A few years ago I bought one item from an online store. Since then I’ve received countless promotional emails, plus snail mails and even phone calls from them. I politely asked them to stop, repeatedly. I finally succeeded in getting them to stop the phone calls. Then I not-so-politely asked them to stop emailing me, and the emails eventually stopped. But I can’t get them to stop sending me junk mail on an almost daily basis. I’ve even resorted to sending their mailings back to them, marked “Return to Sender.” It hasn’t helped. Do I have any recourse?
I’ve never found a truly effective way to stop repetitive junk mail. I hope someone knows the secret.
The stupid thing is that they’ve spent far more on marketing than the pittance they made from my one purchase. And I’ve already told them I’ll never buy from them again.
Charities. Once you give to one they share information with others and none will leave you alone.
Depends on the charity. I honestly don’t have that problem but most of my donations are to Environmental Groups.
Or made without giving up an address. Red Cross has been good at occasionally taking my money and not bothering me.
The worst ones are the group ones like The United Way where once they have your Email or Address, every charity involved does get your info and many of them will bother you. But this is one of several reason why I won’t donate that way.
This goes to absurd lengths when an auto dealer starts mailing af about buying a new car a month after I just bought one.
Dell does the same thing when you buy a computer from them.
Waste of time and effort. They didn’t get the message because they didn’t get the mail back-Returned junk mail is just trashed by the USPS, if I recall correctly.
I bought a house 18 months ago in a neighborhood with Spectrum Internet/TV. I don’t use cable TV so I just signed up for their Internet, which was much better than the service I had in my old house. EVERY WEEK I get at lease one promotion to add TV to my internet. They use a variety of trick methods to make you think what they’re sending you isn’t an promotion for TV, and I keep throwing them away. I realize it doesn’t cost them very much to generate these kinds of mailings, but you’d think they get the idea by now.
The Red Cross folks were disgustingly aggressive with me. I got regular calls telling me about an upcoming blood drive, and went directly to, “What time can we schedule you?” I was more than a little put off by that. I explained to the first couple of callers that I worked at those times, and a 30 minute drive to give blood wasn’t going to work for me, but I’d consider it if there was a closer location. Didn’t work. I finally asked to not be called again. Didn’t work.
I got off their list by calling their marketing director. Ironically, I knew her from working with her on a blood drive I coordinated for the company I worked for. I let her know that I, personally, will never donate blood again as long as their telemarketing team used that approach.
Several years ago, I started getting phone calls from a local dealership about selling my used car, and after the 3rd call in a week, all of them made by women, I told them that I was not interested and when the time came, I would contact them. Haven’t heard from them since.
Back in the 1990s, I ordered something from the Reader’s Digest press, and started getting an astonishing amount of junk mail - literally several pieces a day. One day, I wrote “DECEASED” on an envelope and sent it back, and within a week, it stopped.
I did that with the junk mail that was coming for my father, who actually was deceased. Same last name, different but similar first name. The mail was coming from a lot of different places, especially catalogs that he liked to get. Unfortunately, my mail carrier got the idea that everyone by that last name at this address was deceased, and I suddenly stopped getting mail. Took a few days to get that straightened out. I haven’t had the nerve to try it since.
I also stopped donating blood through the Red Cross for the same reason. I participated in a blood drive, actually got a bunch of coworkers to donate as well. And then the withering blast of fundraising phone calls, emails and snail mail started and continued for months.
The callers were beyond rude. They claimed they did not need to honor any do not call lists (this was about 15 years ago) nor did they have to accede to my request not to be contacted again, because they were a nonprofit public service organization or something.
It was almost as if collecting blood was just a ploy to get your contact information!
My insurance company (Ambetter Missouri) has started this “health coaching” thing where they’ll hook you up with a, uh, health coach, who will meet up with you remotely to talk about diet, nutrition, self-care, exercise, etc. For free. A good idea in theory, terrible in practice, at least for me. Last thing I need is another adult up in my shit about my unhealthy lifestyle, and me needing to spend so much time, so many times each week, to discuss it. I ignored all five of their letters about it, all 100 of their emails. and the first three phone calls about it. The fourth phone call, the agent on the other end seemed almost saddened when I told her I wasn’t interested. “But it’s FREE.” I said no thank you!
