Frequently Asked Questions

    • Junk mail is unwanted and/or unsolicited advertising or promotional material received through the mail

    • Companies that purchase data from credit bureaus

    • Credit card and insurance offers

    • Direct marketers

    • Companies you are a customer of

    • Rewards programs you signed up for

    • Companies tracking events such as buying a house, purchasing a car, or simply moving locations

    • Charities

    • USPS service: Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM)

    • Magazines and catalogs

    • Credit card offers

    • Insurance offers

    • Direct mailers

    • Marketing mail from companies you are a customer of

    • Coupons

    • Special offers

    • Requests for charity donations

    • USPS Service: Every Door Direct Mail

    • Yes, you can try. However, while recycling paper has a known benefit, a significant portion of junk mail is currently being thrown away unopened. In addition, many cities, businesses, and/or apartment complexes do not offer recycling options, and much of the junk mail contains oils and/or inks that are not recyclable anyway, despite your honorable efforts

    • Those services are excellent and highly effective, but unfortunately, many data brokers store your personal data without your permission and companies will source data from those brokers and then simply ignore the requests you made through the mentioned services.

    • There are many types of junk mail and data sharing can compound the effects of not addressing each piece of junk mail.

    • Those services also are separate from Every Door Direct Mail, which delivers blindly to zip codes, not individual households.

    • Both car warranty offers and mortgage protection offers (a.k.a, life insurance) are coming from insurance companies or insurance agents. Those types of unsolicited mailers are a perfect example of how insurance companies and/or agents ignore your opt-out requests. Unfortunately, direct contact will need to be made for the junk mail to stop.

    • That action alone will not stop the creation and flow of the junk mail. If the USPS mail carrier chooses to stop delivering, they will simply discard the junk mail each time it arrives. During mail carrier fluctuation, the junk mail will begin showing up again.

    • Write this on the unopened envelope and then put it in the outgoing mail: "Refused, return to sender." This type of junk mail should stop soon after. 

    • Those types of mailers are best ended via the removal requests outlined in our "HOW" page. 

    • In time, yes. The most persistent, and hardest to end, type of junk mail is the Every Door Direct Mail. The good news is with a little research and tenacity, those types of mailers can be stopped as well. 

    • Contact the USPS postmaster at pmgceo@usps.gov and

      1) state that you no longer want unsolicited and/or unwanted junk mail delivered to your home; and

      2) request they end the Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) program

    • When you receive junk mail with no recipient or address, contact the listed sender (typically a direct mail company) and tell them you no longer want their junk mail delivered to your home.