Stop your junk mail!  This website has been set up to make it a bit easier to sign up to junk mail opt-out schemes. There are no less than six opt-out services for junk mail and paper directories in the UK - and before Junk Buster was launched they all had to be contacted separately. In just a few clicks you can now contact up to six junk mail opt-out schemes.

Junk Buster is not just about making opting out easier. I set up Junk Buster out of frustration with the junk mail industry's unwillingness to provide a decent service to the millions of people who have no need for advertisements being pushed through their door. There are many things that could be done to make stopping junk mail easier. This here is Junk Buster's manifesto…

The junk mail industry is currently self-regulating. This largely explains why there are so many opt-out schemes and why they don't co-operate. Put simply; the more opt-out schemes there are, the less likely it is people will sign up to them. Hence we got a scheme for addressed junk mail; a scheme for unaddressed mail delivered by Royal Mail; a scheme for unaddressed mail delivered by members of the Direct Marketing Association; a scheme for the Yellow Pages; a scheme for Thomson Local; and a scheme for the BT Telephone Directory. This nonsense should end; the Direct Marketing Association should set up its own official junk buster (which should also include the Telephone and Fax Preference Service).

None of the opt-out services is properly advertised. Only 198,000 households are currently registered with the Door-to-Door Opt-Out, for instance. That's 0.7 per cent of all UK households. The figure for Your Choice is negligible; only 1,600 households have signed up (0.0006 per cent of UK households). Even the Direct Marketing Association would not dare argue that the take up is so low because people actually like junk mail. The simple truth is that people don't know they can opt out. It's time junk mailers start advertising their own opt-out services. Information about opting out should be advertised prominently in every directory; Royal Mail should organise an annual mail-out to tell each and every household in the country about the existence of its opt-out scheme; and that the Mailing Preference Service should be advertised on every piece of junk mail that could have been prevented by signing up to the scheme.

There is no need for opt-out schemes to be run by junk mailers. All opt-out services should be taken away from the industry and run by an independent organisation which cares about people, not junk mailers.

All opt-out schemes should give people the opportunity to register online. Currently, only the Mailing Preference Service allows people to do so. The only reason why the Door-to-Door Opt-Out and Your Choice work with paper confirmation forms is that this makes it more difficult to register. Yell, Thomson Local and BT all refuse to advertise their schemes and don't allow people to opt-out online for that reason - the only way to find out about their opt-out schemes is via websites as these!

You currently need to do no less than three things just to stop unaddressed junk mail. Apart from signing up to the Door-to-Door Opt-Out and Your Choice scheme you also need to get a 'No Junk Mail' sticker (this is because the majority of leaflets coming through the door are not delivered by Royal Mail and or members of the Direct Marketing Association). There is no need for things to be so complicated and discouraging. In Canada, Australia and on mainland Europe people can simply stop commercial leaflets by putting a 'No Junk Mail' sign on their letterbox. Why have all these bureaucratic opt-out schemes if there's such an easy solution?

Frequently Asked Questions

  1. How does Junk Buster work?
  2. Can I not just contact the opt-out schemes myself?
  3. Can I use Junk Buster to opt in again after I've opted out?
  4. How long will it take before I stop receiving junk mail?
  5. I've received a letter from Royal Mail / Your Choice warning me that I may miss important information if I opt-out. Should I be worried?
  6. What is the follow-up survey about?
  7. How do you make money?
  8. What if my opt-out request is ignored?
  9. How have you calculated how much unsolicted mail Junk Buster will stop?

1 - How does Junk Buster work?

Junk Buster sends automatically generated e-mails to opt-out schemes you select. The e-mails contain a standard opt-out request and your name and address details, but not your e-mail address.

In fact, you don't even need an e-mail address to use Junk Buster. Only if you want to receive a confirmation e-mail and/or choose to take part in our follow-up survey will you be asked to give us an e-mail address.

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2 - Can I not just contact the opt-out schemes myself?

You certainly can. Here is what you need to do for each scheme:

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3 - Can I use Junk Buster to opt in again after I've opted out?

No, you can't. However, should you for whatever reason get a craving for junk mail and/or directories, you can contact the opt-out schemes yourself and ask them to start sending you junk mail again at any time (see FAQ 2 for the contact details).

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4 - How long will it take before I stop receiving junk mail?

Royal Mail promises to stop delivering door-to-door items within six weeks time. The Mailing Preference Service and Your Choice both need three months before the opt-out becomes fully effective. However, you should see a reduction in the amount of junk mail you receive during this period.

It is important to note that Royal Mail and Your Choice will not automatically accept your request. To make things unnecessarily complicated, they will send you an opt-out form via the post. They do this so they can verify that you have asked to be opted out indeed and, sadly, to try to change your mind about opting-out (see FAQ 5).

