OzTennis

I discovered these 2 schemes because I had to stop the mountain of junk mail and daily unsolicited phone calls for my mother-in-law.

There are 2 websites and you can do everything online:

The Mail Preference Service http://www.mpsonline.org.uk

The Telephone Preference Service http://www.tpsonline.org.uk

It isn't guaranteed to stop all junk mail and double glazing phone calls because it will initially stop members of the scheme from sending/phoning. However, you can even report mail/calls from non-members to the website and they will be blocked.

Just for those who are interested in avoiding hassle, stopping a few more trees being chopped down and having fewer poisonous gases pumped into the atmosphere!

OzTennis

Pollster

Good one OzT!!

OzTennis

Oh, and I meant to add that you can also cut out the unaddressed leaflets and envelopes that Royal Mail delivers by writing to:

Royal Mail Door to Door
Beaumont House
Sandy Lane West
Oxford
OX4 6ZZ

OzTennis

OzTennis

'No worries' Poll - 7 for the dancing kangaroos eh (probably less by the time I've posted this)!

OzTennis

HiddenPaw

..it's a shame you can't do the same to stop the unaddressed junk mail left in your post box in Oz (flyers, weekly magazines, etc). I would get more junk mail in my postbox in 3 days in Melbourne than I have had in 8 weeks being back in the UK.

You are right it is such a gross waste of paper, most of which probably goes straight to landfill rather than being recycled!

OzTennis

Yep, I don't know if it always works but our place in Williamstown has a 'NO JUNK MAIL PLEASE' sticker on the letterbox and it stops the flyers anyway.

OzTennis

HiddenPaw

oh we tried that! we even used to not empty the box of junk mail for a week at a time - by that time you couldn't get another thing in it (there was a separate compartment for Australia Post mail). They would still roll up, fold intricately, or squash the mags and flyers into the box. Or they would shove it in the Aus Post section which was even more infuriating!!!

walaj

been using the fax & telephone scheme for a few year now, after numerous times our phone rang in the middle of the night (we have a phone in the bedroom) with a company trying to send junk faxes.

they continued after registering and with the threat that as we were registered that we would report them. This worked unlike the previous calls made to the company before registering.

Muzzman

I often rip up the junk mail and send it back to them in the pre paid envelope. Doesn't stop it coming but makes me feel better.

Muzzman

OzTennis

Better class of 'flyer poster' in Williamstown obviously, they mostly respected the sign!

One thing I actually discovered in my research - because my mother in law was getting up to 6 unsolicited phone calls per day - is that more and more of these calls are emanating from the USA. The law in USA prevents unsolicited marketing phone calls so they the companies have targeted the UK. Apparently they use computers and software with UK phone numbers and can dial every phone in the UK within 3 days if they want!! Most use operators with British accents.

I also discovered there is another growing scam using the telephone. Many credit cards in the UK are being replaced with the so called 'chip and pin'. This means that it is pointless stealing a credit card or counterfeiting a credit card because the PIN isn't encoded. Organised gangs have turned to what they call 'card not present' transactions - ie using your credit card over the internet or the telephone. There is the added security of a 3 digit number on the back of the card and traders should insist on this as well as the credit card number. What the gangs have done is they have obtained credit card numbers and names from sites as esteemed as eBAY (they admitted their systems had been 'cracked'). Using software again it is easy to phone all the people of this name in the UK asking for the 3 digit code on the back - guess what, people have actually given the code in response to a phone call purporting to be from eBAY or who ever. So just a warning, but I know no-one hear would be stupid enough to give their card details unsolicited or to a 'ghost' website!

OzTennis

HiddenPaw

Kew's obviously dropped its standards of late!!

OzTennis

here (hear) even!

Luke I Amyofath

I wonder about the enormity of the precedence that could be set in the scenerio I offer below:

Your house is yours, your mailbox is your property.
you get a ton of junk mail/flyers/weekly's etc
you write to the offending companies asking them to stop littering on your property, or tell them you consider their material harrassment
you sue

I just wonder what a judge would rule ?

Majj

Sometimes you can put in free circulars, pizza leaflets etc, in case they get hungry. make sure you mark the envelope "urgent" or "no room in the bin".

OzTennis

A judge would rule that it is the democratic right of the company to bombard you; you will get a life sentence for wasting judicial time (but you'll get out in 84 days for good behaviour because the prisons are full to overflowing) and costs will be awarded against you. Then again, Lord Hutton could be the judge and he wouldn't see anything apart from rip into the BBC.

Here's what happened recently in Inverness (true) - a Pakistani police officer was subjected to horrible racial abuse inside the police station by a person he had arrested. He was awarded damages for racial harassment - but yesterday another judge withdrew the damages and said he is a policeman and he should expect abuse as part of the job, so it wasn't racial! I suspect some others might come in and say 'quite right judge' but that's bizarre to me. It seems to open the floodgates for accepting any sort of behaviour anywhere - teachers should expect to be abused and assaulted etc.

OzTennis