Stop Junk Mail Article Discussion

custardy

origami.steve wrote: »

Save all your junk mail for a competition winner!!!

That's the game I play so as not to allow the thought of all this paper landing on my door mat get to me. It used to wind me up but now I really look forward to it as I have turned what was once an annoying situation into a game I love to play.


I save everything in a special tray in my workroom (working from home generates an awful lot more than the average amount). Everything goes in. The local takeaway menus, cash for clothes, Lidl flyers etc. you get the picture. Then, eventually you will get some junk mail from a company that makes the fatal mistake of including a pre-paid envelope for you to reply to their 'special offer'. Yes, you guessed it, they get the lot! Usually with a special notice from me with the following statement.


"Congratulations" in big type and phrases such as...

"You have won all my junk mail in my latest competition"

"Please feel free to use your prize as you think fit"

I have a 'winning prize' letter already printed but if I am feeling in the mood I will print a new one with additional content such as...

"If you would like to be entered into the next free competition please send me mail again but remember, your chances of winning are greatly increased if you include a pre-paid envelope"

"You have now won X times" (I keep a note just for my own amusement)

"Added Bonus!!! Should you be lucky enough to win again you will receive our added bonus - the contents of my hole punch. This bonus has been 'rolled over' for many months and is growing considerably and MUST BE WON SOON!!!!! - It could be You!"

Call me sad if you wish but it is an excellent stress reliever! I have even been known to shout "Yippee - we have a winner" when I get junk mail with a pre-paid reply envelope. Hey, if I am in the mood I will even fold them something too!

indeed ......

Azari

origami.steve wrote: »

Save all your junk mail for a competition winner!!!

That's the game I play so as not to allow the thought of all this paper landing on my door mat get to me. It used to wind me up but now I really look forward to it as I have turned what was once an annoying situation into a game I love to play.


I save everything in a special tray in my workroom (working from home generates an awful lot more than the average amount). Everything goes in. The local takeaway menus, cash for clothes, Lidl flyers etc. you get the picture. Then, eventually you will get some junk mail from a company that makes the fatal mistake of including a pre-paid envelope for you to reply to their 'special offer'. Yes, you guessed it, they get the lot! Usually with a special notice from me with the following statement.


"Congratulations" in big type and phrases such as...

"You have won all my junk mail in my latest competition"

"Please feel free to use your prize as you think fit"

I have a 'winning prize' letter already printed but if I am feeling in the mood I will print a new one with additional content such as...

"If you would like to be entered into the next free competition please send me mail again but remember, your chances of winning are greatly increased if you include a pre-paid envelope"

"You have now won X times" (I keep a note just for my own amusement)

"Added Bonus!!! Should you be lucky enough to win again you will receive our added bonus - the contents of my hole punch. This bonus has been 'rolled over' for many months and is growing considerably and MUST BE WON SOON!!!!! - It could be You!"

Call me sad if you wish but it is an excellent stress reliever! I have even been known to shout "Yippee - we have a winner" when I get junk mail with a pre-paid reply envelope. Hey, if I am in the mood I will even fold them something too!

I have done similar - but not to the extent of including an explanatory letter.

Some years back a couple of magazines that I subscribed to insisted in putting three or four reply paid cards into every magazine to try to get people to subscribe. Had it just been one I would probably have thought that fair enough and just binned it.

So I started posting them all back (and encouraging anyone I knew who subscribed to do the same). Whether my particular efforts had any effect I don't know but after about eighteen months the number of cards per magazine had reduced to one.

Before I subscribed to the MPS I would routinely stuff all the contents of spurious offers and prize draws back into any reply paid envelope and post them back. One has to be responsible and minimise one's use of recycling sacks, after all.

Alot_does_not_exist

Have just tried to sign up with MPS. On the last ('enter your email') page, the 'next' button doesn't seem to work, just giving me the self same page to look at time and again. Any ideas as to why?

lincroft1710

Some years ago I got fed up of all the double glazing leaflets I kept receiving double glazing leaflets with tear off prepaid cards for asking for more info. Filled one in with the name of a rival company's rep and their local showroom address and sent it off.

