Snail-mail Spam?

If you're like me, the unruly circulars full of ads and coupons that show up in your real mail box bother you almost as much as their modern equivalent in your email inbox or your fax machine. The good news is, the "real" spam costs the sender money, unlike email spam which is "free" or fax spam where the spammer actually steals your supplies to advertise to you.

I have had a surprisingly easy time getting in touch with the senders to remove my address from their lists. I decided to tear off the address portion and contact portion of all the junk mail circulars that arrived in January. I discarded all duplicates and came up with four publishers so far.

Advo publishes Shopwise
They have a web form. I filled this out and promptly received a confirmation postcard informing me that it could take 6-8 weeks to be purged from the system, and that the removal was good for five years, at which time I assume I will have to remove myself again.

LA Times publishes Local Values
They have a removal instructions on their website which state:
To discontinue delivery of your Local Community Values, contact Customer Service, (626) 472-5242.

Penny Saver is it's own publisher
They give out a subscription department phone number from the automated phone tree at their Customer Comments line: (800) 422-4116

Cox Target Media publishes ValPak
They have a web form.

Note: I called Penny Saver first (in December) and left removal instructions. Their outgoing message states that it takes them 2-3 weeks to purge you from their system, but I was still receiving their circular five or six weeks later. I called the same number and requested that someone call me back with a confirmation, which they did. I was told that they took me off on my first request, but that they use an "address card" that is separate from the circular. She told me that I am certainly not receiving that, and I should "inform the mailman" to stop delivering the circular. I taped a little note on the inside of my mailbox door addressed to Letter Carrier. We'll see if that works.

If I identify more publishers in our area, I'll update this list.