Thursday, July 23, 2009

Stop junk mail, phone calls and e-mail

One man's junk is another man's treasure? Not quite. These days, it seems as though the onslaught of junk mail never ends. We receive unwanted phone calls daily, constantly receive spam and our home mailbox is chock full of catalogs and advertisements that heads straight to the slush pile.

Here are a few ways to put an end to junk mail:

Telephone marketing calls
"Please permanently remove me from your calling list" are the magic words when trying to rid telemarketers from calling you. According to federal law, if the same telemarketers call again, they're crossing the legal line. If you wish to quote the law to the telemarketer, you may do so here.

Electronic mail
SPAM is a very hard to conquer. First off, never reply to spam. An article on Obviously.com says, "The offers to remove your name from a list are generally untrue, and often result in your name getting added to yet another list. Many internet providers have policies against SPAM, and will take action. " Consumerist.com recommends OptOutPrescreen.com and AbacusOptOut in order to dramatically reduce your spam.

Paper junk mail
Want to end the endless onslaught of catalogs and paper junk mail? Consumerist.com recommends DMAchoice.org used by DMA member merchants for direct mail, such as letters, flyers and brochures. Once at the site, you can add your name to the "do not call" list. You can also recycle your junk mail, even though it should not exist in the first place.

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