OT: Junk Mail Mitigation Techniques?

[(PeteCresswell)]

Close family member.... good-hearted, generous person but increasingly lacking critical-thinking skills.

This person keeps giving money to organizations that mail donation requests.

From the outside, it looks to me like there are one or more central databases of information about people who respond to donation request mailings: somebody responds to a mailing, and the database is updated.

Seems like whenever somebody responds to one of those mailings where, for instance, they include a dollar bill their profile gets updated with the fact that they respond to that particular button push....and so-on-and-so-forth.

Lately there has been a flood of those fake "Prize Notification" mailings where the aim seems to be to verify that the recipient is willing to perform a certain series of actions in the process of responding.

Bottom Line: we are getting huge amounts of charity solicitations... more with every passing month.... So many that legitimate mail is in danger of getting lost and this person spends hours and hours opening this crap... and sending out their hard-earned cash to a mixture of legitimate charities and borderline criminals.... increasingly (and mostly), IMHO, the latter.

I have tried being the first one to the mailbox and pulling this stuff out before they see it, but have gotten caught one too many times - so that is no longer an option.

The Question: Can anybody recommend techniques for dealing with this?

First thing I think of is writing "Deceased" on some of this stuff and hoping it gets returned to sender - but I'm thinking whatever central database there is would catch on as soon as there was a subsequent reply from the same person.

Beyond that, I'm at a loss.

Ideas?

[Ed Pawlowski]

Start here

I'd still try to get to the mailbox though, if at all possible.

[Don Y]

And, as you've discovered, that "earns" you more such "offers" (opportunities?)

I think many charities actually sell their donor lists. Yet another way to "make a buck".

Wouldn't *you* do that? Rather than looking to find a donation from a "cold" (potential) donor, you want, instead, to try someone who has demonstrated a willingness to donate in the past!

E.g., I "donate" ~500 hours annually to "charitable causes" (must be a 501(c)3 but that's just my own personal criterion). And, am frequently asked by people associated with the "cause du jour" whether I'd like to donate some of my time to *their* (other) cause. In their minds, this is more likely to get a desireable outcome than approaching someone on the street! Or, paying for an ad...

Move your *real* mail (bills, statements, etc.) to a POBox. Treat (almost) everything that comes to the house as garbage -- especially if it says "Urgent".

Make those donations that you want to make by using cashier's checks or money orders. You can fully specify the recipient (so it can't be diverted as CASH) yet keep your name and address off of it. And, you have a receipt for the tax man (if important).

You risk some other agency deciding you are deceased.

Another approach (but more for feel-good effect than verifiable result) is to draft a form letter that you include in any business reply envelopes. Something along the lines of: "We appreciate your need. However, due to the volume of solicitations, we've decided to restrict our donations to a select few charities. You may continue to solicit offers from us but this will just result in continued mailing costs on your part. If you think that is a good way to spend the funds donated by your other donors, we'll be sure to share that information with other friends and associates so they understand where any monies they donate to you will end up (being wasted)."

Just ride it out and cut off any identifiable outgoing donations. I.e., don't return any funds in ANY envelopes or accompanied by any materials that they've sent you -- as these can easily be "traced" to a particular outgoing mailing (i.e., *you*)

Sad, but they're practices have EARNED them this sort of treatment.

[badgolferman]

Give them a new email address, preferably Gmail. Their spam filtering is top notch.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

When my father died, I had his mail sent to my address. Most of the junk mail stopped after a couple of years, but some (all political orgs wanting money) continued for more than 10 years. I tried returning the reply cards marked "Deceased" but this seemed to have NO effect.

[bob haller]

if any of the mail comes with a postage paid return card............

attach the card to a box of bricks, and mail it back. the receiver will have to pay the postage. send along a do not send more mail to this adfdress ever again...

i actually knew the president of a company who sent out those postage paid return envelopes...

he had to pay and the heavier the better

[Frank]

Postage paid returns cost maybe 2-3X the cost of a first class stamp. I may send them back but not identify myself.

I hate these people that sell my address and limit my charities to just a few.

[bob haller]

mail a brick. might cost them 5 or 10 bucks. and why not identify yourself, attach a note, the next one will be a concrete block

its not worth them suing for such a small amount of money, but they will remove you from all future solicitation mail:)

i donated money to the carnegie science center. almost immediately i got begging requests from every other pittsbrgh organization.

i called the carnegie and they confirmed they share the lists.

i said you should ask first for permission.

so i mailed out 10 or so bricks with my name and address,. including one to the carnegie science center

never heard from any of them again, and its a long time ago, perhaps over 20 years

[Frank]

If problem got that bad, I might do something like that. Most junk is easy to identify and gets tossed unopened. Some are a PITA. I have a FIOS land line from Verizon and they are always hounding me to extend service. Have almost tossed the telephone bill but they print on envelope that it contains bill, otherwise rest of stuff from them gets tossed.

[badgolferman]

Yes, I noticed that afterward. Reading comprehension is lacking lately....

[ItsJoanNotJoann]

Banks are one of the WORST offenders for selling your name and addresses to direct marketing companies. Log onto your banks website and head over to their terms of services/privacy notifications. You can change your preference for your information not to be made available to direct marketers. It won't take too long and you'll find your junk mail shrinking quite a bit.

I do agree with those who have recommended using their included postage paid envelope and sending their junk mail back to them with a notation to "Remove my name AND address from your mailing list." Works wonders.

[ChairMan]

I got tried of all the credit card offers, so I put a credit freeze at all 3 credit bureaus and it has made a noticably difference in the amount of junk I get now

[bob haller]

I will NEVER EVER JOIN AARP! after their president called for cutting social security for anyone under 55. lucky me i was 54.

i called and complaied loudly.

i suggested we need a new organization for anyone under 55 to protect their social security benefits

social security and medicare can easily be fixed, by just elminating the earnings cap......

I hope aarp goes out of business..

[Jeff Wisnia]

Cecil said this stopped working back around 1984 because the heavy stuff you send back never gets to the originator. See:

Somewhat on topic, what annoys me more is that the charities I do support tend to send me repeated requests for donations every month or so. I think twice a year should be sufficient, don't you?

Jeff

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Jeff Wisnia:

I would agree - but add that those few additional solicitations from the charity I donate to pale in comparison to their making my name available to the rest of the charity world... it's like they have a centralized Sucker List and I get promoted every time I contribute to somebody.

I first noticed it when I made a donation to Amnesty International many years ago.... it was like I became a piece of meat hung out for the rest to feed upon.

[Frank]

I have a neighbor that got on the super sucker list. He fell for a scam that must have cost him a bundle. Where I might get Nigerian email scams he gets snail scam mail from Europe.

Today's world is annoying with everyone constantly seeking attention.

A recent letter to the editor said they would vote for president anyone that promised to rid them of telemarketers.

Local paper has paste on stickers that must be removed from front page. You often have to throw away the half front page that are just ads.

MS removed free game from Win 10 to give them back at ap store for free but with annoying dunnage to join x-box or pay to remove ads.