I HATE Non-Pref Mail

And we get a LOT of Non-Preferential Mail EVERY week. Now, y'all may call it "junk" mail, but My Daddy worked for the Post Office for 27 years and he taught me to call it "Non-Pref" mail.

How many Pre-Approved Credit Card offers do you get in the mail every week? Let me guess...you get one from HSBC, Chase, WAMU, Wells Fargo and somebody else. Then there are the Instant Loan offers, the Insurance [Life, Credit Life, Car, Health, etc, etc, etc] offers, the book club offers, the record club offers, the magazine subscription offers, and the extended warranty offers if you've bought a used car in the last 5 years. Tired of getting these? Tired of shredding the credit apps? Tired of filling your recycling bin with all that paper? Well, y'all just need to follow Holly B's easy steps to reducing your mail burden and stress. Every credit card offer has a toll free number you can call that gives you instructions on how to have your name removed from the mailing lists of the companies who send out these applications and the ones for insurance, too. What you find out when you call is that it can take MONTHS for the offers to stop filling your mailbox. In the interim you can try the steps I detail below.

Now, I need to say, first off, I read this somewhere else. I honestly don't remember where. I have added a few of my own touches to the original idea. And I checked with LaP, my personal consultant on all things postal, now that Daddy has gone to that Big Post Office in the Sky.

OK, save all the Non-Pref mail for one week. Did you get MORE than one offer from one company this week? Good! They are going to get SPECIAL attention. Set those off to one side. Any offers, like those from book or record club that come with just a reply card in stead of a reply envelope, set those over with the multiple credit card offers stack. We'll come back to them in a minute.

Now, begin by opening one of the offers. Keep every piece of paper, including the original envelope. Find the application you are supposed to complete and return. Take a BIG, Black Sharpie or Magic Marker. Write NO all over that sucker. Not once, not twice, not even three times. I want you to cover that piece of paper, front and back with the word NO. Every blank space should be completed with the word NO. The signature line should be a series of NONONONONONONONONONONO. Fold everything up so that it fits inside the return envelope and cram it full of every piece of paper that was in the original envelope, including the original envelope. See, LaP tole me that the CO has to pay the return postage BY WEIGHT !!!
Repeat with all the other offers.

Now, let's return to those companies hubristic enough to send you more than one offer in a single week, shall we? OK, open them, again saving all the paper and the orig. envelopes. BUT, when you stuff the return envelope, you will include as much material from the book club that didn't provide a return envelope. You may have to use tape to securely close the return envelope, but that's just a little more extra weight, right?

Have you called the toll free number? Has it been more than 4 months and you are still receiving offers in the mail despite using these methods I've suggested? Then it may be time for the "heavy" guns.
If you're REALLY sick of getting these offers, I can't guarantee this will stop them, but it will sure make you feel better knowing you just cost them the cost of first class postage for mailing a brick that has their return envelope taped [LaP's suggestion, I wanted to super glue it] to it, with the application inside, marked as I suggested above. Now, unless you have some bricks left over from building your house or patio or flower bed or walkway, you will have to go BUY a brick. SO you have to ask yourself, is it worth it? For me, knowing that at the town dump, there are contractors lined up every day with pickups and trailers full of broken bricks,that they are in line to dump, free for the asking, yeah, it's worth the 7 mile drive to the dump to get me a bunch of broken bricks. Shoot, you might even be able to get broken ones at Home Depot or Lowe's, don't know until you ask, right?

And a word about Book Clubs or Record Clubs... Are they sending you the selection of the month b/c you forgot to respond in time? Do NOT open it! Simply write "REFUSED" your initials and the date on the outside of the unopened package and put it back in your mailbox, they have to pay the return postage, not you.

Receiving mail for a prior tenant at your address b/c the carrier cannot remember your NAME? Write MLNA in big letters on the envelope. If it comes back to your house AGAIN, like it happened to me [I've lived here 3 flippin' years and even put a note on the inside of the door of the mailbox. It states the surnames of people for whom we do and do NOT accept mail] Write out: Moved- Left No Address. It is a common P.O. abbreviation, but evidently MY carrier hasn't been taught that one. If it happens again, I'm gonna take the time to go talk to the Supervisor of Mails.
And another thing...I understand the carrier not wanting to get out of his truck and come up to the house when the dogs are in the yard. But why does he not come to the house when they are IN the house? It's not like they are gonna jump THROUGH the steel core door and bite him.