Get Off the Junk Mail Circuit

Dear Elaine: In your recent column about junk mail, you suggested that when you write a check to a charity, request that your name not be added to their mailing list. I tried this, without success, for many years. My pleas always fell on deaf ears.

I figured that the staff was simply following procedures, so I came up with a sure-fire solution: When you write a check to a charity, cross out your personal information that is preprinted on the check. This makes it impossible for them to get your personal information to add to their mailing list, but they can still get your money.

--KIRK MILLER

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Dear Elaine: I am writing regarding your recent column on junk mail. I take issue with your suggestion about not filling out warranty cards.

I almost learned the hard way the consequences of not returning warranty cards. I bought a bread maker that began having problems soon after the warranty had expired. When I called the manufacturer, I found that the product had been recalled, but I was not notified because they had no record of my purchase. I was lucky that the company replaced the machine, even though they had no obligation to do so.

--BONNIE POUCHER

Dear Bonnie: There are those darned bread makers again! But you’re absolutely right. Thanks for pointing this out.

But keep in mind that, even when returning a warranty card for the purpose of being notified about product recalls, you need provide only your name, address and the product serial number.

Also, unless you want to get back on all those junk mailing lists, be sure to request on the warranty card that they not sell your name.

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Dear Elaine: Every time I join an organization, subscribe to a magazine, or place an order with a company, I list a bogus apartment number with my street address. That way, whenever somebody sells my name against my wishes, it’s easy to figure out who did it. (And it does happen.) Then I send another delete request to the offending organization or magazine. I figure the less junk mail, the better!

--MEL GARBER

Dear Mel: Yes, that works. So does adding an initial to your name as part of your own code for figuring out who is selling your name. But if you do these things, it helps to keep track of the code, perhaps in your address book, or you can easily forget who’s who.

The innocent reader may not think these schemes are necessary, but read on.

Dear Elaine: I have been struggling for almost four years with a junk mail problem. I have taken all the steps you suggested in your recent column and am at my wits’ end (what few I have left!).

A dear friend passed away in August l995. I was the executor of her estate and since she resided about 200 miles from me, I arranged to have her mail forwarded to my address.

Needless to say, my friend has ordered nothing, donated nothing, subscribed to nothing, has no telephone, and no longer has a driver’s license. However, I continue to receive junk mail addressed to her at my home address. I have written to the Mail Preference Service; I have called toll-free numbers to request removal of her name and my address from their records; I have begged, pleaded, gotten furious, all to no avail.

Do you have any suggestions?

--STILL PLEADING

Dear Pleading: This is a toughie, but here are two things you can try.

First, write to the Mail Preference Service again (P.O. Box 9008, Farmingdale, NY 11735) and list all variations of your friend’s name. For example, if her name was Elizabeth but she was also called Liz or Lizbeth, list all three names with her last name. If she sometimes used a middle initial, list her name with and without the initial. If she also used her husband’s name, list all variations of his name and initials, as in Mrs. John D. Doe, Mrs J.D. Doe, etc.

Second, write “Deceased” on every piece of mail you get in her name and return it in the postage-paid envelope provided. Mailings have become so expensive that, as desperate as some of these mailers are for a warm body, even they realize that the chances are unlikely that someone will come back from the hereafter to place an order with them.

Third, though the post office won’t volunteer this, you can refuse any piece of mail. Maybe if we refuse enough mail, the post office will revise the mail rates so that direct mailers will also have to pay for the disposal and environmental costs of their sales pitches.

Elaine St. James is the author of “Simplify Your Life” and “Simplify Your Life With Kids.” For questions or comments, write to her in care of Universal Press Syndicate, 4520 Main St., Kansas City, MO 64111, or e-mail her at estjames@silcom.com.