offers from their “partners” or some other code word that means they are going to sell your name and address to other vendors. One carelessly checked box could put your information right back out into the market, despite your efforts to keep it private.
- Be Careful When You Move. When moving from one address to another, most people will fill out a change of address card with the United States Postal Service. What they may not realize is that the postal service will provide that new address to vendors trying to send mail to the old address through the National Change of Address department program known as NCOA Link. This system makes change of address information available to vendors so that address changes and errors can be corrected before the junk mail is sent out. To ask that you not be included in this program, call the postal service at 1-800-238-3150.
Following these steps on how to eliminate junk mail will not stop all unsolicited mail from reaching your mailbox, but it will eliminate the vast majority of it.
The copyright of the article Eliminating Junk Mail in Consumer Rights is owned by William L. Pfeifer, Jr.. Permission to republish Eliminating Junk Mail must be granted by the author in writing.
