We all dislike junk mail. Maybe you’ve tried to stop it, I know I have. A few months back I actually wrote letters to four different companies whom allegedly control all of the junk mail in this world. Politely requested my name be removed from their lists. Haven’t noticed a big drop-off in the mailbox. Even worse, I had to send two letters to each company; one for myself, and one for Robert.
Doesn’t it seem silly that those of us who don’t want the junk mail have to write a letter to stop the junk mail? I guess that might be a good example of irony.
A few weeks ago Oprah had a “Green” show. One of the companies that she mentioned was “Greendimes“. You sign up here for a fee and they remove your name from junk mail lists. You can also enter the names of catalogs in your profile, and they will get those to stop coming to your mailbox as well. For the past two months I have been emailing, calling, and writing catalog companies to get my name off of their lists. First of all, I hate the wasting of all of that paper. I shop online. If I need to look something up, I do it online. Does anyone still fill out an order form from a catalog and mail it in to the company? I don’t think so.
Secondly, I think I’ll save money by not being tempted by anything in the catalog. If I need something, I will go out and find it. Whether that be on the internet or at a local store. This will help curb impulse buying! Woo hoo!
The reason I bring this up today is that we just got back from a long weekend. So we missed three days of mail. I go get the mail and haul it inside. There are twelve catalogs in the mail. Four of these I’ve already asked to be removed from, that takes a bit of time, I understand. All twelve got entered into my Greendimes account, and hopefully I won’t see any more of those, ever again.
The good news here is that I shred these catalogs and use them for packaging filler. :o)
Now here’s an interesting tidbit, from the Greendimes newsletter. This is in reference to unwanted catalogs.
“Victoria‘s Secret. We contact thousands of catalog companies and mailers on our member’s behalf every month. Each of these is cooperative and provides an easy way for us to take customers off of mailing list… all but ONE. Victoria’s Secret. They require us to call them each and every time we take a customer off of their lists – which can mean hold times of 30 minutes! Odd given that people can request to RECEIVE and REDUCE catalog mailings on-line. I guess this is why they keep sending 350 Million catalogs every year. Feel strongly about this? Email Brigitta Witt ([email protected]) who runs corporate development for us and tell her what you think.”