Stop Junk Mail with GreenDimes

Wouldn’t it be nice to stop junk mail?  Tired of filling up your paper recycling with unwanted advertising?  Worried about prescreened credit card offers getting into the wrong hands?

Now you can stop junk mail from ever being delivered to your mail box using a service like GreenDimes.  By registering for the service for $20 a year, GreenDimes claims to reduce your junk mail as it easily guides you through the steps to removing your name from the 9 major marketing companies that supply thousands of companies addresses for direct mail advertising.  GreenDimes consolidates all of the opt-out information into one tool.  They provide the direct links to web sites that let you fill out a form requesting your removal.  For those companies that don’t offer the web site removal tool, GreenDimes lets you print out a letter for you to sign and mail.

www.greendimes.com

I had signed up in November of 2008, but I procrastinated.  I looked at the list and was not enthused about working through it.  In February, I finally decided to get it done and was pleasantly surprised how quickly it went.  I was done in 20 to 30 minutes.  I whipped through the web site removal tools and printed out the letters.  The only thing I didn’t like had nothing to do with GreenDimes;  one company – DMA Choice – required me to register on their site and create a password.  That seems counterproductive – to give them MORE information just so they can remove it.

The process may have been easy, but how well did it work?  How much mail did I receive that wasn’tt covered by these mailing lists?  GreenDimes suggested waiting for 90 days for all of the removals to be in effect, so I set a reminder in my calender to follow up at a future date.

It has now been 7 months since I went through the process of limiting my junk mail.  Now, I didn’t exactly track every piece of advertising that has come through my mail box, but I can tell you that the amount of junk has been dramatically reduced.  I no longer get ANY credit card offers.  I still get some advertising, but I believe most comes from area businesses which doesn’t bother me too much.  I try to limit my spending to my local economy when it makes financial sense to do so.

Now, I just need a service that make all of my bills disappear!

Todd