In the US you just shoot the people that try to put ads in your mailbox. Not a lawyer tho so idk. shrug
Man I’ve been giving the ASPCA $20 a month for years and not a single address label…
Label you put in the corner of your outgoing mail that has your name and address preprinted on it so you don’t have to write it.
If I lived in the US I’d have liked to vote to make it illegal to deliver promotional / junk / “Standard” mail to mailboxes with a standardized and large “NO ADS” label in specified spots on the front and sides, with a small fine for the post worker and very large fines for the companies in the ads.
I would not be happy to sit and sort through piles of junk for the rest of my life, with it without knowing that “Standard” is all junk.
USPS says you can write “Refused” on your mail to refuse it. I’ve heard that can possibly stop them from sending you more.
If you wanted to actually opt-out from the largest mail advertising organization’s lists though, you have to pay them. Good 'ol capitalism.
The site is OptOutPrescreen, by the way!
It’s not a federal website, it’s a “joint venture among Equifax Information Services, LLC, Experian Information Solutions, Inc., Innovis Data Solutions, Inc., and TransUnion, LLC (collectively the “Consumer Credit Reporting Companies”).”
So it’s not technically government-enforced in any way, but the credit bureaus just kind of decide to honor it to be… nice?
I know nothing about this but top of my head it sounds like one of those self-policing things companies do to keep from being regulated. So they’ll honor it if you jump their hoops, but so few people even know the hoops are there it works out for said company to honor the few that do, and they will, to keep that regulation from ever appearing.
In France you just put a sticker or something on your box saying “no ads” and that’s it, no more ads posted. It really is quite a bunch of paper every week, too!
Same in Australia. Doesn’t stop the pious “holier than thou” shits from illegally filling my letterbox with crap advertising their church
Since we’re talking about mail:
What do I do with my old bills/insurance statements/etc? I have executive dysfunction and I just can’t find a simple method that works for me. It all ends up in a pile and every few months I pitch the whole thing and promise myself to do better next time. Perhaps there’s an app, website, or program I should just digitize them into?
I was in the same boat and wound up buying a scanner and installing Paperless. Scanner sends the files to my network drop box, Paperless picks them up from the drop box and digitizes them. I finally got rid of like an entire garbage bag of old pay stubs and stuff that I had been hoarding.
I have a filing cabinet with one drawer for hanging folders. Everything gets sorted and put in there. When a folder gets too fluffy I will pull it out and shred old stuff.
I could probably get rid of a lot but this method does come in handy occasionally. Most recently were my 2023 taxes which I filed in July (I had an extension). I yanked the 2023 file and immediately had 90% of my donations and medical expenses.
If you need it, put it in a folder and store it somewhere safe. But you really don’t need 99% of it.
I have a safe with some cash and two folders:
- important, official documents - birth certificate, passport, etc
- potentially important financial stuff - tax returns, mortgage papers, etc
I definitely need the first, I will probably never need the second.
