Unsolicited mail and communications factsheet
How can I avoid receiving junk mail?
Mailing Preference Service (MPS)
The Government recognises that some people find unsolicited mail intrusive and annoying. By registering with the Mailing Preference Service (MPS) any individual who objects to receiving unsolicited mail through their letter box can have their details removed from mailing lists to reduce the amount of addressed advertising literature they receive. The MPS covers around 90% of mailing lists.
Mailing Preference Service
Freepost 22
London W1E 7EZ
Tel: 0845 7034599
Those who wish to stop mailings from an organisation that is not part of the MPS or with whom they already have a relationship, such as a bank or building society, must contact the organisation direct.
Member organisations of the MPS undertake to remove from their mailing list the addresses of those people who indicate that they want this done. However, the MPS is not designed to stop unaddressed items of mail, direct mail delivered to the door or the delivery of free newspapers; and mail addressed to ‘Occupant’, ‘Resident’ or ‘Homeowner’ is not covered under this scheme.
Door-to-door and unaddressed mail - opting out
All companies delivering unaddressed mail operate an ‘opt-out’ scheme, which can be effected by contacting:
Media Markets Helpline
Beaumont House
Sandy Lane West
Oxford, OX4 6ZZ
The Direct Marketing Association, the trade body that most of these companies belong to, is working to develop a co-ordinated scheme to cover all affiliated companies. To raise these sorts of issues with them, complainants are advised to contact the organisation direct. The contact details are:
Direct Marketing Association
Door-to-Door Council
DMA House
70 Margaret Street
London, W1W 8SS.
If you want to stop receiving unaddressed mail delivered by Royal Mail to your home you can do so by contacting Royal Mail at the address below. However, the opt out service only relates to unaddressed mail. Royal Mail is still legally obliged to deliver all addressed mail, which includes mail that is addressed “To the Occupier” (or with any other generic recipient information), as well as mail that is personally addressed to you by name.
It is not legally acceptable or physically practicable for Royal Mail to separate out advertising material from other information in accordance with the individual preferences of some customers. Even if this could be done, it would only affect unaddressed deliveries by Royal Mail, and does not account for the fact that Royal Mail only handles around 26% of national deliveries of unaddressed mail items, the remainder being made by a variety of other companies. Royal Mail is legally obliged to deliver all mail to given addresses and has no control over the contents of postal packets or letters which have been properly posted, paid and correctly addressed.
If you wish to opt out of receiving Door to Door mail items delivered by Royal Mail, please send or email your name and address to the address below:
Freepost RRBT-ZBXB-TTTS
Royal Mail Door-to-Door Opt Outs
Kingsmead House
Oxpens Road
OXFORD
OX1 1RX
or email: optout@royalmail.com
How can I stop unsolicited emails (spam)?
Subscribers are protected from unsolicited spam emails through the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003, which came into force on 11 December 2003. They provide a safeguard against the kind of unsolicited emails that many people object to where they have no knowledge of the advertiser or the products being marketed.
The regulations require that unsolicited spam emails cannot be sent to an individual subscriber unless prior permission has been obtained or unless there is a previous relationship between the parties. The regulations can be enforced against an offending company or individual anywhere in the European Union (EU).
The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has responsibility for the enforcement of the regulations and considers complaints about breaches. A breach of their enforcement notice is a criminal offence subject to a fine of up to £5,000 in magistrate’s court.
Some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) offer a free filtering service where emails are re-directed to a dedicated inbox folder. The subscriber can then either check this folder for any emails they do not want to receive, or choose not to check the folder in which case the filtered emails will usually be deleted automatically after a certain period of time.
In addition, there are also commercially available email filtering products. Alternatively, existing email handling software may have some filtering functions built-in that can be configured to delete emails without downloading them, based on criteria such as certain words in the title of the body of the email, or the blocking of certain senders. An ISP would be best able to advise on filtering software and on configuring the email handling software.
How can I stop unsolicited telephone calls (cold calling)?
Under the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003, no one is allowed to make an unsolicited direct marketing call to a subscriber who has either previously notified the sender that they do not wish to receive such calls, or has been registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) for at least 28 days, which is a statutory "opt-out" scheme for subscribers who do not wish to receive unsolicited direct marketing calls.
The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) runs the TPS scheme under the terms of contract on behalf of the Office of Communications (Ofcom) and can be contacted at: www.tpsonline.org.uk or by calling 0845 070 0707.
Consumer Direct
Customers who have received material through the postal system or by other means, which may represent a scam or fraud of some kind, are advised to report the activity to relevant bodies (for example, a respective trade association or consumer body, and/or the police) for investigation and any appropriate action. General information and specific advice on what to do about suspected scams can be found at the ‘Consumer Direct’ website: www.consumerdirect.gov.uk or by calling 08454 040 506.