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5 - I've received a letter from Royal Mail / Your Choice warning me that I may miss important information if I opt-out. Should I be worried?

After you have asked Royal Mail and/or Your Choice to stop delivering unaddressed mail, they will send you a letter full of warnings about the consequences of opting-out. The main warning is that you may miss important information from local and/or national government if you decide to opt-out.

Our advice is not to be put off by these scare tactics. Local and national government never use Royal Mail's door-to-door scheme and/or Your Choice to send important information. There are other schemes they can use should they really need to contact each household. The warning mainly applies to free magazines distributed door-to-door by most local councils.

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6 - What is the follow-up survey about?

At Stop Junk Mail, we get a great number of complaints about Royal Mail's Door-to-Door Opt-Out. In order for us to investigate this properly, we would like to know whether or not the opt-out has been useful for people who have used Junk Buster to register with it. For this purpose, we have designed a follow-up survey.

If you tick the Door-to-Door Opt-Out box, Junk Buster will ask you if you're happy to take part in the survey. If you agree to take part, we will send you an e-mail in about four months time asking you to complete a mini-survey about how effective the opt-out has been for you.

The survey does not ask you for any personal or irrelevant information and is always completed anonymously. We're not interested in whether or not you're married and how much you earn; we just want to find out if the opt-out has helped reducing junk mail.

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7 - How do you make money?

The Junk Buster is funded by Stop Junk Mail, a not-for-profit campaign group believing that stopping junk mail should be free.

Stop Junk Mail is funded by the sale of 'no junk mail' signs and other useful products. If you feel we've done a great job helping you get rid of junk mail, please do consider buying something from our shop. Or, why not make a small donation to keep us going?

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8 - What if my opt-out request is ignored?

Unfortunately, this does sometimes happen. The feedback we have had so far suggests that in particular Royal Mail and Thomson Local ignore many of the opt-out requests they receive.

Should your request be ignored, our advice is to contact the opt-out scheme directly (for contact details, see FAQ 2). We do not act as an intermediary and will not contact opt-out schemes on your behalf. That said, you can always contact us if you need more information.

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9 - How have you calculated how much unsolicited mail Junk Buster will stop?

There is no independent data about junk mail volumes available, but using reasonably reliable statistics from Defra and some common sense we have been able to estimate that Junk Buster can stop 246 pieces, or 6.7 kilos, of junk mail per year. The calculation has been made as follows:

Savings in numbers

TYPE

TOT

P/HH

D2D

YC

MPS

SAV

Addressed

4.5bn

167

N/A

N/A

84[2]

84

Unaddressed

6.5bn[1]

241

150[3]

12[4]

N/A

162

Total

12.0bn

408

150

12

84

246

Savings in kilos

TYPE

TOT

P/HH

D2D

YC

MPS

SAV

Addressed

181t

6.7

N/A

N/A

3.4

3.4

Unaddressed

184t

6.8

4.3

0.3

N/A

4.6

Total

365t

13.5

4.3

0.3

3.4

8.0

TOT
P/HH
D2D
YC
MPS
SAV

Total volume of junk mail in the UK (excluding inserts).
Amount of junk mail the average households receives per year.
Royal Mail's Door-to-Door Opt-Out.
Your Choice Preference Scheme for Unaddressed Mail.
Mailing Preference Service.
Total amount of junk mail that can be stopped using Junk Buster.

[1] The total volume of unaddressed junk mail is 13 billion / 368,5 tonnes per year. Inserts in newspapers and magazines account for about half this figure and have been left out of the calculation.

[2] The Mailing Preference Service claims to stop 'up to 95 per cent' of direct mail (what we prefer to simply call addressed junk mail). Unfortunately, the 'up to' bit is highly misleading and ignores the fact that most addressed junk mail is the result people failing to tick opt-out boxes when they buy something or donate money to a charity. Not ticking an opt-out box is the same as explicitly asking an organisation to send you heaps of junk mail. The MPS does not stop these mailings - a request to receive junk mail overrules a registration with the MPS. We therefore estimate that the MPS will on average only stop half of all addressed junk mail.

[3] Royal Mail is currently allowed to deliver three items of unaddressed mail per household per week, or up to 156 pieces of junk mail per year. We reckon Royal Mail manages to deliver three pieces of junk mail a week to almost every household in the UK and that the figure of 150 pieces of junk mail per year is a realistic figure.

[4] Your Choice only covers unaddressed junk mail delivered by members of the Direct Marketing Association - excluding Royal Mail and local newspapers. Because local distribution companies and small local businesses are usually not members of the DMA, Your Choice will do very little to reduce junk mail. One leaflet a month is an optimistic estimate.

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© 2009 by Stop Junk Mail, 2 Mill Hill Road, Norwich, NR2 3DP