How do I decrease the amount of "junk" mail my mom gets? She has a tendancy to donate to every cause that arrives in her mailbox.

The Post Office will not return junk mail to sender. It goes in the trash. This goes for the cards and gifts that charities send out.

Some of us get the "Red Plum" junk mail. I think that's the name of it. Recently I found out that you opt out by contacting them. That helps with some junk mail. Red Plum.com.

Friendly, are you in a position to get to your mother's mailbox before she does? There seems to be a central post office mechanism for stopping all third class mail - now called marketing mail - from arriving in the first place for either 5 years or permanently. Go to the Federal Trade Commission's page about "Stopping Unsolicited Mail, Phone Calls, and Email" and read up on how to do it. And if you have any luck using it, please report back!

I would write "deceased" on envelope and instructions to return to sender. Don't open it and post office will return it

As a 24/7 caregiver for my husband this junk mail issue has been a monstrous problem. This s really is not an answer, but a sharing of my experience. I tried having the post office place a hold on our mail, but the postal delivery person saw our car in the driveway and thought we "ww were back from vacation" and came to the door to deliver mail. So much for that idea. The constant arguing ove his "right" to purchase everything, every offer, every sweepstakes, buying magazine subscriptions and those offers that are also included-convinced that if he didn't, he would not "win". On PCH's behalf, I was able to call them, and they agreed to not accept any orders from him, and they have kept their word. He called me names for not allowing him to donate to every charity. This was horrible. He wanted to refinance our home with every loan offer, constantly challenging me as to what our mortgage information is. The last time I allowed him to have a credit card in his wallet, he spent the last $150 in our bank account on an erectile dysfunction pill. I was able to get our money back but proceeded to substitute his credit cards with other cards that he cannot buy things with. I give him a little cash ( a five and five ones), and he keeps the money we get from cans and bottles we take to recycling. He always wanted to use those phony checks and it went on and on and on. I now find ways to get to the mail first, because we live in a community that has mailbox groups. I quickly sort through and keep anything addressed to him that looks "benign" so that he does get mail now and then. It is not an easy fix but it has reduced our arguments-and yes I tried all of the tools to redirect, to "go along", but none of the tools worked with him.

I did a change of address online with the USPS.

I listed my address as Mom’s new  address.

You can go to consumer.ftc.gov, they have information and links to stop junk mail & phone calls.

We have found that asking to be taken off a mailing list is usually a waste of time. They ‘forget’. I would get a mail redirect (or a PO Box in your Mum’s name for six months, if you don’t want to forge anything, but keep the keys). Return the junk marked ‘gone away, no forwarding address’ - that usually works after about three returns. If your mother responds to telephone begging calls, things get harder. There was a long string a while ago about cancelling credit cards, removing cheque books etc.
Good Luck!

Friendly: My late mother was the same way. I put a stop to her donating her last dollar when I moved in. Have your mother's mail sent to you. End.

I would sign onto Catalogue Choice which allows you to cancel all kinds of magazines and solicitations. Every time I get a catalogue or credit card offer or other similar mailing, I use them to notify the company. That stops almost everything. Also going on the company web site and requesting that the mailings stop may do the trick.

One problem is that some of the organizations, especially charitable, do not do their own mailings, and it is cheaper for the hired solicitor to mail things than edit the list. The worst one I ever encountered was Daily Prayer.

My mother would donate to just about any cause, too. I like the idea of sending the junk mail back with a ' take me off your mailing list' note on the front. The mailbox is so full of it, every day.

I had a similar issue with my Mom. We didn’t realize how bad it was until my dad died and I started paying the bills for her. She wouldn’t stop! By the time I figured out what was going on, she had “donated” over $38,000!
I rented a P.O. Box for her (and didn’t give her a key). Another thing that was helpful was to download an app called PaperKarma. It still took over a year to get it all stopped.

I collected all my mother in law's junk mail and donation requests and contacted as many as I could, through e-mail or writing letters, or simply writing "please remove from mailing list" on the solicitation and returning it in the prepaid envelope many of them provide. I also went to various direct mail websites and opted her out of as many lists as I could. This drastically reduced her mailings, but be forewarned that it takes up to 3 months in some instances to stop all mailings from some places, and if your mother donates to them in the meantime, she goes right back on the list. You have to be diligent.

In my own situation, if it were up to me, I would redirect my MIL's mail to a PO Box or to our home address, but my wife has resisted this change as her mother is able to take care of herself for the most part, despite her dementia. Most of the time, anything she gets and has questions about, she sets them aside to have my wife or me look at them. However, just last month, she got suckered into a $4K extended warranty (with a $495 down payment) on an 8 year old car with 17K miles. Fortunately we got it canceled and the down payment refunded. But it's getting to the point where more active intervention is necessary.

My advice is to contact any and every place that sends stuff to your mother and have her removed, and if you need to, reroute the rest to your own home or a PO box.

I like the first 2 answers - I was going to suggest a Post Office Box and you can dump anything you don't want into their garbage cans. But getting the mail forwarded would be cheaper :)

Good suggestions but this is what I did. If the junk mail included a return envelope, I sent everything back in it. Circled Moms name and wrote "take me off your mailing list". If no envelope went on the internet. Don't subscribe to any magazines. They sell names. Contact catalog services and ask they be stopped and name taken off mailing list. They sell names to. Do not fill out any contests, you know like a free trip or car at the Mall. Every time I did this I started getting junk mail. Moms junk mail is pretty much gone.

I would redirect it to your house. You can easily throw away the junk and give mom the real mail.
You have to fill out a change of address card at the post office putting your address on it. It needs her signature at the bottom. How you go about getting that is your business.
I would doubt if they have time to check every signature that is written.

I agree with Treeartist and Freqflier. Having the mail sent to your home would only fill up your garbage can and not empty your moms wallet. When you donate to these organizations?, you are put on a list and thus more mailings asking for money. Stay well and the best to you and your mom.

I have sent back the flyer and marked the "take me off your mailing list" box. If it does not have a box like that, call the company and tell them you would like your name taken off the mailing list. Sometimes they have to put your call through to another dept or give you another phone # to call.

Someone always picks up my Mom's mail, so we took to sorting it in advance and just not turning over any catalogs (her problem was ordering from catalogs, not falling from scams). Try to get to the mailbox before she does. There's also a service (I think it's called Catalog Choice) where you can submit names of catalogs you want to be discontinued from. I don't know if there's anything similar for junk mail though.

FriendlyNE, I found once I had the Post Office transfer my Dad's mail over to my house, hardly any junk mail followed. Usually the Post Office will throw away 3rd Class mail so that is one reason why there aren't any catalogs or asking for donations. After almost 2 years, still no junk mail... YEAH \o/

I had to transfer the mail because my Dad was throwing away current bills... he thought the bills were junk mail.... nice wishing :) I was able to go on-line to have the mail re-directed, it cost $1, what a deal.

Good afternoon Friendly,
We had to redirect our parents’ mail to one of my siblings after my father was lured to a car dealership with one of those “$1000 fake checks to be used toward the purchase of a new car” advertisement. He bought a truck which he could not afford and we had to get a lawyer to make them take it back. It was shortly after this that we had to take control of their finances too. I’m sure my parents had to sign to allow the redirection of mail, but they did it.