There’s actually a Do Not Mail list. It probably wouldn’t hurt to get on it.
Seems to me a mail carrier is a better source on this than most of us here.
If you’re still not sure, take a minute to call 1-800-ASK-USPS.
Is it really still “mail” that only a specific person can open once it’s been properly delivered?
ETA: Apparently, courts disagree as to whether taking misaddressed (but correctly delivered) mail is theft of mail:
Oh, I already did. Multiple times. The woman refused to admit that presorted standard mail is junk mail (even though both the internet and mail carriers have told me). I asked her if she won’t say it’s junk mail because corporations pay the USPS hefty amounts of money for the “right” to deliver this junk. She said she can’t answer that question. I hung up in disgust.
Technically? I don’t know. But do you seriously think the misaddressed mail police will be coming round to clap you (and just about every other recently moved person in the country) in jail? Get real. You have already done due diligence and gone above and beyond the call of duty with this.
I started a thread about this a while back. We still receive all sorts of mail addressed to my gf’s ex husband. We have no forwarding address and no desire to do him well.
I began opening them up and sending replies in the postage paid envelopes informing the sender that poor William was deceased. It seems to be working.
If the mail police ever imprison me it will be worth it.
Sample of one such reply (to the dude’s Alma Mater):
your gf has bad teeth?
Woosh?You?Me?
I was going for an uneducated person’s dialect writing “feelings”.
Honestly I wonder about the mental health of someone who is at his “wits end” about a bunch of junk mail. Just throw it away like the millions of other people who get junk mail addressed to a past resident.
Nice thought, and great if it works. But this is a commercial, self-described “direct marketing” company. So… pardon me if it I think it sounds a little odd to give a direct marketer my current contact information to avoid getting direct marketing sent my way…
That said, I did verify that the BBB (at least in Maryland) has an A+ rating for them. Since I have a big-assed recycling bin right next to the mailbox, I signed up. Just to see what happens.
What are you talking about? Yes, you are.
That’s what my link says. The business, which is paying for the business reply mail, has to pay for each reply sent.
I had the same problem for years after buying my current home. I finally asked my regular mail carrier what to do, and he told me to write the surnames of all the residents of the home on the inside of the mailbox door so that they would be right-side-up when the door was open. We have often had foster children living with us, so the list is variable.
I’ve owned my home since 1999 and have had the same regular carrier that whole time. On Saturdays and when he’s on vacation, we still sometimes get junk mail for the former owners–13 years later! I haven’t found it annoying enough to take up with the Saturday carrier, I just toss it in the trash.
Cecil says that doesn’t work. He also suggests using the enclosed envelope to write back and request being removed from their mailing list - of course, it’s intended to be for mail addressed to you…
My letter carrier husband just said that if they’re addressed to “(Previous tenant name) or Current Resident”, then you’re stuck. If it’s just addressed to the previous tenant, then your letter carrier is full of shit. They have a bin at the post office designated for undeliverable bulk mail that’s addressed to a particular person (no “or Current Resident” labeling) and it should go in there.
If you’re constantly getting mail that’s only addressed to a previous resident, post the names of the current residents on the mailbox, then call your local post office and ask to speak to the delivery supervisor.
No, it says that they have an option to pay for standard replies. Anything that would increase postage wouldn’t be delivered. Hence his statement is correct that adulterating your reply doesn’t cost the company any more money that it would otherwise. If anything, you’re saving them money if the reply doesn’t get sent.
iamthewalrus(:3= was not the one advocating mailing a brick. He was stating that reply postage envelopes were not paid for upfront (as Inner Stickler first stated), but rather that the act of mailing back a (proper weight) reply envelope would cost the company who received it.
For costing the company money, it would be much better to just scan the business reply envelope and then print them off in bulk (as one-sided postcards). Dump a trash bag full of them in your friendly blue box.
This does nothing to stop further mailings.
For that, socially engineer the SSN out of the previous resident and then do him a favor by opting him out of all prescreened offers. You used to have to do this through each CRA but now there’s a “one call” web site for that; I forget the URL.
There’s the tiny problem of the illegality of both of these plans, one should note.
The problem is that once the Doctor sees them, the situation may become an unchangeable fixed point in time, leaving you stuck with the problem indefinitely.