Then I made the mistake of giving a wine subscription box my email address. When I didn’t sign up, I got emails with the most mournful titles. “Did we do something wrong?” “Why aren’t you interested in saving 40 percent?” “Do you not like wine anymore?”
And then, I’ve mentioned it here before, there was an incident with my grandfather back in the 1980s. He came into some money and decided to replace every last window in his house. The glazier then spent the next several months, calling him daily and giving him the hard sell. Which was particularly frustrating because he’d already replaced every window in his house!!! There was nothing left for him to buy from them!
Also, not necessarily marketing, but related. The feds learned of some minor problem involving my Toyota model that necessitated a recall. I was not interested in fixing it (see: minor problem), and I ignored all of the letters from the FTC /and/ Toyota. Then they started calling, getting more persistent each time.
The final call, the agent was borderline hostile. She was like, “there’s an authorized dealer here, to the west of you, or there, to the east of you, which one would you like me to make your appointment at?” When I said, “neither,” she said, “That’s not an option” in a sharp tone.
I wound up getting it fixed, but Jesus Christ.
This is very old school and took a long time to take effect. There is a trade organization, the “direct marketing association,” you can instruct to remove your name from all their databases. It worked for me – 100%. I do still get materials from companies I deal with so it may not be a solution for the OP.
Do a search for “direct marketing association” or
visit www.dmaconsumers.org
I only had to do this one time about 15 years ago. I was surprised how effective it was and still is.
It sounds too good to be true, but I will definitely give it a try. What have I got to lose?
Absolutely. They will never, ever leave you alone.
My elderly father moved into a nursing home a couple of years ago. When he sold his home (an apartment in NYC), I had his mail forwarded to my address, just in case anything important showed up.
I could not believe the amount of mail from charities he was getting. I knew he was quite charitable, and gave away quite a bit of money, mostly to groups affiliated with the Catholic Church, the Jesuit order, or charitable organizations that were at least Catholic-adjacent. But the sheer volume of mail was staggering.
And it just won’t stop. My mailbox overflows eternally. And there’s no way to stop it. For one thing, there are so many organizations sending him pleas for money that just opening all that mail and trying to communicate with each entity would take forever.
It’s complicated by the fact that my father and I have the same name. So I throw anything that looks like it came from a charity out these days. Anything. All of my own charitable giving is done online, no paper, no checks. If they’re following up with snail mail, or sharing my name with anything, too bad, I’ll never see it.
It is totally awesomely effective. I’ve been signed up with them for decades. You have to do it each time you move.
Technically charities don’t have to leave you alone. But by and large once you’ve told the marketing world (including the charity world) the equivalent of “Don’t waste your money on me”, they’re pretty glad to take your word for it and quit wasting money on you.
The effect first becomes noticeable about 2 months after you sign up and will reach full effectiveness after about 6 months. If you sign up now you’ll probably be insulated from most of the the Holiday pleas for donations and pleas for buying shit you don’t want to give to people who don’t want it either.
I had that happen a few years ago, a roommates Honda needed some “critical” recall repair work done on it but my roommate refused to do it, resulting in my own phone and mail getting pelted with warranty repair requests. Got to the point a local Honda dealer person showed up at my house and seemed pretty peeved when he saw said Honda sitting out in the driveway and demanded I get into the car that second and drive the car to their shop for repairs. I told him that wasn’t my car and my roommate wasn’t home and he annoyed scribbled me a phone number to give to my roommate to call for the repair work.
I believe the NHTSA has gotten real pushy that the manufacturers are responsible to actually get the cars fixed, not just tell you about the need to fix your car. They’re catching heat from the Feds for every non-compliant owner.
Another example of the government outsourcing policing of a mandate to a business that lacks the leverage to actually enforce the mandate. If the Feds really meant it, they’d prohibit the states from renewing the registration of vehicles under recall. But that might fall foul of the Constitution, unlike bullying e.g. GM.
I suppose they could also make it illegal to buy or sell a car with an open recall. Certainly dealers must already clear all recalls before selling a used car. Extending that to private parties, and enforced by the state car registration bureau would be plausible. Ref the above, iff Constitutional.