How to opt out from annoying junk mail (San Jose: coupons, apartment)

[kyle242]

I lived in a few states, Massachusetts, Iowa, Illinois. Now I live in California and live in San Jose. I have gotten some junk mail in all of them. But never in absurd level like in San Jose, where I get newspaper style junk with grocery coupons, local area coupons so much that it makes it easy to loose regular mail like bills, personal mail, DMV, etc. I suspect part of the reason has to do with the fact that I live in a rental apartment that had many owners who subscribed to many things. The amount of junk I can get in one single day can stuff my mailbox to half full. It is ridiculous. Anyone has idea how to reduce clutter?

[marcopolo666]

Well, if it is addressed to "resident", don't bother opening it and throw it out.

If it is addressed to someone else, don't bother opening it and throw it out.

Now, to reduce junk mail you receive in YOUR name:
- I subscribe to magazines using bizzare names, like Yur Adufus. A different name for each magazine, so I know who sold the info. Any email addressed to any of those bizarre names that isn't from the right magazine, I throw out, as it is obviously junk mail from a mailing list the magazine sold.

- If you give to charity, they WILL sell your info. Each time I give to a national charity, a couple of months later, I am suddenly inundated in junk mail from charities, and it lasts for *years*. I stopped giving to national charities, and instead I donate my time and only give cash (with receipt) to *local* charities.

You follow those rules, you'll get 90% reduction in junk mail, although it may take a couple years for it to get down to a reasonable level. If you are impatient, then move.

[kyle242]

Originally Posted by marcopolo666

Well, if it is addressed to "resident", don't bother opening it and throw it out.

If it is addressed to someone else, don't bother opening it and throw it out.

I don't even need to open them, they are like loose newspaper, its so annoying. Unfortunately most of these list resident or dear neighbor so its difficult to opt out. I wonder if its for whole San Jose or just bad parts of it because I live in worse area (east).

[sonarrat]

I promise you, you will never experience junk mail on the level that an ex-Scientologist will. And daily harassing phone calls after you've asked to be removed, I do not exaggerate, hundreds of times..

[kyle242]

Originally Posted by sonarrat

I promise you, you will never experience junk mail on the level that an ex-Scientologist will. And daily harassing phone calls after you've asked to be removed, I do not exaggerate, hundreds of times..

Are you getting any mails or calls from Tom Cruise?

[sonarrat]

Originally Posted by kyle242

Are you getting any mails or calls from Tom Cruise?

It's gotten to the point that if I get a call from the 323 area code, I automatically start spewing profanities until they hang up, so if it was, I wouldn't even care. It's been 15 years since I had even the slightest bit to do with them and they still deign to harass me with phone calls and mailings on a daily basis.

[Wintermomma]

In regards to catalogs, here is one way, legit, I've used it for years:
https://www.catalogchoice.org/

[sandy7]

Originally Posted by sonarrat

It's gotten to the point that if I get a call from the 323 area code, I automatically start spewing profanities until they hang up, so if it was, I wouldn't even care. It's been 15 years since I had even the slightest bit to do with them and they still deign to harass me with phone calls and mailings on a daily basis.

I cannot believe I am giving advice here to sonarrat on the San Jose forum, especially a year after moving out of the valley.. but I will still take a shot.

If that's your cellphone, you can sign up with Google Voice using your cellphone number, then block the number that harasses you. Your cellphone provider cant block 'em but Google Voice can.

If that was your landline...oops, I just completed an exercise in futility

[kdog]

Originally Posted by kyle242

I lived in a few states, Massachusetts, Iowa, Illinois. Now I live in California and live in San Jose. I have gotten some junk mail in all of them. But never in absurd level like in San Jose, where I get newspaper style junk with grocery coupons, local area coupons so much that it makes it easy to loose regular mail like bills, personal mail, DMV, etc. I suspect part of the reason has to do with the fact that I live in a rental apartment that had many owners who subscribed to many things. The amount of junk I can get in one single day can stuff my mailbox to half full. It is ridiculous. Anyone has idea how to reduce clutter?

You can stop those newspaper ad things in your mailbox by contacting the company that sends them, but you have to know how. It's tricky because typically the newspaper portion has no return address; in fact it doesn't even have your address on it. Instead, there's a little post card that's sent separately, usually also with an ad on it. The mail carrier has a stack of the addressed post cards and the stack of newspapers that goes along with it. So look for that card because it has the name of the company and they will remove you from their database and stop the mailings at your request.

I did this myself. However, my mail carrier kept putting the newspapers in my mailbox anyway even without the card. Since these ad companies start by sending everybody in town their ads, the mailman figures your card probably just got lost, so he'd give me the newspaper anyway. I took the newspaper down to my local post office every week and raised hell with them. They'd tell me, "oh there's a postcard", and I'd say "BULL CRAP. There's no card because I got taken off their list." I'd also tell them that they're committing mail fraud by intentionally delivering other people's mail to me. I did finally get them to stop, mostly.

Since I'm ragging on the post office, I've got one more good story. I had a really bad mail carrier for a long time that would leave me other addresses mail. I knew damn well that also meant that my mail was being occasionally misdelivered to other people as well and I hated that. So I would write in magic marker on the wrongly delivered mail, "DELIVERED TO WRONG ADDRESS", on the envelope and leave it in my mailbox with the flag up so the carrier would pick it up the next day. After a while, the post office left me a nasty letter ordering me to stop writing on other people's mail. I refused to stop however and I sent a letter back to them telling them so. I told them I will continue the practice as long as they keep misdirecting mail and people have a right to know where their mail has been. Funny, after a while that stopped as well.

[wsugrad03]

Believe it or not, but this junk mail actually still works. Otherwise, the advertising agencies that operate them would have gone out of business. They're like salesmen, they have about 15 seconds of your attention to sell something and because you physically pick them up with your hands, there's time for the pitch.

I think some advice here is good. A family member added me to some Catholic church database, and I get truck loads of junk mail from them. Very annoying. I tried the whole "return to sender" tactic, until the post lady wrote an angry message on one of them telling me to stop doing that and to just throw it out. Excuse me. Sheesh. I hate junk mail.