Return to Sender: Junk Mail Revenge
Junk mail is annoying, isn’t it? And even though you sign up for those "do not mail" lists and do everything possible to prevent junk mail, it still creeps up into our mailbox.
One thing I’ve noticed lately is a flood of credit card offers coming to my house. So instead of calling each mailer up and asking them to stop sending me solicitations, I figure I’d give them a taste of their own medicine: make them pay for it.
Inside the junk mail packets, you’ll usually find a Business Reply Mail envelope. These are postage-paid by the addressee, meaning when, say, the credit card company gets it in the mail, they have to pay the postage for it.
So, I figure if they are sending me these mailing unsolicited, then I can send it right back to them in their own envelope unsolicited, too. I basically stuff those envelopes with everything they sent me and drop it in the mail.
If everyone did this, you can imagine this could stop junk mail altogether. If it hits them in the wallet, it will stop….
great Idea! I am going to start doing this as well.
Kathie
I love this idea! Thanks for sharing!
It seems that you are not alone
http://stanleybing.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2007/12/11/help-im-being-hounded-by-chase/
Didn’t Andy Rooney do a piece about this? Ever since I read it, I’ve been doing the same thing … going on two years now.
Danny-
Instead of allowing the credit card offers to continue rolling in, call the Opt-out number for all 4 credit bureaus: 1-888-5-OPTOUT. It will put you on the credit card “do not mail” list for several years and then you will only receive offers from the companies you already have a card with – and then you can call them as well and tell them not to send you offers.
I did this two years ago and have not received ONE offer since. It only took me about ten minutes.
Better to nip the junkmail in the bud if you ask me!
-Sara
Hahaha – I love this idea!
Great idea! I will start doing this immediately. I have been enjoying your blog. Thanks.
I’m tempted to do this. However, it will have to be mailed which takes up resources and it won’t be recycled this way…
I did the opt out option online and stopped receiving credit card offers, except from my own banks.
OMG what a brilliant Idea. I will start doing this.
I work in publishing (we are no heavy solicitors as we’re BtoB) and we tend to get a handful of blank business reply cards – which came out of our magazine – in the mail each year. If you don’t want companies to solicit, just make sure to include something saying “don’t mail to me” (red ink on the offer should work well) – don’t assume everything is coded and that the company “knows” who is returning the blank envelope – because they might not!
Yeah, but what’s the carbon cost of shipping it back, and will they recycle it on their end?
We have a mailing list we use for ONLY customers that have bought or requested information from us and we NEVER trade or sell our list. We sometimes have people move without udating us and new home owners will sometimes send back the info in the reply envelope. There are three reasons this is a bad idea, 1. the recipient usually doesn’t include their name and address so we can’t then remove them from the list, 2. many small businesses and non-profits use direct mail instead of expensive non-targeted ad campaigns and they need to make money too, 3. it is another trip on a plane, train or truck to return that envelope.
I agree with Sarah’s suggestion, try opting out – it hit’s the biggest, richest and most prolific users of the postal system.
I have been doing this for years! It works.
I printed stickers (red ink) and I stick one on each offer that says, “I am not interested in your products and services. Please remove my name from your mailing list.”
I stuff EVERYTHING in the return envelope (including the original envelope) and drop it in the mailbox.
ha-ha! great idea!
I’ve been doing this for years and it always makes me smile.
i agree with some people about sending the letters back costing resources and contributing to carbon emissions from the shipping.
i use the junk mail envelopes to store receipts, scrap paper or cutouts for crafts, and other odds & ends.
a friend of mine turns them inside out and re-uses them. she says that the steam from a hot shower unbinds the adhesive pretty easily. i hold them over a steaming pot of soup or a rice maker to do the same thing.
While not as vindictive as sending back the companies prepaid envelopes, a company called Green Dimes (http://www.greendimes.com) will work to remove you from and keep you off of all sorts of junk mail lists. I signed up a couple of years ago and saw a huge decline in the amount of junk mail I got. I no longer get ads from credit card companies and the number of catalogs I get has been dramatically reduced. Green Dimes actually lets you choose which ones you want to continue getting while removing you from all the other mailing lists. I think that currently they do this for a one time fee of $15. I think it has been totally worth it. We get so much less junk than we used to.
I just called the opt-out #,it was easy! Thanks Sara!
I’ve been doing this for several years now, and I not only send them their own junk back, but I send them as much OTHER stuff as I can cram into the envelope, including newspaper circulars and other junk mail that DOESN’T have a post-paid envelope. I’ll stuff it so full that I actually have to use tape to hold it closed. I’m very generous, too, as I’ll even send them coupons for pizza, car washes, carpet cleaning, replacement windows, tune-ups, brake jobs and vinyl siding. I hope they enjoy what I send THEM as much as I enjoy the crap they send ME. *snort!*
There is an environmental cost to sending them this stuff, but if everyone did it, they wouldn’t send that stuff at all. It’s like a boycott, only better!
My brother does this. He also includes some extra junk mail. He once cut up a pizza box into tiny pieces and mailed that back to a credit card company. It needed a bit of tape to keep the envelope closed, but didn’t cost him for postage. LOL.
The other day I filled up my entire recycling bin with junk mail. I going to take revenge, and tell others to do so, and give it all back. Great advice:-)
I used to try to get credit card offers stop and after telling the different companies to stop sending the offers; I found this out. There are a few companies which exist and they are affiliated with most of the credit card offers and what that means is this. If you have a credit card with Chase for instance then you have given Chase your permission for them to send credit card offers. One of the best ways I know to stop the offers is to cancel as many credit cards as you can; since the more credit cards you have the more doors you open up for offers. My fix was to consolidate as many offers and or transfer the balances to a single credit card and close the other accounts.
funny. I opt out however it never ceases to amaze me how this type of unsolicited mail still seems to slip thru. Thanks for the tip! maybe it will slow down the flow of junk!
I’ve done that a million times and continue to get offers from the same companies – I’ve registered with OptOut but don’t see any decline in a year.
HELPPPPPPPP!
I love the idea of sending the junk back to the sender in their own envelope, but what I really do is shred anything that has my name/address on it and then recycle the shredded paper.
@Faux Woods Blinds Gal: While this may reduce the junk mail, the credit experts will tell you that doing this actually hurts your credit rating.
Oops! my comment should have been directed to: 0%creditcardoffers
I Put gospel tracts in business reply envelopes & mail it back to them !~
I am sick of it to , i have been stuffing all the junk they send and send it in the envelope that they have a return stamp postage on it.
I think this will eventually slow it down if nothing else.