Death ends taxes, but not junk mail
By NANCY PARADIS
Published November 18, 2005
It's clearly indicated by your Nov. 11 column that you have NO knowledge of the internal operations of bulk junk mail.
Bulk junk mail is directed from massive address mailing lists purchased from the government, private individuals, the Internet and corporations. To get your name off these lists you have to be D-E-A-D. Yes, that's dead, as in not able to purchase anything.
It's easy to stop bulk junk mail. Just send back the reply card as follows:
If it's for your wife, write "Please take this name off your lists; my wife is dead."
If it's for your husband, write "Please take this name off your lists; my husband is dead."
If it's for your business, write "Please take this name off your lists; my business is bankrupt."
I have a post office box for all of my business correspondence - conferences, seminars, conventions - and use the bankruptcy message on the reply cards. I have rubber stamps for the dead and bankrupt messages.
In many cases, the reply card is not postage-paid, in which case I place a stamp on it with my dead or bankrupt message.
I am sorry you wasted a lot of space in your column, when "dead" is all that's required to stop all junk mail in America.
Let's call junk mail what it is: fishing for suckers. If you bite, you're the sucker.
- Joe Poston
Sorry, but we disagree with you. If the person receiving the junk mail is in fact deceased, we have no problem with your suggestion. However, if this is not the case, we do. It's called being dishonest. Plus, being dead is not a guarantee of being removed from mailing lists. Action has received letters from distraught readers who have been unable to get deceased spouses, for instance, removed from such lists. Secondly, we can imagine situations where being reported deceased could have unintended consequences, such as not receiving legitimate mail or notices.
We contacted Gary Sawtelle, spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service in Tampa, and he sent us the Postal Service's official response to questions about reducing junk mail. We are printing "Stop Delivering Standard Mail-AdMail" in its entirely, given that it's the "final" word. If it sounds familiar, it should: In addition to some interesting information, it bears a striking resemblance to the column to which you take such exception:
"In discussing standard mail, it is important to recognize that the American system of government places a high value on the right of its citizens to receive information and on the right of businesses to provide information. And it plays an important role in the American economy. Advertising mail creates millions of jobs across the country. Printers, typesetters, mail carriers, mail clerks, truck drivers, warehouse workers, paper recyclers, sales people, office workers, people in the advertising industry, telephone order takers, and millions more. They pay the mortgages, buy food, go to the movies, send their kids to college and pay taxes with the money they earn from advertising mail.
"Advertising mail is at the core of the $900-billion mail industry. It drives billions of dollars in economic activity. This year alone, $50-million will be spent creating advertising mail that will generate sales for the corner stores, through bargain coupons delivered locally, and national corporations that mail coupons to every state. Mail order also provides individuals with a way to shop when they want, at a place they find comfortable. Consumers read 74 percent of advertising mail, almost 10 percent respond to the offers and requests, and 21 percent of all consumers take admail with them when they shop.
"A common misconception is that admail is to blame for the nation's solid waste disposal problems. A great deal of advertising mail is made from recycled paper. The EPA says that advertising mail does not create massive amounts of waste. It is only 4/10,000ths of the 13-billion tons of municipal solid waste that America creates annually. It's a paper clip compared to an aircraft carrier. Shopping at home reduces the number of traffic accidents, the amount of pollution emitted by automobiles, and the amount of gasoline purchased per year. From our perspective, advertising mail helps us keep postage rates stable. The postage paid for each piece of standard mail contributes to our overall fixed costs, which helps us keep the cost of each class of mail reasonable. Nonetheless, direct marketing companies recognize that some customers do not wish to receive any advertising mail.
"The Direct Marketing Association sponsors Mail Preference Service, which has been helping consumers to limit the national admail they receive since 1971. To receive less national admail, you can simply send your name and address to: Mail Preference Service, Direct Marketing Association, P. O. Box 643, Carmel, NY 10512-0643; www.e-mps.org
"The Direct Marketing Association tells us that you should be aware, however, that when you place your name on the DMA Mail Preference Service listing, you will no longer receive mailings about new products, magazines, books, records or tapes offered at mail order prices. Holiday catalogs will disappear, as will free product samples. It is important to recognize that when you request your name be removed from advertisers' mailing lists, you cannot pick and choose which admail you want to eliminate. You may also contact the following organizations to have your name removed from mailing lists: Equifax Inc., Name Removal Option, P.O. Box 740241, Atlanta, GA 30374-0241, www.equifax.com Experian, Attn: Customer Service Dept., 901 W Bond St., Lincoln, NE 68521-3694, www.experian.com Trans Union LLC, National Removal Option, P.O. Box 97328, Jackson, MS 39288-7328, www.transunion.com
"No comparable organization represents local advertisers. However, many businesses will gladly remove a customer's name from their local listings if asked, and many clearly announce this service on their customer information pages or on the order form itself.
"It is important to recognize that the Postal Service is required by federal law to deliver the nation's mail. We do not have the authority to deny business mailers the service for which they have paid any more than we can refuse to deliver your personal mail on which you have paid postage. On the other hand, federal law does give us the right to help you curtail sexually oriented advertisements. To do this, you may ask your local postmaster to assist you in filing a Postal Service Form 1500, Application for Listing and/or Prohibitory Order. This will result in your name and address being placed on a national list to which all mailers of sexually oriented mail are required to refer before mailing. Any mailer who sends unsolicited sexually oriented advertisements to persons on this list may be subject to civil action or, for willful violations, criminal penalties. You have the right to stop sexually oriented advertisements from a specific mailer. The Postal Service Form 1500 mentioned above is also used to prohibit a specific mailer from mailing sexually oriented advertisements to you. For more information, go to www.usps.com/about/behere/advertisingmyths.htm
Action solves problems and gets answers for you. If you have a question, or your own attempts to resolve a consumer complaint have failed, write Times Action, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731, e-mail action@sptimes.com or call your Action number, 727 893-8171, or, outside of Pinellas, toll-free 1-800-333-7505, ext. 8171, to leave a recorded request.
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