Opt-out of Junk Snail Mail

Physical Junk Mail

I hate physical junk mail. After moving to SF my mail box size has shrunk to a size I didn’t know was actually approved by the Postmaster General. Now, getting junk mail is actually a real issue as it means the mailman just jams my real mail in the box. Sigh. The mailman knows almost everything in the box is garabage except the one letter he obliterated. Furthermore, I’d speculate that he’d be out of a job without junkmail.

Reality?

For some reason I thought that once I was on a junk mail list it was almost impossible to get off the list. Apparently it’s not that bad.

Companies I used to order from have followed my address changes (read: ordered from years ago) such as Cruchfield and Summit Racing and continue to send me catalogs. I get junk mail for Macy’s (at least once a week) for the previous tenant – I’ve grown to hate Macy’s just because of this. And then there are the mailings that I thought would be impossible to get stop like that annoying redplum.com mailer with grocery store “savings” and the ruthless Dell catalog.

Opting-Out

• Macy’s - Had to call them to get any attention. Pain. In. The. Ass. The women on the phone was nice, but a web form would have saved everyone time. She couldn’t even confirm that I could cancel the catalog since I wasn’t the person it was addressed to. Forget that, it’s now my address.
• Crutchfield - Haven’t ordered from them from 2009. It’s 2014 now. Seriously? I think I had a chat session or something with them a month ago to opt out. Let’s see if it works.
• Summit Racing - Emailed [email protected], but they replied quickly and it appears to have worked.
• Red Plum - Easy to use webform. Tried it today. Says “Your change to our mailing list will take approximately 5 to 6 week”. What the hell kind of compute systems are they running?
• Dell - Easy to use webform. Tried it today as well. No mentioned ETA. Maybe Dell has their stuff together?

Summary

It appears that the worse junk mail offenders have the simplest opt-out or unsubscribe methods. That’s a relief, assuming it works.