In Comcast’s case: I have received bulk mail from them as often as 3 to 4 times in a single week! I sent them a complaint letter, and lo and behold a representative from their Marketing Department called, and I gave her my home address, even going as far as doing the “B for boy” so they couldn’t register the wrong apartment. A few days later, I got a letter stating that my address was removed, and to allow 30 business days for the change to take effect.

After about two months, they were still coming, so when I checked the letter,they addressed it to Apt.D, so it never got on. Rather recently though, I’ve made it a new policy to “refuse” all future mailings from Comcast, and have mentioned that on my mailbox.

Same for GEICO, I get sick of receiving their auto insurance solicitations, so I’ve also started to refuse them en masse.

Right now you have the chance to do even more good by signing up by MARCH 22nd – GreenDimes is giving new members 25 BONUS TREES. Already a member? Then refer a friend using your GreenDimes Friends tab and we’ll give both of you 25 bonus trees. Learn more at http://www.greendimes.com

Thanks again for the post! Kendra at GreenDimes

I like catalogs, though, even if I can’t afford the stuff.

One easy way to cut down on junk mail is to write a letter to the Direct Marketing Association. I’ve done it, and it definitely has cut down on the majority of the junk mail I receive. More info here – http://www.obviously.com/junkmail/

The proposed recent “Do not mail” is an Opt-Out law. Only those not desiring advertising mail need opt-out. Anyone desiring advertising mail can do nothing – and continue to receive it. Why deny those wishing to avoid advertising mail the power to do so?

I do not consider handling unwanted advertising placed against my will on my personal property to be a civic obligation!

The US Supreme Court said in the Rowan case in 1970, ““In today’s [1970] complex society we are inescapably captive audiences for many purposes, but a sufficient measure of individual autonomy must survive to permit every householder to exercise control over unwanted mail. To make the householder the exclusive and final judge of what will cross his threshold undoubtedly has the effect of impeding the flow of ideas, information, and arguments that, ideally, he should receive and consider. Today’s merchandising methods, the plethora of mass mailings subsidized by low postal rates, and the growth of the sale of large mailing lists as an industry in itself have changed the mailman from a carrier of primarily private communications, as he was in a more leisurely day, and have made him an adjunct of the mass mailer who sends unsolicited and often unwanted mail into every home. It places no strain on the doctrine of judicial notice to observe that whether measured by pieces or pounds, Everyman’s mail today is made up overwhelmingly of material he did not seek from persons he does not know. And all too often it is matter he finds offensive.”

Furthermore, the Supreme Court said, “the mailer’s right to communicate is circumscribed only by an affirmative act of the addressee giving notice that he wishes no further mailings from that mailer.

To hold less would tend to license a form of trespass and would make hardly more sense than to say that a radio or television viewer may not twist the dial to cut off an offensive or boring communication and thus bar its entering his home. Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit; we see no basis for according the printed word or pictures a different or more preferred status because they are sent by mail.”

We need a nationwide “Do Not Mail” law to create a one-stop, convenient place for homeowners to give senders the aforementioned affirmative notice that we do not want certain kinds of mail sent to our homes.

http://www.newdream.org/emails/ta19.html

Signed, Ramsey A Fahel

Go figure.

‘Resident’ ‘Patron at’ ‘Friends at’

That might have worked!

More than once, I found my mailbox empty upon returning home from a 2 or 3 day business trip.

The post office had actually put a stop on my mail service because my box had become full – mostly with junk mail! And most of this junk wasn’t even address to me or my g/f. It was addressed to ‘resident’ at?

And rather than leave what had accumulated up to the overflow, they pulled all the mail and placed a temporary stop on the service.

Their reasoning? The USPS assumed that we had moved or had gone on a long vacation.

Naturally, I asked if I could fill out a form which would block any mail not addressed specifically to us. No can do! Irrespective of the recipient name, businesses have paid postage to have the mail delivered to a specific address and the USPS is obligated the follow through on that service.

But in doing so, this generic mail was actually blocking real mail. Go figure…

How about when your own auto insurance company keep sending you mail (addressed to you, not “resident”), asking you to switch to them? Geico does this.

I second the mention of Green Dimes above: http://www.greendimes.com/

They seem to be reducing our junkmail weight.