Subversive tip – Get rid of junk mail
Junk mail (mail sent to my home) is one of my pet hates. The mail box is meant for those who I have legitimate dealings with, not for those who invade my privacy by harvesting my name and try to use their well worn sales tricks on me. Find out how I get rid of junk mail.
Why get rid of it? Isn’t it just a nuisance? Of course it is – rubbish that wastes time and attention, but that is not all. Firstly it shows that someone is actively profiling you, which means that they have some private data on you. Secondly, putting those details on mail that gets delivered to my house leaves me vulnerable – for instance, what happens if I get a pre-approved credit card application, and someone lifts it from my letterbox, fills it in, gets the card and then the bank comes after me? It happens every day.
The first step is to avoid junk mail in the first place. You need to be mindful about providing your address, especially for surveys, or “free offers” or prize draws. Don’t give away your privacy so easily – think it through.
I get most of my mail to my post office box (see my separate post on the benefits of this). So very little mail comes to the home mail box. When something does come, I check it out to see whether it is legitimate or junk. Sometimes it is easy, other times I have to carefully open it. If it is legitimate mail, I try to have the address changed to the post office box.
If it is junk mail, I write “Return to sender” and put it back in the post. The post office simply puts a rubber stamp on it and sends it back. The Man has systems that remove returned mail, to minimise mailout costs. The database is updated and I am removed. Compared to most people, I hardly get any junk mail now.
Getting yourself off junk mail lists is a way of completely subverting the Man’s corporate marketing schemes and getting off his radar.
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