Stop Junk Mail Article Discussion

MothballsWallet

Why did HM Gov agree to let the charity and religious lots be exempt from the rules (once again)? I know they're not really selling, but they cold call, and the cold call should be the illegal thing.

Time to finish the targeting scanners and energy pathways and my anti-cold caller energy cannons then

uptonogood_2

I hope this is not to far off topic, but I wanted to share.

For several years I had been receiving bank mail to an organization not at my address. I would re-post the mail with a 'Not at this address', 'Still not at this address' etc. Fed up with the situation I returned one letter to the banks CEO by Royal Mail Signed For complete with my letter which included the following;

Please give me your assurance that it [the mail] will desist.


As an incentive, I must inform you that from this date I will be billing your organization an administration charge for each letter that I have to process.


For the redirection of each letter my fee is £20.00
For any further correspondence there will be a fee of £50.00 per letter.
For any telephone calls there will be a fee of £20.00 per call.


I trust this makes my position clear.


Yours sincerely,


I got a phone call a few days later. I was polite.



Sorry about the inconvenience caused. Assured the letters would stop and would I accept £50 for my trouble.


Sure enough £50 cheque in the post the next week.

kevanf1

I like it

samwardill

MothballsWallet wrote: »

Why did HM Gov agree to let the charity and religious lots be exempt from the rules (once again)? I know they're not really selling, but they cold call, and the cold call should be the illegal thing.

Time to finish the targeting scanners and energy pathways and my anti-cold caller energy cannons then

Even though HM government allowed charities to be exempt from being prosecuted, public opinion can shame charities into complying. The first step would be to make sure a requirement to obey 'no cold caller' signs is in the 'Code of practice for house to house collections' issued by the Fundraising Standards Board. Just write to codes[at]institute-of-fundraising.org.uk and ask them to include this. I did and there is strength in numbers.

Buzby

(1) unfortunately you have no power to impose a fee that is binding in any way. The reason, there has to be an agreement between parties that if they continue to send, you can bill therm. I would doubt that this would be forthcoming. You can certainly try to bill them, but you success may be limited to a feel-good factor only. The reason? PPC's (Private Parking Companies) have a very low payment rate, and still they persist. What you are doing is no different.

(2) having had one of those 'No Cold Calling' signs in place for two years now, it HAS cut down the number of callers (as I see them arrive, read the Police/Trading Standards sign, and retreat). But you may be interested in the reasons put forward by three callers who ignored the sign:

It did not apply to them because:

a) he had put a leaflet (junk mail) through my letterbox previously in the week, announcing they would be calling so his was not a 'cold' call!

b) a caller offering to provide FREE cavity wall insulation was similarly exempt because he was not 'selling' anything, and did not require me to 'buy' anything!

c) that my exchange (telephone?) had been upgraded, and wanted to be sure I was not suffering from slow broadband. As I was on Virgin cable, I didn't care what happened at the local exchange as my BB was already running a 50Mb/s. he turned out to be a rude young man representing Talk Talk.

Inventive, I grant you - but I think I'll stop slamming the door after pointing to the sign, and get the full details of who the work for. The trouble is, once I have this info, doubt they'll do anything abut it!

Anyone want to prove me wrong?

kevanf1

I've just realised. The only cold callers who have been true to their word are Jehova's Witnesses. I asked them not to knock on our door something like 15 years ago. They do still come into the street and they do knock on other people's doors but never ours Yes, I was polite when I asked them not to call again.

Paul_Varjak

uptonogood wrote: »

I hope this is not to far off topic, but I wanted to share.

For several years I had been receiving bank mail to an organization not at my address. I would re-post the mail with a 'Not at this address', 'Still not at this address' etc. Fed up with the situation I returned one letter to the banks CEO by Royal Mail Signed For complete with my letter which included the following;

Please give me your assurance that it [the mail] will desist.


As an incentive, I must inform you that from this date I will be billing your organization an administration charge for each letter that I have to process.


For the redirection of each letter my fee is £20.00
For any further correspondence there will be a fee of £50.00 per letter.
For any telephone calls there will be a fee of £20.00 per call.


I trust this makes my position clear.


Yours sincerely,


I got a phone call a few days later. I was polite.



Sorry about the inconvenience caused. Assured the letters would stop and would I accept £50 for my trouble.


Sure enough £50 cheque in the post the next week.

I had a similar experience. Repeated letters from Santander and a debt collection operating on their behalf. I called Santander but they said they would keep writing even though I told them the person they were writing to had left the property many years earlier.

When I asked to speak to the author of the letters I was told no-one of that name worked for Santander! So, I found out where the author lived and sent back the latest letter to her home address. I never heard from Santander or the debt collection agency again.

drbrum

I had one of them boiler people so did my elderly neighbour -rude, persistent and aggressive. When I told him to leave my neighbour alone, he started being abusive. I got the baseball bat, he left. Feel guilty for not giving him a swing