How to Eliminate Junk Mail

Junk mail. We all get it. And too much of it at that. It’s annoying, but that’s not the worst of it. Junk mail also puts you at risk for having your identity stolen. Almost any kind of junk mail allows thieves the opportunity to steal your name and address. But pre-approved mortgage or credit card offers also allow thieves a direct entry point to open fraudulent accounts in your name. So, getting rid of junk mail might not be merely a matter of convenience, but also a matter of protecting your identity.

How Can You Get Rid of Junk Mail?

Although research shows that you might not ever be able to completely eradicate junk mail, there are at least seven things you can do to significantly reduce the amount you regularly receive.

1) Opt out of pre-approved offers. Your highest risk of identity theft related to junk mail comes from pre-approved credit offers. So when it comes to eradicating junk mail, this is where you want to start. www.optoutprescreen.com is the official consumer credit reporting industry website for opting out of all pre-approved offers. You can sign up online to opt out of receiving all pre-approved credit offers for five years, or you can obtain a mail-in form to opt out of those same offers permanently. No matter which option you choose, you will always be given the opportunity to opt back in at anytime. The consumer credit reporting agency cautions that opting out might not be as good of a deal as initially thought since you might miss exclusive interest rates that are only advertised to pre-approved consumers. So consider all of your options carefully before hastily signing up.

2) Remove yourself from the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) lists. The catalog and direct marketing community use the DMA to help generate leads and to help determine who to mail certain advertisements to. By visiting their website at www.the-dma.org you can choose which organization’s lists you wish to be removed from. This allows you to control which catalogs and special offers you will still receive, while helping eradicate any that are unsolicited.

3) Sign up for the National Do Not Call Registry. In addition to identity thieves using junk mail to steal your identity, some identity fraud has been known to happen over the phone with thieves who pose as legitimate banks, companies or other institutions calling to verify your information or sell you certain products. By registering for the National Do Not Call Registry, you can eliminate phone calls from legitimate companies. That way, if you receive a telemarketing phone call you will know that it is probably not legitimate and you shouldn’t give your information out. In general, you shouldn’t give out any personal information over the phone unless you initiated the conversation and you are certain of who you are talking to.

4) Make sure your phone number and address are unlisted. Some companies that send out mass mailers use the local phone book as a starting point to generate leads. If you aren’t listed, you will significantly reduce the amount of junk mail and unsolicited phone calls you receive and therefore lower your potential risk of identity theft.     

5) Don’t fill out warranty cards. Warranty cards are generally a ploy to trick you into giving your private information to a company who can turn around and sell it to partner companies. If you look closely, many of the questions asked on those cards refer to demographic information. Having small children in your home or making a combined six-figure income have nothing to do with the refrigerator you just bought, but they sure help companies determine the best way to target market you. Avoid filling out warranty cards if you want to limit the amount of junk mail you receive. Almost all products will still be covered under a limited warranty even if you don’t send back the warranty card. The only thing you will generally miss out on if you don’t return your warranty card is product recalls. If you still want to be notified of recalls, but you don’t want the junk mail, then simply fill out the sections for your name, address and product serial number before returning the warranty card and leave the other fields blank.

6) Do not fill out a change of address form when you move. If you fill out a change of address form when you move, you are unknowingly authorizing the United States Postal Service (USPS) to sell or give your information to their twenty-four partner companies. Currently, there isn’t a way to register your change of address without authorizing them to do this. But there are still ways to beat the system. You can send your own change of address cards to friends and family members, you can register online or fill out the back of payment remittance forms to inform your creditors of your change of address and you can ask the post office to hold all of your mail and you can go in and pick it up while people are still updating their address books to contain your new information. It might sound like a hassle, but it will keep you from being inundated with junk mail in a new home.

7) Send certain junk mail back. If you receive a lot of junk mail that comes with postage paid return envelopes (these usually come from places asking for donations or money of some sort) you can write a letter asking them to remove you from their mailing list and place it in the postage paid envelope so the soliciting company will have to pay the fifty cents it costs to mail your letter. Make sure your name and address are clearly printed on your letter so they know who to remove from their list.    

There is no perfect way to beat the junk mail system, and it can be a very time consuming process to do all seven of these things. But, if you plan on staying at your current address for any significant length of time then doing these things could really pay off in the end. The less information that exists with your personal information on it, the lower your chances are of identity thieves getting their hands on it. Every step taken towards identity theft protection is a step in the right direction no matter how big or small it may seem.