Stop Junk Mail Forever

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Therefore, to really stop junk mail, you'll also need to:

1. Contact all the organizations whose mailings you'd rather not receive—at home or at the office—and tell them to remove you from their data bases.

2. Be very careful about giving out your name, business, address, and phone number. When you do give them out, make sure to request that your name be placed on an "in-house list ...only."

3. Avoid the U.S. Post Office's change-of-address system when moving.

4. Consider getting an unlisted telephone number.

In our view, a little duplication in the pursuit of a solution to this problem is no vice. The more we all get the message across—that direct mailers should target their lists far more carefully and be more environmentally sensitive to their customer's wishes—the better.

The Big (Bad?) List Brokers

To get out of the biggest list brokers' data bases, send your name, address, and phone number to the following four organizations. Request that your personal information be removed from all their mailing and telemarketing lists.

R. L. Polk & Co.—"Name Deletion File"
List Compilation and Development
6400 Monroe Boulevard
Taylor, MI 48180-1814
800-873-7655

Donnelley Marketing, Inc.
Data Base Operations
1235 N. Avenue
Nevada, IA 50201-1419
515-382-5441

Metromail Corporation
List Maintenance
901 West Bond
Lincoln, NE 68521
800-228-4571

Database America
Compilation Department
100 Paragon Drive
Montvale, NJ 07645-0419
800-223-7777

If you operate a business, you may also need to write to:

Dun & Bradstreet
Customer Service
899 Eaton Avenue
Bethlehem, PA 18025
800-333-0505

There are more list brokers, to be sure—but from what we could gather, the others remove names only when they appear in the Mail Preference Service's "Delete File." They won't respond to individual requests.

Credit-Bureau Lists

TRW, Equifax, and Trans Union are the three largest credit bureaus in the United States. They're the ones who gather the information that lenders use to decide whether or not to approve your credit and loan applications.

Credit bureau reports typically include your name, address, date of birth, social security number, employer's name and address, as well as your payment history on loans, credit cards, and other bills.

While "the big three" keep the particulars of your financial situation private, if your credit's good, they'll sell your name to banks and credit-card companies—thus all those preapproved, but unsolicited credit card applications.

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