What do you do?
I have two large signs on my letterbox. One says "NO ADVERTISING" and the other "NO REAL ESTATE ADVERTISING". In spite of this I still get junk mail, particularly from real estate agents. I thought of going around to their offices and walking in and dumping my own rubbish on the carpet, but so far I've resisted the temptation. It's especially annoying when I go away and have stuff hanging out of the box like a red flag to thieves.
Any suggestions for how to stop this?
Get a PO Box and use your recycling bin as your mailbox? :)
cant blame the person that delivers the junk mail… because they probably don't understand or are able to read the sign .
Actually the delivery people here are quite good. They almost never put the other stuff in the box. But I've heard that the real estate delivery people have been instructed to ignore signs.
Get a PO Box and use your recycling bin as your mailbox? :)
I wish…still get Political crap etc and am paying over $100 for the privilege :(
I always make a point of using return to sender envelopes (when they've been provided) with a complaint they'd ignored the sign. If you're petty you can photocopy these and send a dozen back as they have per-item costs, but it'll do little to get them to stop sending to you.
Real Estate agents are the worst, and I've been meaning to add a "this includes you <local RA here>" to my no junk mail sign. I suppose the next escalation if they ignore this is to take them up on the free appraisals, no-show repeatedly, and remind them that ignoring the signs is equally discourteous.
One thing annoys me… You see the Australia post postman stop and place something inside mailbox.. assume you have a bill etc and find that its just an Australia post catalogue which they deliver. I like 'junk mail' but I find that pretty annoying. I don't mind real estate junk though, its good to know the local market and they often give you handy fridge magnet calendars.
Australia Post seem to be immune from No Junkmail signs. Here in VIC a No Junkmail sign has the force of law but they still put junk in your box no matter what. I'd try stopping them but the mail deliveries a pretty bad anyway without stirring them up.
I look upon real estate agent flyers as free one blank side paper I can reuse.
Restaurant and carpet cleaning flyers go into the nearby blue wheelie. Ditto pollie propaganda during election season.
I only check my mailbox once a couple of days now since most bills and invoices went digital. Mostly I find magazines in the mailbox.
Heh.. I wish I lived in a colder part of Australia, so that I can use these flyers as firestarters for my fireplace(if I had one).
The glossy ones don't burn that well.
Phone them up, and calmly let them know you will be advising everyone you know that, while you support disabilty support and action, you'd be dubious about using the services of a realtor whose agents couldn't read.
Most re agents and others use services to do their letter boxing for them. You could arrange 3 or 4 fake calls to the agents ( tell them u have a listing)
and after tell them you'll keep doing this if the they use keeps ignoring your request - the company will take more notice of someone who pays them than a normal punter. You could also do what I did … Phone the company and let them know that bad things will start happening if the morons they use keep dropping crap in yr letterbox continue doing so.
Hi,
I am from a major TV news show in Australia. We are following this issue closely and want to run a video story on it. Could you get in touch with me if you are happy to be on camera about this? Contact me asap!
Email me at: [email protected]
Cheers
I would be hesitant to post my work email on forums such as this. Users can message you here, and you can take it further would be my suggestion
Thanks, I'll take your advice!
Hi Smiley
Really glad to hear you're considering running the story. I'm not so interested in appearing on camera but I suspect there are many other people like me who get annoyed at having their letter boxes used as a dumping ground for unwanted advertising. Especially when there are signs saying we don't want it.
For me it's
1. The inconvenience of having to deal with it
2. When I go away I can put a hold on my normal mail with the post office but there is no way to do this with junk mail. Having it sticking out of the letterbox for days on end is a pretty good sign that nobody's home. So it's a security risk.
3. Environmental waste. I don't even look at the stuff. It just goes straight in the bin.
4. Nowadays more advertising is done online. Maybe advertisers should redirect their energies into targeted online advertising.
5. Why is it that real estate agents in particular ignore the no junk mail signs?
6. I'd like to see some sort of penalty system for offenders who disregard letterbox signs.
Maybe you could let us know when the story will air.
All the best.
Some discussion here: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2075457