Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Opting out of Valassis Advertising Mail

I make a career out of getting off of junk mail lists, purely for the challenge and also because it's so irksome having a large pile of pointless newsprint come in. Unfortunately, my postal carrier doesn't know that and thinks that everyone gets one (I keep trying to explain about opting out, but he doesn't get it). But if I can make it so that there isn't one there to deliver, it's ok. It used to be that there was a card that had to accompany the advertising, but that appears to have changed. This is for the better as the card was always getting separated from the rest, and I would be bestowed a pile of paper with no identifying marks on it.

Now there has to be a return address on the advertising which means that opting out should be easier. On this one I'm looking at the first page shows who it's from in teeny tiny print, but it's there. and it is from a company called Valassis.

The cool thing is that if you can figure out the company name then they always provide a way to remove yourself from the mailing list. A quick Google reveals the contact page:

http://www.valassis.com/1024/Contact/contact_home.aspx

and the opt out is right there on the menu:

Select: I am a: Consumer
Select: I would like to go green and be removed from your mailing list
Enter your mailing address and click Submit

Hopefully that will be it. They say it takes 5-6 weeks but we'll see if it that works after that.
Certainly when I opted out of ValuPak it worked though I had to write them then.

[Update 11/25] Got another pile. I'll have to keep track to see how long this takes.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am so sick of junk mail! It got to the point I was missing bills unless I dug thru all of it. So I've made it a point to get no more of it.

You can get your address off their list permanently (no more of this 3 - 5 year only) by using USPS form 1500 to declare their material obscene (as the recipient, only you have to right to decide) -

http://www.usps.com/forms/_pdf/ps1500.pdf

As to the lazy mailman still leaving junk mail, complain to the local post office. He is ONLY to deliver material to the address listed.

John said...

I have filled out the above form multiple times and am still receiving Red Plum junk mail long after the 5-6 week period. It's starting to look like Valassis uses this form simply to confirm that someone at the address is receiving the ads, even if no coupon was redeemed that can be traced back to the address. Nice way to inflate your market reach numbers to potential advertisers.

Ellen said...

Wow, after I did this I haven't seen any at all. Maddening.