Thread by @teresamurray

Thanks @malonespeaking for having @uspirg on your show today to talk about opting out of junk mail such as credit and insurance offers. The credit bureaus are allowed to sell our information but we can opt out. There's one official site for this: optoutprescreen.com (THREAD)

@malonespeaking @uspirg Or you call 1-888-5-OPT-OUT.
You can opt out for 5 years or permanently. (Duh!) You do have to provide your personal information: name, address, SSN & date of birth. The credit bureaus already have this info.

@malonespeaking @uspirg Just watch out for imposter websites. Don’t just use a search engine and type in “opt out prescreen” and give your info to bad guys.
Here’s FTC confirmation that I provided the genuine website and phone number. consumer.ftc.gov/articles/presc…

@malonespeaking @uspirg Here’s the catch on opting out permanently: You have to print out your request and mail it in. Yes, they're trying to make it a tiny bit more difficult to opt out for life. You get the form to print out at optoutprescreen.com

@malonespeaking @uspirg Remember, our personal information gets sold in lots of ways, from contests or raffles we enter, to magazines we subscribe to, to public records like when you buy a car or buy a house. It doesn't all come from our credit reports.

@malonespeaking @uspirg If you want to reduce the mail you get that doesn’t start with your credit report, register with the Direct Marketing Association to choose what kinds of unsolicited commercial mail you want. You can opt out at DMAchoice.org. You’ll have to pay a $2 processing fee.

@malonespeaking @uspirg Or you can mail in your form, along with a $3 fee. Your opt out through DMA will last 10 years.
When you register with this service, your name will be put on a "delete" file and provided to direct-mail marketers and organizations. This will reduce most of your unsolicited mail.

@malonespeaking @uspirg Finally, an important tip: Yes, we all get a lot of junk mail. But you have to pay attention to ALL of your mail. You don’t necessarily need to OPEN everything, but you can’t just dump everything in the trash that isn’t a birthday card. You have to look at the envelope at least.

@malonespeaking @uspirg Even if you get all of your bills electronically, that envelope could be a tax notice or a letter that your credit card account is being sold to a new company or a collection notice for a bill that’s not yours. These are things you can’t ignore.

@malonespeaking @uspirg Advice: If it says "presorted STD mail" (standard), it’s most likely junk. As @jmhaigh noted, this is different than first-class. If it has a real postmark with a date (not a fake one like the one below) or a stamp, it’s being sent to you personally and it's worth opening. (END)