Stopping Junk Mail

Cabaal

well,
Recently bought myself a house and already getting junk mail to the house which is an awful waste and I'd rather not have to recycle stuff I didn't want in the first place.

I know there's a form that anpost have that you can fill out to stop alot of the junk mail but can't find it anywhere on their website.

Anyone able to help?

dahamsta

For addressed mail, see the bumph about the Mail Preference Service here. Your mileage may vary, it's a voluntary scheme and it would appear there may be some unscrupulous characters in the marketing industry, shock horror. After that you'll need to tackle the naughties individually, threatening them with the data protection act.

For unaddressed mail, which is a growing problem because of An Post's willingness to take a buck for any old crap, you're kind of screwed. You could try sticking a "No Junk Mail" notice on your door, but results will depend on your postie. An Post probably tell them that they have to post it anyway.

IMHO this should be addressed on a "green" level - the waste is absolutely enormous - but I'm not going to be the one to tackle this one.

adam

Cabaal

Most of what we've got is from Perlico, Sky etc and its unaddressed, this certainly should be approached on a green level as its the best bet given the ever increasing environmental concerns people have

tbh

ARe you talking about mail sent through the post, or flyers etc?

I found that we were getting a huge amount of menus, leaflets, flyers, free papers etc, so I stuck a label on our mailbox: "No leaflets, flyers or papers please". I was surprised how many people respected it, our junk mail dried up overnight. Someone ripped the label off (or it fell off) and the stream started again immediately, as soon as I put a new label up, it stopped again.

For mail sent through the post, call the company, ask to be taken off their mailing list and ask for the name of the person you are speaking to. Then say "Ok, name, can you now confirm that I will not receive any more mail from you after 28 days, as per the data protection act?" You'd be surprised how effective that is.

Saint_Mel

The problem in my case is the Perlico/SuperValu/Whatever leaflets and booklets being delivered by the postman along with whatever normal letters are sent.

I asked our postman once to stop shoving the rubbish through my letterbox and his reply was "I'm only doing my job!"

Actually heres a link to their service!

http://www.anpost.ie/AnPost/MainContent/Business+Customers/Our+Business+Services/Campaign+Posting/Publicity+Post.htm

calex71

yeah we get the take away menus etc from the postman also , went away for a week once and came back to what can only be discribed as a small forrest worth of paper :eek:

I did for a period use the freepost envelopes to send some of the crap back but i soon got tired of this :sigh:

Edit : I just looked @ the link posted above, it costs €114 for 500,000 flyers

Alun

tbh wrote: »

I found that we were getting a huge amount of menus, leaflets, flyers, free papers etc, so I stuck a label on our mailbox: "No leaflets, flyers or papers please".

When I lived in Holland we were given an 'official' printed set of stickers to put on the letterbox which gave us 1 of 3 options. a) Nothing at all b) only local free papers but no advertising leaflets and c) everything. It worked just fine until the leafletting companies started putting their crap inside the free papers. After a few complaints that stopped though.

wallyworld

calex71 wrote: »

Edit : I just looked @ the link posted above, it costs €114 for 500,000 flyers

Not quite.....that's the cost per 1000:

"Publicity Post (unaddressed delivery service) rates for promotional material
Rates shown are for each 1,000 items sent"

In any event, I didn't realise An Post was in this business (naive of me, I suppose)...unbelievable amounts of waste just by offering this service

jor el

Cabaal wrote: »

Most of what we've got is from Perlico, Sky etc and its unaddressed,

I get loads of those "The Resident" and "The Occupier" ones. I've taken to writing "Return to sender" on it, and put it back in the post.

If there's a freepost envelope, put all the other junk mail in it, and post it off. Won't do much to stop them, but you'll get a small sense of joy from it.

Dingatron

I signed the form for the IDMA and have a sticker on the letter box with 'No junk mail, Menus' etc. It makes very little difference from what I've seen as vast majority of the junk mail is unaddressed so that appears to be how these marketing companies are getting around things. Maybe a few complaints to the Green Party regarding An Post's Publicity Post may be the way to go? Worth a try anyway so here's a link

http://www.greenparty.ie/about/imprint

Anyone want to take a go of wording a complaint?

jor el

How about

Dear Minister Gormley,

Instead of doing something pointless and silly like banning light bulbs, why not do something that will actually make a difference? The levy on plastic bags made a remarkable difference to the amount of plastic being dumped in landfills. A levy on printed flyers being put through every letter box, in their dozens, on a daily basis, might do something to curtail the enormous waste, and cost, that these have.

Please consider passing a bill that will curtail this environmental, and social, nuisance.

Oh and, you might want to leave out the bit about the light bulbs

Dingatron

jor el wrote: »

How about



Oh and, you might want to leave out the bit about the light bulbs

Sent. Interestingly I did a spell check on the mail before I sent it and

Dear Minister 'Gormley'

Became

Dear Minister Gormless

pinkypinky

Part of the problem is that a loophole in the law means that anything addressed to "the occupant/resident/owner" doesn't come under Data Protection. I get about 4 pieces of junk addressed to variants of my address a month from a large television service provider. I found out the name of their marketing director and I post them directly to him. The first batch went with a letter politely asking them to stop sending this mail. It hasn't worked so far (2 months in) but it's very little work to re-address to him and pop it in a post box. I'm not paying to recycle stuff I didn't ask for!

craichoe

Alun wrote: »

When I lived in Holland we were given an 'official' printed set of stickers to put on the letterbox which gave us 1 of 3 options. a) Nothing at all b) only local free papers but no advertising leaflets and c) everything. It worked just fine until the leafletting companies started putting their crap inside the free papers. After a few complaints that stopped though.

Indeed, you get the JA/NEE stickers from the Gemeente when you get here first

paddylonglegs

Hi,started another thread but this is close enough.

I have been recieving junk mail from companies with my full name and address on it,not occupier/resident.I have got three or four over the last 2 months.These contain a large amount of paper - cover letter,flyer,return envelope,application form and are of high quality.

This is worrying and annoying from a data protection point of view and a green point of view.I want to report this to some sort of data protection agency but can't find details.

Hope you can help,thanks

paddylonglegs

If you need to make a complaint about junk mail recieved

http://www.dataprotection.ie/ViewDoc.asp?fn=/documents/guidance/unwanted_marketing_consumer_guide.htm&CatID=18&m=r

Dingatron

I'd forgotten about this thread. As said earlier I sent an email to Minister Gormley complaining about the amount of junk mail in general as well as An Post's part in this with their Publicity Post service. Sadly but not surprising I did not even receive an acknowledgement back from the Green Party. I know who I won't be voting for next time around.

dahamsta

I think that's a bit kneejerk. Given the Green Party's committment to green issues since they came to power, I'm sure they're contuining their good work in goverment by thinking the answers at you, to avoid the use of paper.

Sure look how busy John Gormley is. He doesn't have time to go to important Dail votes, never mind deal with your petty little niggles.

adam