There is some chance that within the next 8 months I will be moving to a new house, which has not yet been built. Since it does not yet exist, presumably it isn’t on junk mail lists.
I generally don’t much care for telemarketers and junk mail is less intrusive but still a bit annoying. I also just generally value my privacy. So I have this idea to address the issue before moving, but I’m not sure if it is legally and logistically possible.
The concept is this: I plan to have an unlisted (or maybe unregistered? What’s the diff?) phone and address. I will also have two mailboxes at one of those private postbox type places, which is conveniently on my home from work. One I will use for bills and so on. The other will be used if I need to do something that might get my address on junk mail lists, like ordering something via mail order. Then, if that one ever starts getting swamped with junk mail, I can just close it and open another, with no serious side effects since all my bills and whatnot will be going to the first one.
Are there any big holes in this plan which I’m overlooking? Any reason it wouldn’t be as effective as I’m hoping? AFAIK, most utilities don’t sell your address to junk mailers.
It sounds like an excellent plan. I can only think of 2 possible “holes:”
If you order something mail order, they usually won’t deliver it to a P.O. box if they ship using UPS or FedEx. Since you will be using a private mail/ship place, this might not be a problem.
Someone, somewhere will sell your address as soon as it pops into existence. I wouldn’t be surprised if the utility company actually does this.
I would be interested to know how your your experiment turns out.
Some of those post office box places advertise that you will have a street address for non-USPS deliveries (Mailboxes Etc. is the one I remember). UPS is the spawn of Hell and must be destroyed, so you shouldn’t patronize them anyway,
Yeah, AFAIK most (maybe all) private postbox places provide a street address, because (I might have the details wrong here) they can’t say it’s a “P.O. Box” when it’s really not associated with the post office.
Also a nice advantage is that the private places only will put mail addressed to you in your box, so I won’t have to worry about junk mail for the previous box holder.
** The concept is this: I plan to have an unlisted (or maybe unregistered? What’s the diff?) phone and address **
It can depend on where you live, but here in Georgia, * unlisted * still means the phone company would give out your number if someone called asking for it.
unregistered * means they won’t. Now, I had to pay extra for the unregistered service, but telemarketers * still * managed to call because they are sometimes set up on some kind of mechanism that randomly dials numbers.
I’d love to know if your plan works though! Good luck with trying, and post how well you do with it, okay?
‘Mr. Shields had challenged Mr. Lincoln to a duel, and that, as the challenged party, it was Mr. Lincoln’s right to choose the weapons.
Mr. Lincoln responded, “How about cow-dung at five paces?”’
One other thought about the phone. Here you have the option of unlisted, which means no listing in the book and no number will be given out by directory assistance, and another option whose name eludes me, which means no listing in the book but directory assistance will give out the number if asked. Both of these add a tidy extra sum to your phone bill each month. I availed myself of a third alternative: I listed in the book under a fictitious name, and with no address. This is legitimate and free; you can have your directory listing under any name you want, and it is up to you whether or not to print your address (they should ask you this when you establish the account). We still get occasional telemarketing calls, but as soon as they ask for “Mr/Mrs Fictitious” they are revealed as telemarketers and we simply say that they aren’t home (or, when feeling cranky, that they died). When filling out forms that request a home phone with companies that could have no reason to phone me at home except for marketing (a rare exception, for example, would be the “emergency notification” card at work), I just put “unlisted”. So far no business has had the audacity to tell me I am required by any law to divulge my unlisted home phone number to them. As someone else noted, some sales calls are computer generated and don’t depend on a listing, so you can’t avoid them entirely if you are going to have a phone at all. Nevertheless, this method has worked perfectly for us for many years now, and at a cost of zero. Just an option to consider.
Here is my “unlisted” phone number story. When we bought our new house we requested an unlisted phone number, both book and 411 for which we pay double. Thay gave us a number that previously belonged to someone who must be on every telemarker’s list in the US. I have been getting calls for Janelle Battle for the last 3 years. When we first moved in it was 3-4 times a day. I stay home with 2 small kids so I’m here for all of them. So when you get your unlisted number ask for a new number and don’t forget those magic words “put me on your do not call list.” They can’t call you for at least 6 months after you tell them that. Good luck!!