Do-it-yourself: Stop junk mail, email and phone calls

Junk mail may seem as inevitable as death and taxes, but with a little patience there are effective ways to tackle the problem. This guide provides clear, simple and proven techniques to reduce the quantity of unwanted advertising you receive. About 20 minutes investment now will clear the junk for between two and five years.

General Techniques

Your name, address, and buying habits are a commodity that is regularly sold & traded on the open market. These days organizations you deal with virtually all sell your name unless you specifically ask them to stop. There are a number of easy and effective techniques that can significantly reduce the volume and types of mail you receive:

• Whenever you donate money, order a product or service, or fill out a warranty card, write in large letters, "Please do not sell my name or address". Most organizations will properly mark your name in the computer.
• On the telephone, ask "Please mark my account so that my name is not traded or sold to other companies".
• Your credit card company probably sells your name the most often. Call them and ask them to stop.
• Product warranty cards are are often used to collection information on your habits and income, for the sole purpose of targeting direct mail. They are not required in most situations - avoid sending them.
• "Contests" where you fill in a little entry blank are almost always fishing expeditions for names. If you fill one out at a football game, for example, expect to get a catalog of football merchandise within a few months. Avoid these if you don't want the mail.
• Select a false middle initial for each charity or business you deal with. Keep track of which letter goes with which organization. You can also select a false road designator, "avenue, place, circle, street, highway, parkway, etc.". This step can be very revealing. Some guides recommend changing the spelling of your name, but this can lead to duplicate mailings.

To stop specific types of unwanted paper mail

The amount of paper junk mail sent each year in the USA is staggering. Even if you recycle there are still enormous environmental costs in terms of ink, energy to produce deliver and recycle the paper, recycling inefficiencies and loss of virgin forest to create the high quality glossy paper much junk mail uses. You can get some idea of the statistics from the EcoWeb handy recycling factoids. There is a lot you can do to reduce the cost to the environment and your own time:

• First class mail: Cross out the address and bar code, circle the first class postage and write "refused: return to sender". Drop in any mail box, it will be returned to the sender.
• Bulk mail: The post office throws away bulk mail it can't deliver, so returning it does no good. Bulk mail is the hardest to deal with because the USPS actively provides addresses, support and encouragement to mailers. However, if "address correction requested" is written on the label: circle "address correction requested" and treat like first class mail.
• Sexually Oriented Advertising (SOA):The only help you'll get from the Post Office in controlling junk mail is for explicit stuff. Fill out USPS forms 2150 or 2201 if you wish this type of mail to stop.
• Credit offers: The three major credit agencies all sell aggregate credit information any bidder. Direct mail and credit companies generate mail based on demographics including zip code, income band and credit payment patterns. Stopping this is easy, you just need your address, former address within two years, and social security number. All numbers are 24 hours a day, automated. TRW/Experian is at 1-800-353-0809, TransUnion's Opt-out center is at 1-800-680-7293 and Equifax can be reached at 1-800-556-4711. You generally have a choice of a two year or permanent exclusion.
• Catalogs:
  • Call the company's 800 number and have the label handy.
  • Write your instructions on the mailing label and fax it to the company. Mark "ATTN: customer service".
  • Tear off the label, write your instructions on it, and enclose in the postage-paid ordering envelope. Mark envelope "ATTN: customer service". This method is the least effective.
• America OnLine Discs: You could pave the nation with these, call 1-800-827-6364 (6am-2am EST) to get off the list.
• Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes: You can get the Clearinghouse to stop clogging your mailbox by contacting customer service at 1-800-645-9242 (8:30 am to 8:30 EST), sending a fax to 1-800-453-0272, mailing to 101 Channel Drive, Port Washington, NY 11050, or you can send email to pch@ant.net. PCH will remove any number of names from a specific address, but you have to list each name exactly and insist nicely.
• American Family Sweepstakes: Ed McMahon and Dick Clark will stop telling you "You have definitely won 11 million dollars (maybe) " if you call them at 1-800-237-2400. AFP is a division of Time-Warner.
• Local business & supermarket fliers: All mailings must be identified, by postal regulations. Each lose-leaf bundle of fliers, by postal regulations, must be delivered at the same time as an address card. Locate this address card; the cards usually have an advertisement and a photograph of a missing child. Call directory assistance to get the phone number of the sender, and call to get off the list.

  Most senders are professional companies which will handle your request politely. "ADVO Mailbox Values" and "Harte Hanks Potpourri" are the most common of these mailers. Your local supermarket's monthly coupon books may be handled by these companies, so be sure to specify if you want to continue to receive those. Your letter carrier is accustomed to giving each house a bundle, so you may also need to inform him or her of your action separately. The post office is prohibited by law from delivering unaddressed mail, so you should have little trouble convincing the carrier.

• Too much junk to deal with individually: Start by sending a postcard or letter to DMA Mail Preference Service, PO Box 9008, Farmingdale NY 11735-9008. Include your complete name, address, zip code and a request to "activate the preference service". For up to five years, this will stop mail from all member organizations that you have not specifically ordered products from. This option may stop catalogs and promotions you would have liked to receive.

  The Direct Marketing Association estimates that listing with their mail preference service will stop 75% of all national mailings. They process 50,000 requests a month and requests are kept active for five years. If you fill out the post office change of address form, the DMA will track the new address (you'll get a few months of mailings to the new address before they catch up to you). It can take up to six months for your request to be fully processed.

