No More Junk Mail! Receive The Mail You Want - Not the Mail You Don't Want

One thing I noticed immediately from living abroad versus the US is the amount of unsolicited mail we received. Credit card offers a plenty, at least one a day, requests for donations, insurance quotes, or advertisements. Just as your internet provider has a way to protect against spam email, the US post office has a way of protecting you from mass unwanted mailings.

You can do so much online these days and using your postal system is no exception. You can now place your mail on hold, change your address, forward your mail, and even order stamps to be placed in your mailbox.

The US Postal Inspection Service has a website link where one can remove their name from mass mailing lists. You can also remove your email address from mass email lists. The link will take you to a site called the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) Consumer Assistance page.

Once at this site you can elect to remove your information online or via mail in request. Whether you complete the registration online or via the postal system either request has a fee of $1 to complete. The other options are to be removed, or "Opt-out," of an individual company's mailing list, and to Opt-out of pre-screened credit and insurance offers. Of course the website lists that the easiest way to be removed from an individual company is to contact them directly and request to be removed from their mailing list. Many companies will comply with the request immediately. However, should you wish to not receive credit card or insurance offers then there is a few more steps you need to follow.

You can visit the opt-out prescreen credit and insurance website, or you can phone 1-888-567-8688 (1-888-5OptOut) and follow the prompted automated steps to complete the request. I did both the website and the phone just to be absolutely sure I would be removed from the lists, also I wanted to be sure the phone request had the correct name spelling-sometimes "f" and "s" sound alike on the phone. This request will be good for five (5) years, but there is another option.

If you would like to never receive another firm credit offer then you can choose to opt-out for life. When you reach the Opt-out prescreen website it explains that the credit offers come from four consumer credit reporting agencies; Equifax, TransUnion, Innovis, and Experian. Click the large green rectangle link at the bottom on the page and this will allow to Opt-out (or Opt-in) to credit offers for 5 years. On this new page you can elect to Opt-out permanently via mail.

It does take 30-90 days for the mailings to completely stop and some credit offers may still occasionally arrive in your mailbox. This is due to some institutions not using the DMA or the listed consumer credit reporting agencies.

To help rid unwanted junk mail the steps to follow are:

1. Go to the USPS postal inspection service website linked here

2. Click the link to your choice of option for removal (mailing lists or email)

3. Click the link to DMA Consumer Assistance

4. Fill out the registration form online or mail in the necessary forms with $1 fee

5. To Opt-out of prescreened credit offers click the prescreened link, or dial the phone number listed to follow the automated prompts.

This does take a bit of work on your part, however the rewards of not having to deal with the junk mail is beneficial. If you simply throw away the credit offers in the trash you leave yourself vulnerable for identity theft. There are those who may go through your trash to find such items, sign them, and then send them back with a change of address listed on the form. Additionally, credit offers have been taken from mailboxes with the same result. All the while the actual person is none the wiser until their credit is damaged or destroyed.

You have a personal shredder just for such things you say? Well then even better. I shred all unsolicited credit offers of any kind. However, this takes up my time and can be a tedious job when I didn't ask for the mail to be sent to me. If it is never sent then I don't have to be burdened by it.