Discover how to stop receiving junk mail at home. Following these simple tips, not only reduces annoying unwanted mail, but also helps save trees.
Is your mailbox at home overflowing with junk mail from companies you’ve never even heard of?
You’re not alone.
If you’re sick of sorting and shredding junk mail, you can get rid of it in just a few simple steps. And most of them, you can complete online.
Here’s how to stop spam mail and have less paper clutter in your house.
What Is Junk Mail?
First of all, let me clarify what junk mail is exactly.
It’s unwanted advertising or promotional material received through the mail or email.
Companies get your personal information and use it to start sending you unsolicited mail.
Be careful about any checkboxes you might tick when you’re sharing your information with a company and read the fine print to see what exactly you’re agreeing to.
How To Stop Receiving Junk Mail
1. Unsubscribe From Catalogs
When you do business with a company, they’ll often collect your contact information and use this to send you promotional mail like catalogs.
Banks may send you pre-approved credit cards hoping to you’ll take them up on the offer.
Sometimes, you may just receive junk mail that’s been distributed to every mailbox in the neighborhood.
One way to opt-out of receiving these in the future is to contact the company’s customer service, but it’s much easier and far less time-consuming to remove your name from these lists altogether.
DMAchoice.org is a service approved by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that allows you to remove your information from several lists. It’s run by the Data & Marketing Association and is free.
All you need to do is sign up and remove your name from the lists you choose. You can also use this service to stop mail for someone who’s deceased.
2. Opt-Out of Credit Card and Insurance Offers
Receiving lots of credit card and insurance offers in the mail means you have to take extra time to shred and dispose of these documents properly. They contain sensitive information that you definitely don’t want floating around for identity thieves to get their hands on.
To unsubscribe from these, you’ll need to sign up for OptOutPreScreen.com, a service created by major credit reporting agencies.
There’s the option to unsubscribe for five years online and permanently from physical mail.
You will need to provide personal information including your social security number but this is another legitimate service recommended by the FTC. They already have this information but they need to verify that you are who you’re claiming to be.
3. Get Rid Of Mail Meant For Previous Residents
If the people who lived in your home before you never changed their postal address, you’ll have mail turning up at your door for them. So, in addition to your mail and junk mail, you’ll also be receiving theirs.
And, in some instances, it might even be illegal to throw that mail away.
Frustrating right?
Well, there are a few things you can do to solve this problem:
- Leave a note on the side of your mailbox to alert the postal carrier that the person no longer lives at that address.
- Cross out the barcode on the envelope, write “Return to Sender: Recipient Removed” on the front and place it back in the mailbox. Crossing out the barcode will cause the postal system to register the mail as undeliverable.
- If you still continue to receive mail for that person, file a complaint with the postmaster.
4. Use a Stop Junk Mail App
Unfortunately, you may still receive unsolicited mail from local businesses that don’t use the lists you opted out of. When you do get these, you could sort them into a separate pile and contact each of them requesting that they stop sending you mail.
The alternative is to use an app designed to stop junk mail. An example of these is Paper Karma — an app available for both Android and Apple devices that allows you to take a photo of your junk mail and stop it.
Give It Time
Once you’ve requested that you stop getting junk mail, give it some time.
You may continue to receive promotional material a little while afterwards because the mailing lists are compiled long before the mail is even sent out.
However, over time you should see a decrease in the amount of unwanted mail that’s delivered to your home.