MothballsWallet

[RANT]
I've had charity, double glazing and energy callers on my doorstep who are ignoring the sign. Why are the regulators about as much use as a chocolate fireguard against a 50 MW laser cannon?

I've already got a complaint in with Scottish Power about one of their doorsteppers calling and ignoring the sign. I don't know what they'll do yet, they want to discuss it with me, but have only given me (now) 6 calendar days to call them (because they keep calling me when I'm at work) or they'll close the issue - only a calendar week, huh? The open period should be longer.

I'm nearly at the stage of taking a charity to court for trespassing after I withdrew implied right of access to my property from them and they ignore all my correspondence on the matter.

These sign ignoring types make my blood boil.
[/RANT]
And relax.

Dotty_Doreen

A long while ago I had problems getting the Janet Fraser catalogue people to understand that I no longer wanted to deal with them, so I used the change of address form to make my address=THEIR Returns Department address. Sweet...everything they posted out came back in through their back door the next day...end of problem!
Thinking about it, its about time I did that to Saga, who send mail on a weekly basis...hmmm

no_choice_now

This thread was in the latest MSE newsletter but I find the text about no cold-calling signs to be highly misleading:

"Cold caller signs have legal weight. If you don't want energy firms knocking, download this Free No Cold Callers sign. If displayed, the law now says they can't knock."

The law has always said they can't known, because any such sign removed an implied right of access, and the caller would be immediately trespassing at any point past the clear visibility of the sign.

kevanf1

I'd be interested to see this in printed form (or at least online where I could print it out) in order to 'not quite' stuff it into the faces of those who still wilfully ignore our no cold callers sign.

This is not a criticism of 'no_choice_now', I am just genuinely interested in seeing this law in some official format.

no_choice_now

kevanf1 wrote: »

I'd be interested to see this in printed form (or at least online where I could print it out) in order to 'not quite' stuff it into the faces of those who still wilfully ignore our no cold callers sign.

This is not a criticism of 'no_choice_now', I am just genuinely interested in seeing this law in some official format.

That's fine, just search for "implied right of access" and there are many pages explaining it.

Basically it works like this. If you have a path from the public road to your front door, and on your door have a doorbell and a letter box, it's implied that somebody has a right of access to enter on to your property to engage in lawful business relating to the implication - for example, ringing your doorbell or posting something through your letterbox.

There is no implication that this person could enter on to your property and have a picnic in your front garden (unless you put up a Notice to that effect to grant such activity).

If though somebody went through your back entrance, had to open open a gate and walk up to your back door, then there's not really an implied right of access since there's nothing advertising that you permit people to enter on to your property for that purpose.

There would be exceptions to this, for example, somebody delivering a package and leaving it in a safe place. It is implied that a right of access is fine to securely leave something on your property and the person entering on to the property is of course not up to mischief and isn't breaking any law.

The whole area of implied access is turned on its head when you explicitly revoke that right with a Notice. When this has been done, the person entering on to your property is trespassing since they have no right to be there*.

If your Notice sign is clearly visible at the front of your property and says no free newspapers, anybody attempting to deliver a newspaper is trespassing. If your front pathway was a mile long and half a mile up the path you had positioned the sign, at that point the implication there is a right of access is known and is thus revoked - so going any further than the sign would be trespassing but they weren't trespassing before the sign because 1) you were advertising an access and 2) the person entering the property couldn't feasibly had known until the point up the path that access was not granted.

*But if your sign said no police, then a police officer conducting lawful business still has a right to enter on to your property even if you have revoked any implied right because it's an explicit right for them to do so.

Look in to it, it's ingrained in both common law and statutes.

kevanf1

Thank you 'no_choice_now'. There are, apparently some other exceptions but they are pretty well intelligent ones. Those being a right of access for power & water supply personnel. However, for all the others I can now say "oi, git orff moy land" in a silly accent of course with legal backing. To be serious though, I can use this law with conviction and aim to do so, cheers.