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Comment by andirk | Hacker News Reader

These steps work like a charm to stop SPAM calls and junk postal mail:

- Stop unwanted postal mail https://www.usa.gov/telemarketing#item-35222

- Stop credit and insurance offers https://www.optoutprescreen.com/selection

- Stop "direct mail" for $4 https://www.dmachoice.org/

- For everything else, collect your junk mail and occasionally go through each piece individually and enter it into https://www.catalogchoice.org/

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> Consumers can register at DMA's consumer website: www.DMAchoice.org for a processing fee of $4 for a period of ten years. Registering online is the fastest way to see results. DMAchoice offers consumers a simple, step-by-step process that enables them to decide what mail they do and do not want.

I'm going to start a business that delivers several one ton concrete blocks directly in front of the front doors of the offices of firms associated with the DMA. They can opt out for 40 thousand dollars or simply spend a few dozen hours with a pickaxe and wheelbarrow to dispose of the blocks when they arrive unasked for.

I like where your head is at, but heed my experience: I once gathered a couple months of junk mail and wrote "Return to Sender" on all of them and tossed them in a blue USPS box. I walked away dusting off my hands thinking I had stuck it to the man. Little did I know that 2 days later all of that mail was delivered, en masse, back to my front doorstep. Might as well have left fish heads as a warning! My friend explained, though, "See, _you_ were the sender, so they sent it back to you."

This doesn't ring true to me at all. The majority of junk calls I get are not from legitimate businesses that would have anything to do with the links you provided.

The above is for orgs that play by the rules. Here is a tale of one org who didn't: They called me 8x w/ some awful requests of SSN and shit like that. Knowing California law labels >2 (I think) unsolicited calls without consent = harassment, and _each_ violation stands alone, I did not press 2 to opt out, because I'm a gambler. A year later, I got a class action lawsuit parcel which I signed and returned. I got $1,065.

I just checked that first link, and it turns out I registered my telephone number on the Do Not Call registry in 2007. I get at least one spam call or text message every day. I am not totally convinced these measures are bulletproof.

Your second link is broken

https://www.optoutprescreen.com/

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