You think junk mail is a colossal waste of paper, right? Of course you do. Well, it’s time to take a stand against the waste and annoyance of the junk mail industry.
Today, take that junk mail you’ve been collecting, write RETURN TO OFFENDER in bold letters on a postage-paid return envelope from one of our biggest offenders–Capital One, Bank of America, or American Express–and drop that junk back into the mail.
Want to share your action and find out what other folks are doing? Tell us about your action and upload a photo. Be sure and check back later to see what other supporters are up to.
By joining this day of action, you are strengthening the campaign to stop junk mail and protect Endangered Forests. In the coming months, we’ll be meeting directly with these biggest junk mail offenders. Keeping the pressure on Capital One, Bank of America, and American Express is an integral part of the strategy to shift the industry towards something greener and less annoying than junk mail.
Don’t forget to tell us about your action!
P.S. Didn’t get a postage-paid envelope to one of the top three offenders? Well, if you’re up to splurging a bit to purchase a stamp — you can send all of your junk mail in an envelope to any of these corporate headquarters:
Capital One
1680 Capital One Dr.
McLean, VA 22102-3407
Bank of America
100 N. Tryon St., Bank of America Corporate Center
Charlotte, NC 28255
American Express
200 Vesey Street
NY, NY 10285
Chase
270 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017-2014
Citibank
399 Park Ave.
New York, NY 10022
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by forestethics, James Beswick. James Beswick said: Do Not Mail: join Return to Offender day and say no to junk mail – http://su.pr/1XOZ2i [...]
This pamphlet is super hilarious.
This small, sixteen-page pamphlet is produced to put inside the postage-paid, business-reply envelopes that come with junk mail offers. Every envelope collected is stuffed with the pamphlet and mailed back to its original company.
http://centennialsociety.com/business_reply/businessreply.htm
I haven’t received such mail in years. Here’s how to get off mailings:
DMA
Will remove/give options on
Credit
Catalogues
Magazine Offers
Other Mail Offers
https://www.dmachoice.org/dma/member/regist.action
What you need:
Name
Address
Email address
Password for the DMA account registration
DMA will send the registration to your email address—you need to activate DMA’s link
Your partner/spouse’s info (see above)
Other DMA options found in the FAQ’s:
Deceased –Deceased Do Not Contact List.
No mail for dependents: Do Not Contact for Caregivers List.
EMAIL
On the DMA Home page: click on Register for eMPS in the “More Than Just Mail” box.
OTHER (Not Covered by DMA)
Money Mailer
http://moneymailer.com/company-info/contact-us
Valpak is the blue envelope with local merchants’ coupons inside addressed to “Resident” and then your address. It takes seconds to remove yourself:_http://www.coxtarget.com/mailsuppression/s/DisplayMailSuppressionForm__
RedPlum is the medley of grocery offerings: http://www.valassis.com/1024/Contact/consumersupport.aspx_
Haines and Company—uses your home purchase info
1 800 843-8452. ask for research OR email criscros@haines.com
NEWSPAPERS
The Examiner
Enter street address and email only-don’t need your name:
http://intranet.dcexaminer.com/examinerintranet/stopdeliveryreq.cfm
TELEPHONE DIRECTORIES (~500 mil get published ea year in the US!)
Verizon White and Yellow Pages (Idearc): 1(800) 888-8448 Option 2. By the end of 2009, there will be a tab on http://www.idearc.com
Yellow Book USA 1-800 929-3556, option 3 OR http://corporate.yellowbook.com/products/print-directory-options-opt-out/
Use online links instead:
http://www.superpages.com (VerizonYellow Pages)
http://www.yellowbook.com (ATT Yellow Pages)
INTERNET
Acxiom—Opt-Out Cookie to reduce targeted online advertising (based on your internet use not email—this may actually be useful to you so consider this option carefully)
http://www.acxiom.com/products_and_services/digital/relevance-x/relevance-x_opt_out/pages/relevance-xopt-out.aspx
TELEPHONE CALLS
Federal Trade Commission’s Do-Not-Call Registry
http://www.donotcall.gov or by phone 1-888-382-1222.
Notes:
(1) DMAchoice (2009/9) covers the following database collectors:
Donnelley Markteting
Epsilon
Equifax
Experian
INNOVIS
TransUnion
Publishers Clearinghouse
Readers Digest
(2) DMA represents about 80% of the total volume of marketing mail in the United States.
• Opting out stops most new direct mail solicitations, reducing mail volume by up to 80%.
• DMA’s Mail Preference Service stopped 930 million pieces of direct mail from being sent in the United States.
• takes 3-6 months to take effect
(3) ADVO merged with Valassis
(4) Opt-out info on the telephone books http://www.insideyp.org/tag/opt-out/
That’s a great set of resources from Caroline. While this long list of complicated procedures may indeed reduce or even eliminate most junk mail, thought, it’s very unlikely that many people will actually take all these steps. What we need is a simple, easy and enforceable way to get off the lists.
[...] http://donotmail.org/blog/2009/11/return-to-offender-day-of-action-is-here/ [...]
I just ask the mail carrier. She say that I can just write ANK outside of the envelope and leave it in a place where she can see it. Then she can returned back or something.
Let me preface these comments by saying I’ve been battling to protect my privacy & reduce the dung dumped into my mailbox for nearly 30 years. I wrote semiannual letters begging junkers, credit bureaus & the DMA to not mail to me or help reduce the garbage flood & mailed postage-paid envelopes out of spite. I got nothing but more junk mail for my efforts.
In addition, I worked on two lengthy computer application projects for two of the nation’s largest junk mail firms. From them I derived extraordinary insight into junkers’ methods, policies, operations & philosophies.
