Reduce Junk Mail and Prevent Identity Theft
More often than not, the government does some really screwy stuff which makes no sense to me and you. Usually I’m very vocal about my opposition to new federal laws and mandates telling us what we should and should not do. However a few years ago the federal government did something that actually protected consumers, and you should definitely make use of it. It’s called the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and it’s enacted federal law.The Fair Credit Reporting Act does a number of things to empower consumers. You now have some legal force to assist you in correcting mistakes on your credit report, as well as having the right to see your credit report for free. The three major credit bureaus weren’t too happy about it, but it really helped consumers take more control of something that was quite distant to them before.
One really great thing Congress did with the Fair Credit Reporting Act was giving consumers the right to opt out of pre-screened credit offers. Let’s take a look at the implications. Chances are that you have gotten an offer for a credit card or insurance policy at one time or another telling that you have been pre-approved and they are just ready to give you some great offer because you are you! These companies who made you the offer did a quick pull of your credit report to determine if you were credit worthy enough to receive the offer. They saw that your credit was pretty good, and then sent you the offer telling you were pre-approved after that.
I don’t get a lot of these pre-screen letters, because I have a credit score of zero and recently opted out, but my room-mate who has a couple of credit cards and a cell-phone plan easily receives 10 credit card offers a week! He throws each and every one of them away. That’s a lot of junk mail. If one of those credit card offers got into the wrong hands, someone could easily open an account in his name, and he would be a victim of identity theft. That would be one bad situation.
There is a way where you can opt-out of pre-screened credit and insurance offers. I would recommend that everyone does this, because you will get a lot less junk mail, and there will be much fewer opportunities to steal your identity. It only takes a couple of minutes, and all you have to do is head on over to OptOutPreScreen.com
Labels: credit score
posted by Matthew Paulson @ 9:31 AM
2 Comments:
Another thing you can do with your junk mail is to write "REFUSED - Return to Sender." Just make sure you don't open your mail first. Also, people must remove you from their mailing lists if you request this. If you don't - your name can be sold - b/c that's a way that companies and nonprofits make money - by selling their mailing lists. (I learned this at a nonprofit I used to work for.)
Do Not Mail Opt-Out Law would be fair to everyone.
The proposed statewide "Do not mail" is an Opt-Out law. Only those not desiring advertising mail need opt-out. Anyone desiring advertising mail can do nothing - and continue to receive it. Why deny those wishing to avoid advertising mail the power to do so?
I do not consider handling unwanted advertising placed against my will on my personal property to be a civic obligation!
The US Supreme Court said in the Rowan case in 1970, ““In today's [1970] complex society we are inescapably captive audiences for many purposes, but a sufficient measure of individual autonomy must survive to permit every householder to exercise control over unwanted mail. To make the householder the exclusive and final judge of what will cross his threshold undoubtedly has the effect of impeding the flow of ideas, information, and arguments that, ideally, he should receive and consider. Today's merchandising methods, the plethora of mass mailings subsidized by low postal rates, and the growth of the sale of large mailing lists as an industry in itself have changed the mailman from a carrier of primarily private communications, as he was in a more leisurely day, and have made him an adjunct of the mass mailer who sends unsolicited and often unwanted mail into every home. It places no strain on the doctrine of judicial notice to observe that whether measured by pieces or pounds, Everyman's mail today is made up overwhelmingly of material he did not seek from persons he does not know. And all too often it is matter he finds offensive.”
Furthermore, the Supreme Court said, “the mailer's right to communicate is circumscribed only by an affirmative act of the addressee giving notice that he wishes no further mailings from that mailer.
To hold less would tend to license a form of trespass and would make hardly more sense than to say that a radio or television viewer may not twist the dial to cut off an offensive or boring communication and thus bar its entering his home. Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit; we see no basis for according the printed word or pictures a different or more preferred status because they are sent by mail.”
We need a nationwide “Do Not Mail” law to create a one-stop, convenient place for homeowners to give senders the aforementioned affirmative notice that we do not want certain kinds of mail sent to our homes. www.nomorejunkmail.org
Signed,
Ramsey A Fahel
Arvada, CO
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