Junk Mail

I have a PO Box at the post office downtown. I originally got this box because I knew I would be moving several times in a relatively short amount of time. I've had the box for over a year now, and get all of my bills, magazines, and correspondence there. Of course, there is also a mailbox at my apartment, but no one has any reason to mail me anything there. So, you'd think it would never be used, right?

Wrong!

I get two to five pieces of mail at home each week. This is all JUNK mail. It goes unread into the recycling bin. I do like getting the Val-Pak coupons, but if the cost of getting that ONE mailing, four times a year is to get over 150 pieces of mail that gets pitched immediately unread, then I can do without that nice blue package of Val-Pak coupons.

At the PO Box I get five to ten pieces of junk mail each week. That count includes mailings from Guideposts Magazine about buying their books, multiple mailings from my alma mater (that I have already received at my office - twice!), and of course more of the same stuff that I've already received at my home.

Five pieces of junk mail a week, times 52 weeks, times three pages of paper on average per mailing, equals 780 pieces of paper. Add in the ink, the postage, the hassle in sorting out the chaff from the wheat, and I get pretty steamed. There is a wastebasket near the row of PO Boxes. Every time the Kroger's flyer comes out, the waste basket is full of them. Can this really be an effective marketing tool? And to top it off, when you visit Kroger's there is a large stack of these flyers at the front door. Hello, McFly?!?

I have started writing letters to various junk mailers asking to be removed from their mailing lists. The only response so far has been a nice letter from Kroger's (a grocery store chain) saying that they get the addresses from the post office and there's nothing they can do to remove me from the mailing list.

A very helpful web page I've found is How to Get Rid of Junk Mail, Spam, and Telemarketers. I have just started to follow some of the advice found on these pages. I'll let you know what happens.

I've already done a few things. One thing I have already done is write to the Direct Marketing Association to get added to a list of people that do not want to receive junk mail or phone solicitations. What happens in this Opt-Out list is member firms of the D.M.A. get a list once a quarter and purge names from their lists. Of course, membership in the D.M.A is totally voluntary, so a lot of smaller firms (like Kroger's) don't join. But I think I've seen a small decrease in the amount of calls and junk mail I get.

Write to the D.M.A. at these addresses:

In your letters (you need to send two), mention all telephone numbers that you want excluded, all mailing addresses, all variations of all household member's names, and be polite. You should get an acknowledgement from the D.M.A. in three to six months that they've updated their records. It's my guess that they're so slow because it is in their own best interest to be slow in adding people to this service. After all, the direct marketers (the junk mailers) are hoping to make money off of you.

It is also not in the post office's best interest to help you with minimizing the amount of junk mail you get. After all, they are getting paid to deliver the stuff. I would think that instead of raising the first class postage rate to 33 cents next year, they should raise third class/bulk rate by 3% and see if that allows them to stay in the black.

I also used to own my own business. I paid my taxes, kept receipts of deductions, learned a lot, and used a box at a UPS store for my mailing address. It looked a lot more professional than using a PO Box. I closed the business in 1996, but I kept the box open to see how much junk mail I would get. I still get ten to fifteen pieces of junk mail a week. The first class mail gets "Return to Sender" written on it; companies with 800 numbers listed get a call asking to be removed; and the rest gets recycled. I'm going to start writing to them and see what kind of response I get.

I also have an unlisted phone number at home to keep my phone number and address private. For more information see my privacy page.

Update! December 21, 1997

I have written several letters to companies asking to be removed from their mailing lists. I also ask them to let me know how they received my name and address. So far I have only received one response. That was from a local non-profit agency. But of course, they said that they did not know where my name was obtained.

I have also started mentioning this web page in the hopes the fear of bad publicity would make these companies remove me from their lists. At this point, the companies I am awaiting responses from are:

• MCI (letter mailed December 13, 1997)
• American Business Lists (letter mailed December 22, 1997)

I have also written to the credit reporting agencies and asked that they stop releasing my name and address. The Congress passed a law that says as of September 1997 all offers of credit must include information on how to get your name removed from the lists. You can get more information at these links:

• Experian
  • Direct marketing optout information
  • Prescreen opt out
  • Marketing opt out
• Equifax
• Trans Union Corporation

Also, you can visit a web site that my office has put together called Operation Opt-Out. This site helps you to take control of your own private, personal information.

There isn't any accountability of the companies out there that are selling information about people. The Direct Marketing Association maintains a list of people that don't want to recevie junk mail. But it is totally optional. So why should companies join it? The United States Post Office is making money by delivering junk mail. So why should they try to minimize it? There should be a law that says any piece of commercial mail must have a means for consumers to be removed from the mailing list. And consumers should also be able to find out how their name and address was obtained in the first place. Heavy penalties should be enacted if a company is not accurately maintaing its mailing lists.

Maybe the United States should do what the Canadian post office does. Each mailing address can place a card on their box that says "No Junk Mail". And then the mail carrier won't deliver any junk mail to that box.

Update! June 5, 1998

Late in 1997 I wrote a letter to my town's Postmaster. I requested that they declare my residential mailbox vacant. After a week or so, no more mail. :) What I had done before that was to fill out one of those Hold Mail forms, as if I was going on vacation. And I left the restart date open. After about five weeks, I got an enormous stack of mail in my box. Every single item was junk mail.

This week I called eleven different companies that have been sending me catalogs to my (old) business address, 15 months after the business closed. They were all friendly, and said I'd be off their list. I also called PC Magazine, and they said they would stop selling my name and address.

I also emailed or used web pages for five other companies. Helpful Hint: When you order from CDW (a computer hardware/software mail order place) they will add you to their mailing list. It takes months to get off of their list. And then if you order something at your office, they will re-activate your personal account so you start getting the catalogs at home AND at your office.

At this point, the only junk mail I am getting on a regular basis is from:

• Krogers. This grocery store chain I am boycotting.
• Virginia Tech. The alumni association likes sending me advertising about junk that I can buy. I am also a VT student again, so am getting junk mail about yearbooks, meal plans (really bad, expensive food), and gift packs.
• Columbia House. You know, the company where you buy 14 CD's for $1, and only buy 5 more at regular club, yadda yadda, yadda. They bought my name from the Food Lion MVP program. So I have cancelled my membership in the MVP program. And complained to the Better Business Bureau about Columbia House's misleading advertising. They send me a junk mailing trying to get me back to their programs. But I never was a customer of theirs! That seems like misleading advertising to me.

Update! February 27, 1999

I haven't received any junk mail from Kroger's lately. I'm fairly certain that they haven't sent me anything in 1999! In fact the only junk mail I get regularly are from companies that buy my name from APCC, the power protection people. APCC has not responded to my email requests that they not sell my name. They are dropping quickly from my list of reputable companies I would buy from again in the future.