Stop Bulk Mailings of Religious Material
Do you ever get junk mail sent out by one of the local churches? There's more than one way to deal with religious mail. If you don't wish to receive this stuff, here is how you stop it. The postal service suggests the following course of action: write the offending mailer and respectfully request that the SOB take you off his mailing list. If that doesn't work, write to the Mail Preference Service of the Direct Marketing Association, 6 East 43rd St., New York NY 10017, and tell them you don't want to get any more unsolicited (i.e., junk) mail. Every three months the DMA makes up a computer tape that they send around to the major mailing-list companies with all the people who want their names deleted. The drawbacks here are that you can't be selective, you can't do anything specifically against religious mail, and if you ever subscribe to another magazine in your life (or, for that matter, buy anything through the mail), your name goes back into circulation.
However, you may want to request material from religious organizations and then just throw them in the trash. It wastes their money and very little of your time.
- Get a free bible study guide for your trash can.
- Ask for a personal evangelism package of ten (10) booklets.
- Request 500 smaller booklets or 250 larger ones.
- Request free video rental, they paid shipping and return postage.
- Request a sample pack.
- Request free literature for evangelistic distribution.
- Request a free bible.
- Request a magazine and other literature.
- Request a free wacko book.
- Request free printed books.
- Look! You could heat your home with this crap!
- You can keep your home cozy all winter long!
- Even invite friends to the bonfire!
Another way to deal with it, if they are asking you for a contribution or any other response and they've included a return envelope, is to send all the literature back to them. This also wastes their money because they are paying for the return postage as well. This site had, in the past, recommended mailing a brick back to the company. That is no longer possible. According to rule 917.243(b) in the Domestic Mail Manual, when a business reply card is "improperly used as a label"--e.g., when it's affixed to a brick--the item so labeled may be treated as "waste." That means the post office can heave it into the trash without further ado.