To stop mail addressed to former residents

If you rent you are probably familiar with receiving mail for a dozen or more former residents of your dwelling. Since you probably don't want any of the stuff, you can use two powerful techniques that might not be appropriate for yourself:

• Bulk mail for "current resident or ...": Start with sending a postcard or letter to DMA Mail Preference Service, PO Box 9008, Farmingdale NY 11735-9008. Write "please activate the mail preference service", and include the name, address, and zip code. You must send individual postcards -- for some strange reason the DMA does not officially accept listings for former residents, and will ignore requests that don't appear to be from a single individual.
• First class and some bulk mail: If the former residents neglected to fill out a Post Office change of address card, or it expired, you can fill one out for them. You must fill out one card for each unique last name. Write "Moved, Left No Forwarding Address" as the new address. Sign your own name and write "Form filled in by current resident of the house, [Your Name], agent for the above". You must write "agent for the above". Hand this form directly to your carrier, if possible, as your carrier must approve the form and see that it gets entered into the post service National Change of Address (NCOA) database. Entries remain active for a year and half. This is very effective.

More ideas on dealing with paper junk mail

For more ideas, link to CSPR's "How to Get Less Junk Mail". For very good information about mail/email sent with fraudulent intent (money making schemes, multi-level marketing, fly-by-night operators, stock market "secrets", etc.), link to the National Fraud Information Center.

Expect mail from environmentally sensitive organizations to use recycled paper, preferably "unbleached" grey or tan-colored paper with a high post-consumer content. Glassine windows (the "waxed paper" look), or no windows, are preferred. In areas that accept mixed paper, most junk mail can be recycled. Remove any plastic wrap, stickers, product samples, and those pointless "membership" cards. Due to new technology, plastic window envelopes and staples are ok in many communities.

Even though junk mail can often be recycled, recycling is second best to reducing need ¹. Much junk mail uses virgin paper, often of types with poor recycling value and toxic inks. Recycling itself takes energy and resources and has its own impacts on the environment. Reduction, where possible, is the far better choice.

To stop specific types of unwanted telephone marketing calls

• Federal law prohibits telemarketers from "Initiating an outbound telephone call to a person when that person previously has stated that he or she does not wish to receive an outbound telephone call made by or on behalf of the seller whose goods or services are being offered.". You may simply interrupt the telemarketer and say "Please permanently remove me from your calling list". Remember that they just interrupted you. If the same people call back, they are violating the law. Ask them for their company name, supervisor name and phone number and make a report to the National Fraud Information Center at fraudinfo@psinet.com or at 1-800-876-7060. If you wish to quote Federal law to the telemarketer, you may read it at Federal Trade Commission: Telemarketing Sales Rule.
• General Telemarketing calls: Send a postcard with your complete telephone number, area code, address, and names of people receiving calls to DMA Telephone Preference Service, PO Box 9014, Farmingdale NY 11735-9014.

To stop unwanted electronic mail ("SPAM")

It is very hard to effectively combat junk electronic mail. It costs nothing to send out a few million email messages, so there is no disincentive for people to do so. Most SPAM mailers forge the headers, email return address and sending machine name because they are sick of reading the thousands of inevitable complaints. The offers to remove your name from a list are generally untrue, and often result in your name getting added to yet another list. Many internet providers have policies against SPAM, and will take action. Unfortunately some providers either don't care or are SPAM-friendly. There are ways you can reduce exposure and complain:

• Email complaints: Your mail program has some way to "show all headers". The headers are extra information that come with each mail message showing where it came from. SPAM senders can fake any header except for the sequence of "Received" lines.
  Read the header lines marked "Received"; these show the sequence of machines the message traveled to. As your mail takes each hop from machine to machine, a new line is added to the top of this list. Send a copy with headers to "abuse@" and/or "postmaster@" the last reputable machine name encountered. Your own service provider might help you track down SPAM. The SPAM senders can fake any number of received lines before they send it, but can't fake lines once it leaves their machine. It is rare to get a response, even when action is taken
• Find the administrators for the offending machine: The technical and billing contacts for any machine can be found with a WhoIS gateway. Beware that machine names are often forged so be polite. You are either complaining to a responsible party or alerting them to a forgery.
• Stamp out Get Rich Quick schemes: If you at all suspect fraud, send a copy of the mail to the National Fraud Information Center.
• Secure your web page: If you include a "mailto" link, as below, expect to get junk mail. Remove the "mailto" and force people to manually enter the email address. State your email address in a way readable only to humans (e.g.. "bryce" at machine "uclink.berkeley.EDU").
• Use care with newsgroup postings: Post to a newgroup these days and you can be sure of getting both target SPAM (sports messages for posting in a sports group) and untargeted email. You can use an obviously false return address on postings: most news programs let you set this to whatever you want. Include your real email address (coded as above) in body of the message.
• Complain to your Senator or Representative: Laws will be needed to regulate the eventual legitimate email advertising industry.

Examples of what marketers know about you

Here is a clip from a mailing list compiler's web page showing address counts for a just a few of many types of information they collect on all Americans. The reputable firms will remove your name based on a request made to the DMA (see above).

¹ The Direct Marketing Association suggests "reusing" your unwanted junk mail, by giving it to schools and libraries. This self- serving suggestion is worth somewhat less than you paid for it.

For tips on recycling junk mail, link to the Internet Consumer Recycling Guide. Please send comments, questions or additions to bryce@uclink.berkeley.EDU. World wide web address, "http://www.obviously.COM/junkmail/". Updated April 1997. Contents Copyright 1997 Obvious Implementations Corporation. Keywords: guide & free tips on stopping junk mail, reducing unwanted marketing bulk mail, how to get less mail, how to stop junk mail.