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Today I took a moment at lunch and registered for “opt-out” service at a couple of places.

First I processed myself through the prescreen credit card opt out service. They will opt you out for 5 years if processing online or opt you out forever if you mail in a form they give you to print. The website to do this is located here.

Then I popped over to the DMA Choice website to try and stop junk mail. I get a ton of crap I don’t want and I feel it is a waste of paper.

However, I did get a message from them during the opt out process that I wanted to share here…

DMA’s Mail Preference Service
Important: You have selected to eliminate all mailings from organizations participating in the DMA Mail Preference Service.
Are you sure you want to proceed?

The average household can save $1422 dollars per year from marketing offers. By eliminating all mail offers not only will you miss out on these savings, but you’ll miss out on at least 80% of all commercial offers and discounts!

And you will miss the environmental benefits of shopping at home rather than driving to the mall!

By replacing just two shopping trips to the mall each year with shopping by catalogs or direct mail, DMA estimates that Americans could:
Reduce the amount we drive by 3.3 billion miles.
Reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 3 billion pounds.
Save more than $490 million on gas costs.

Now… go back and read that again.

Ok. You have the figures there. Let’s review. They claim that getting catalogs in the mail is going to reduce the miles driven, reduce carbon dioxide emissions and save on gas costs.

I disagree. Take a look at these thoughts and let me know what you think.

1. Catalogs do not magicly appear in my mailbox.
2. My postal service person must drive to my house to deliver them.
3. Catalogs are the heaviest paper item mailed.
4. I have to go to town anyway… I don’t know if a good catalog for groceries and high use items (at least not my area)

Ok. My postal service person drives a ragged old jeep. It does not run on an electric motor or on natural gas. When they stop at my house they sit there for a few seconds doing their business. Then move on down the road. They stop at every mailbox. Not only do they deliver catalogs but they deliver the same junk mail pack to every mailbox, even if no other mail is being delivered.

Tell me that this daily stop and go driving is better for the environment than my trip to the local store twice a week.

Next main point… say we can’t stop all junk mail, but we at least stop the heavy catalogs. I would guess that my postal service person’s ragged old jeep gets better mileage when the load is lighter. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this clunker runs better when it’s weighed down… but I don’t think so.

So, I cut the load, I request less mail period. Less stops to my house even. And they say that I’m hurting the environment because I don’t want to order from catalogs.

How about a few more points…

1. Internet catalogs don’t cost trees to print. Plus, purchasing from the internet is the same process as from a printed catalog. As a matter of fact, my last 10 “catalog” purchases were not made online. After looking in over priced catalogs I searched google and found them cheaper. Plus catalog sales are only good for stuff you can’t buy down the street anyway… shipping cost too much. (maybe it’s all the gas related overhead, ya think?)
2. Driving to town and visiting a couple of stores in one trip and getting most everything I need HAS TO BE better for the environment than to order 20 items from 20 catalogs and having them ship all on different days over the next 3-6 weeks and have my postal service person drive in to see me everyday… no?!¿

Instead of trying to scare people into not optting out… maybe they should be talking people into it so help the enviornment even more. Campaign to get people to make more of their visits into town. Buy more on less trips. If you really need something they don’t sell around you, order it online. Stop wasting paper just so you have something to read while you take a crap.

Oh… wait, I forgot… there is money to be made in every address they can sell to the catalog companies. Why don’t they just say that in the first place?

Tags: credit card opt out, DMA, junk mail, opt out