CHARLOTTE — When you check your mailbox, chances are you’ll find more junk mail than you do real mail. But it’s not just a hassle. All that junk mail can also put your person information at risk.
Sharon Anderson gets unwanted mail often.
“It’s just so much junk. It piles up, piles up,” she told Action 9 attorney Jason Stoogenke. “It just stacks up, stacks up, stacks up.”
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Want less? The group Consumers Checkbook has good advice:
- Tell the Mail Preference Service of the Direct Marketing Association you don’t want to be on their lists, for a small fee. Members have to honor your request. In fact, some non-members honor it too.
- You can tell the coupon company, Valpak, no as well. They have a way to unsubscribe on their website.
- The nonprofit CatalogChoice.org can help get you off mailing lists.
- Go to OptOutPrescreen.com to stop credit card and insurance offers specifically.
Unwanted mail isn’t just inconvenient. Stoogenke doesn’t want you to fall victim to identity theft. When he speaks to groups about fraud, he tells consumers there’s really no such thing as junk mail. If it has your personal information, it’s not garbage to criminals.
So black out any personal data inside or out and shred or tear up the mail before getting rid of it.