I had many conversations with junk mail executives & senior managers, and all professed the standard junk mail line, “many people want the offers they we send.” Maybe so & my experience is certainly not scientific, but I’ve never met anyone who has anything positive to say about the refuse inundating their mailboxes. Many folks are far less worked about it than we are & say they just toss it in the trash, but most opined disgust with junk mail’s waste & intrusion, and the senders’ inconsideration. Still, I learned a tremendous amount while working on those projects.
Folks, there’s serious misunderstanding about the effectiveness of returning junk mail in postage-paid envelopes, begging junkers (most of ‘em anyway) to stop mailing you their trash & opting out via the Direct Marketing Association.
Over 99% of all junk mail is sent at USPS bulk rates & that mail class does *not* include the return of undeliverable mail. Upon returning to their stations, carriers *discard* straight into the trash (maybe they recycle, maybe not) *all* bulk mail on which an addressee writes “return to sender,” “wrong address,” “not here” or the like. *None* of it’s returned to the sender.
Mailing postage-paid envelopes & thus forcing the sender to incur the expense may give the original recipient some feeling of satisfaction or revenge, but it too is a waste of time. First, relative to the millions (literally) that are mailed, only an infinitesimal percentage of such envelopes are returned by offended addressees. The cost is minuscule & has no effect whatsoever on what or to whom the mailer sends its next batch of litter.
Second, the employee monitoring the machine that opens & extracts the envelopes’ contents removes from the feeder & discards any envelope containing more than the expected number of items. (Even this is probably handled by machine by now. Technological advancements in the machinery probably enable them to weigh the envelopes & reject those heavier than some adjustable tolerance.)
Misunderstanding the DMA & its mission is perhaps the greatest failure of folks who enroll on their suppression lists.
The DMA is an industry trade & lobbying organization. It exists only to serve the abhorrent reprobates who usurp the right to vomit in our mailboxes. It is utterly and unabashedly indifferent to the public’s rights or wishes. Its mail suppression lists exist only to placate legislators who occasionally forget the huge sums they earn from junk mailers and dare to propose paltry increases to our already feeble privacy protections.
As for reaching the DMA-asserted 80-90% of mailers via its opt-out lists, the facts are decidedly different. First, less than 20% percent of all muckmail degenerates belong to the DMA. Second, less than 5% of those firms even bother to obtain the suppression files (they print & distribute expensive five-color catalogs & really don’t want to send them to those who don’t want them & thus won’t buy from them). Because the DMA’s *only* mission is to further the cause of the egotistical sleazebags who assume our mailboxes are their private toilets, one is greatly mistaken in believing that writing the DMA is anything but an abject waste of time, paper and postage.
I may be proven wrong — and I truly hope that happens — but I don’t believe a do-not-mail list will ever come to pass, certainly not in the foreseeable future (20 years?). Reputable studies show the USPS will cease to be a going concern if Americans are permitted to opt out of junk mail. The USPS simply cannot survive on first class mail & package revenues, certainly not as we know it today. So what?
Some company (UPS & FedEx are those most frequently mentioned) will step in to Will it cost us more to send greeting cards & gifts & commercial packages? Most assuredly it will, but so what? You can have the USPS’ bloated, inefficient bureaucracy that supports a fleet of unionized, largely apathetic workers that are managed by dictatorial supervisors & administrators who epitomize the Peter Principle, or you can pay more for those services from the USPS’ replacement.
While I have no facts or figures to support it, I believe the reduction in taxes from the USPS’ demise or radical contraction will be more than the increased costs of mailing greeting cards, gifts & small packages.
The Seattle City Council’s resolution is admirable, but I’m betting the Washington legislature says the same thing & takes no action. The facts are that trashmail is a billion dollar industry that can afford the best lobbyists & that they lard our legislators with hundreds of thousands of dollars. Money talks & politicians aren’t known to bite the hands that write the checks.
Perhaps junkers will see the writing on the wall & implement a centralized, easy-to-use, completely effective opt-out process. Perhaps legislators will mandate such a process under the threat of a do-not-mail list. However, I don’t think either is on the near horizon.
But as I learned & as I commented to another entry in this blog, what *does* work — almost without fail — are USPS Prohibitory Orders. Yes, using them is tedious. You must be diligent & determined to eradicate junk mail from your life. You must file an application for *every* junker who spews in your mailbox & you must complain to the Prohibitory Order Processing Center about every mailer who violates your PO against him. But I can attest that POs *work* & work well. And yes, it takes at least six months to see any results, but you’ll be down to 2-3 items per month by the end of a year & it’ll be 1-2 pieces per quarter after 18 months. I’ve logged one trash mailpiece per quarter for the last 31 consecutive quarters.
For me, POs have been a *much* more effective use of my time & energy. I streamlined my app process (recreated the USPS form a Word document and later wrote a program to automate it further) & have long been able to mail an app the same day my carrier deposited the turd in my mailbox. Truly, POs have been successful beyond my greatest expectations.
I’ve only been unable to stop AT&T from mailing to me. Complaints & court appearances have stopped all other repeat violators. (The US Attorneys General will no longer file court cases, but the USPS Complaints are work for everyone else.) Now I just waste AT&T reps’ time with persistent complaints.
I have no rocks to throw at those who campaign for do-not-mail lists, who pressure companies to change their ways & methods, etc. They’re admirable but none of those tactics have an immediate, lasting effect like the PO. You can get the USPS form at http://tinyurl.com/yblxxf if you’re interested. I’ve developed several tips & tricks to share with anyone who’s really serious about stopping junk mail & who wants to use their time effectively. Write me directly at bluhfurble –at– yahoo –dot– com.
Best wishes,
Dilly
Вы ошибаетесь. Могу это доказать. Пишите мне в PM, пообщаемся….
You think junk mail is a colossal waste of paper, right? Of course you do…..
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