If there’s one type of junk mail that really annoys me, it is Advo flyers. Advo is the company that spams your RL mailbox with loose newspaper flyers, under the name “ShopWise”. Basically, they pay the postman to drop these flyers in your mailbox (accompanied by a mailer postcard featuring two pictures of missing persons – what charity).
I was tired of the clutter, unnecessary trash and occasional litter (caused by blowing flyers) Advo creates, so I went looking for a way to stop delivery of this spam. And sure enough, there’s a way to opt-out. Advo provides a web form that supposedly lets you take yourself off their mailing list. I’ve got no idea if it works or not, but I’m passing it along as a resource in case you’re as annoyed by Advo’s spam as I am.
Tags: spam
Your insights on social media are unmatched but this may be your best post yet! Advo is a real beast in the direct-mail industry, which btw should be officially renamed the junk-mail industry. Let’s hope advo really follows through, removes names from their list and lightens the load for our post(wo)man. Now how about some legislation to start treating direct-mail firms the same way as spammers. At a minimum every unsolicited direct-mail piece should be required to include a url where people can opt-out to prevent future crap from being sent.
You can also consider GreenDimes, a service that reduces your junk mail by getting you off the ADVO lists and many other direct mail lists, unsolicited credit card offers, even the catalogs you no longer want (just tell GreenDimes which you want stopped, and keep the ones you want). Not only is your junk mail reduced, but GreenDimes also plants a tree for you every month! All for a dime a day. Learn more at http://www.greendimes.com
Do Not Mail Opt-Out Law would be fair to everyone.
The proposed statewide “Do not mail” is an Opt-Out law. Only those not desiring advertising mail need opt-out. Anyone desiring advertising mail can do nothing – and continue to receive it. Why deny those wishing to avoid advertising mail the power to do so?
I do not consider handling unwanted advertising placed against my will on my personal property to be a civic obligation!
The US Supreme Court said in the Rowan case in 1970, ““In today’s [1970] complex society we are inescapably captive audiences for many purposes, but a sufficient measure of individual autonomy must survive to permit every householder to exercise control over unwanted mail. To make the householder the exclusive and final judge of what will cross his threshold undoubtedly has the effect of impeding the flow of ideas, information, and arguments that, ideally, he should receive and consider. Today’s merchandising methods, the plethora of mass mailings subsidized by low postal rates, and the growth of the sale of large mailing lists as an industry in itself have changed the mailman from a carrier of primarily private communications, as he was in a more leisurely day, and have made him an adjunct of the mass mailer who sends unsolicited and often unwanted mail into every home. It places no strain on the doctrine of judicial notice to observe that whether measured by pieces or pounds, Everyman’s mail today is made up overwhelmingly of material he did not seek from persons he does not know. And all too often it is matter he finds offensive.”
Furthermore, the Supreme Court said, “the mailer’s right to communicate is circumscribed only by an affirmative act of the addressee giving notice that he wishes no further mailings from that mailer.
To hold less would tend to license a form of trespass and would make hardly more sense than to say that a radio or television viewer may not twist the dial to cut off an offensive or boring communication and thus bar its entering his home. Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit; we see no basis for according the printed word or pictures a different or more preferred status because they are sent by mail.”
We need a national “Do Not Mail” law to create a one-stop, convenient place for homeowners to give senders the aforementioned affirmative notice that we do not want certain kinds of mail sent to our homes.
http://www.nomorejunkmail.org
Signed,
Ramsey A Fahel
Arvada, CO
Funny how people complain about advertising in the mail, but then find an offer mailed to them and utilize it. Bunch of hypocrites. EVERYONE has used a coupon or offer from the mail..EVERYONE. If you haven’t, you’re lying. So now the question, would you take 97% junk mail, so you have the opportunity to receive 3% of the coupons that you would use..and would save you say..$100 per year? I think it’s more of a mental problem than anything else. Go see a psychiatrist !!!
The previous commenter was from the ADVO corporation.
Spamming in real life, and on my blog!
I used that ADVO opt out earlier this year and received from them a postcard a couple of weeks later confirming that I’ve opted out and giving me a date of when it expires so that I can renew. Nice to have for the files. Then the mail did stop five weeks later but my postal carrier for some reason isn’t honoring it. You see what you’re actually opting out of is that little missing children card, which ADVO requires the post office to deliver with the ads (you can find opt-out info on the card). I’ve stopped receiving those cards – so ADVO did their part – but my carrier is still delivering the ads (two or three now), without the missing kid card. So I’m leaving him a friendly reminder that unless he has a card to go with it, he shouldn’t be delivering it to me.
ADVO was suprisingly hassle-free about their opt-out system. The ADVO representative above, excuse me, “Objective Man On The Street” who calls us mentally ill liars — I have indeed never used an ADVO-style coupon, out of principal — that guy wasn’t representative of my experience, thankfully.
So use the service, and if you keep getting it, check for the postcard – it might actually be the carrier’s non-compliance, not ADVO’s.
US Postal Service won’t let you refuse mail.
If the US Postal Service would abide by its own rule, each homeowner could easily stop junk mail from getting into their mailbox by putting a written notice on their mailbox expressing their preference.
The US Postal Services practices are supposed to be according to the Domestic Mail Manual (DMM). The DMM contains provision 508.1.1.2 that says, “Refusal at Delivery: The addressee may refuse to accept a mailpiece when it is offered for delivery.” I interpret this rule to mean that if a homeowner wants to refuse an unwanted mailpiece (i.e. junk mail), the homeowner can do so when the mailpiece is offered for delivery. More to the point – refuse it before it is put into the mailbox!
In practical application, since the postal carrier comes to homes at different times each day, the homeowner cannot be waiting at the mailbox to dialogue with the mail carrier about each mailpiece. The only realistic way to interpret 508.1.1.2 therefore is that the homeowner should post a notice on the mailbox telling the postal carrier about the homeowner’s preference. The notice to the postal service must be specific and unambiguous. For instance, a homeowner should certainly be able to write, “No mail that is not addressed to the Jones” because that does not require the postal carrier to make a subjective judgment. On the other hand, it would not be acceptable to write “no junk mail” because the definition of “junk mail” is subjective and the mail carrier cannot decide.
Unfortunately, the US Postal Service has written to me that they will NOT honor a notice refusing mail, not matter how specifically it is worded, because the postal carrier does not have time to sort through the mail at my mailbox to pick out the pieces that are not addressed to me. Therefore, the US Postal Service is passing their sorting and disposing task onto me by putting all the mail they want into my mailbox, even though this seemingly violates 508.1.1.2.
Since the U.S. Postal Service will not abide by 508.1.1.2, homeowners need to stop unwanted mail at the source (i.e. by blocking the sender from sending it). We need a nationwide “Do Not Mail” law to create a one-stop, convenient place for homeowners to give senders notice that we do not want certain kinds of mail sent to our homes.
http://www.newdream.org/emails/ta19.html
Signed,
Ramsey A Fahel
Another “Satan” of the direct mailers has to be Comcast! They send out as many as four pieces of junk crap in a week!
I sent them a complaint e-mail a few months ago, and they said they were going to cease and desist. They never did though, so I’m sending them back to USPS now as “REFUSED”.
Actually, ADVO doesn’t use the postcards anymore (at least here in Denver). They have their “charitable” missing person photos/”RESIDENT” address on the outer wrapper of their “Shop Wise”.
Apparently locally, The Denver Post/Rocky Mountain News is collaborating with ADVO in sending the “Shop Wise” junk out.