Eliminate Credit Card Offers and Junk Mail

The credit reporting industry has developed a system that will help consumers eliminate annoying and wasteful credit offers that fill up their mailboxes.

Credit offers make up a significant portion of everyday "junk mail." They may include everything from pre-approved credit cards and home equity loans, to second mortgages, and a variety of insurance coverages of every size and form.

If you have a good credit history because you pay your bills on time, your name and address have already been sold and distributed by numerous "consumer reporting agencies." Commonly known as "credit bureaus," these businesses compile credit information about you and then sell the information to employers, insurers, and other businesses, and, yes, credit card companies. Your efforts to manage your money and credit responsibly made you the prime target of every financial institution and business that issues credit cards and other credit services. But help has arrived.

It is easier than ever for consumers to minimize and even eliminate unwanted credit offers received in the mail.

Now you can make a phone call to a number established by the credit reporting industry. This number is:

1-888-5-OPT-OUT or
1-888-567-8688

When you call this number, you may request to have your name and address removed from national credit bureau lists that are sold to the credit industry. The three national credit reporting agencies-- Experian (formerly TRW), Trans Union, and Equifax-- will remove your name for a two-year period from any list provided to others relating to any potential consumer credit transaction that you did not initiate. You will have to provide some personal information and follow the directions you receive from a prerecorded message. If you follow these directions, your name should be removed from these lists within five business days.

You may also have your name permanently removed by requesting that the credit bureau send to you an "election form." This form, when filled out and returned by you, will remove your name and address from credit bureau mailing lists until you notify them that you want to be placed on these lists again."

For more information click here to visit the Michigan Attorney General web site: http://www.michigan.gov/ag/0,1607,7-164-20942-44735--,00.html

The Direct Marketing Association's (DMA) Mail Preference Service lets you opt out of receiving direct mail marketing from many national companies for five years. When you register with this service, your name will be put on a "delete" file and made available to direct-mail marketers. However, your registration will not stop mailings from organizations that are not registered with the DMA's Mail Preference Service. To register with DMA, send your letter to:

Direct Marketing Association
Mail Preference Service
PO Box 643
Carmel, NY 10512

Or register online at http://www.the-dma.org/consumers/offmailinglist.html

Stop Junk Mail 41pounds At a Time

A non-profit called 41pounds.org will for $41.00 (for five years) help to eliminate junk mail by directly contacting those direct mail companies that send you all that junk that you can't read anyway. In case you're wondering why the name isn't 41dollars, it's because you are sent approximately 41 pounds of junk mail each year. Here are some frightening stats from their website:

"To produce and process 4 million tons of junk mail a year, 100 million trees are destroyed, 28 billion gallons of water is wasted, and energy equivalent to 2.8 million cars is spent, which produces greenhouse gases and more global warming. In addition, $320 million of local taxes are spent to dispose of junk mail each year."

Here are even more horrendous stats about the junk mail we receive. $41.00 is a small fee to pay, not to mention that over 1/3 of that amount is donated to community and environmental organizations.

Click this link to visit http://www.41pounds.org.