How to Stop Unwanted Junk Mail

Mailbox full of offers for secured credit cards and solicitations to save the whales? You can reduce the clutter by writing a few letters or making a few phone calls. These instructions are for paper junk mail, not email. (See How to Stop Unwanted Email.)

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

1. Contact the company sending you the unwanted mail and ask a supervisor there to remove your name and address from the company's mailing list. Insist that the supervisor tell you where the company got your name. If your request is continually denied, ask to speak to the supervisor's superior.
2. Contact the company that provided your name and request that you be removed from its database as well. This company will likely specialize in selling names and addresses for mailing lists (a "list broker"). Insist that the person you speak with tell you where the list broker got your name.
3. Contact the company that provided the list broker with your name and request that it not disclose your name and address in the future.
4. Contact any company that regularly sends you a bill and ask that it not release your name and address to other companies.
5. Write to the Direct Marketing Association Mail Preference Service and ask that your name, address and phone number be deleted from all mailing and marketing lists.