As an online seller I love sending post using Royal Mail.  They have been very reliable and in almost 6 years of posting items almost daily I’ve only had around three parcels not be delivered and go missing.  That being said, I do not love receiving mail from Royal Mail.  Not just because our only actual post is mostly bills, but because they post junk mail on almost a daily basis! 

I’m not talking about addressed junk mail which they are obliged to deliver as it has our address on (which I just return to sender and ask to be removed from mailing list).  I am talking about junk leaflets, mainly Dominos, Farm Foods, DFS and the like.  Pretty much daily. 

Yep, nearly every day this junk is posted through my door and it’s driving me mad.  In this blog post I’m going to share how you can supposedly stop Royal Mail from delivering junk through your letterbox.

Junk mail.  I don’t want it.  I don’t need a new sofa, I don’t EVER shop in Farm Foods and I will never ever eat a Dominos ever again not just because I’m now dairy-free and refined sugar free, but because I would also refuse to buy it as they send me junk mail constantly and it’s so annoying.  I have TWO notices on my door stating I do not want junk mail and they are ignored by Royal Mail.  Personally I think this is very rude and annoying.  Apparently if you have a notice saying no cold callers they are legally obliged to respect that (is that true?), so why are Royal Mail above all this and believe they can ignore a sign on someone’s private property? 

That’s right.  It’s MY property and I don’t want your crappy paper wasting tree wasting leaflets through my door.  They go straight into the recycling, wasting resources, time and energy.  Though no longer.  They now go back to Royal Mail in their post boxes.  That’s right, I’m returning them to Royal Mail so they can recycle them as why should I have to do it because they rudely ignore my signs?  As a household of four we often fill our recycling bin between the two week pickups so I really don’t need any extra junk to add to it.

There’s been a big hoo-ha recently about GDPR and people’s data and so on.  I know people get mad with junk emails and all emails have to have an unsubscribe option.  That’s just a digital mail into your inbox.  How is there so much law around that and not for something physical actually being shoved into your own home that you didn’t ask for?

It’s obviously all about money.  They are being paid to deliver those leaflets to your home and must be making a lot of money from it.  According to this article in the Daily Mail when Royal Mail were sold off in 2015 50,000 more flyers were put through letterboxes every day.  That was 2015.  If I’m honest I didn’t notice it much back then.  It must be a hell of a lot more nowadays as this issue has really only been bugging me so much the past six months or so as the amount has been increasing and the same flyers coming through all the time.  Driving me crazy.

I’m also annoyed I wasted money on a no junk mail sticker and stuck it to my door, which I didn’t want to stick on my front door really, just for it to be ignored.  So now I have a sticker I didn’t want in the first place on my door to stop a problem it’s not even stopped.

There is supposedly another way to opt out of receiving this junk mail from Royal Mail as they have actually admitted on Twitter they do IGNORE signs on houses.

You need to waste more of your time, energy and trees and fill out this form and post it back to them: https://www.royalmail.com/sites/default/files/D2D-Opt-Out-Application-Form-2015.pdf 

I can’t vouch for it working as I filled out a form one month ago and I’m still getting junk leaflets from Royal Mail.  How do I know it’s Royal Mail delivering them?  Because I work from home and see them delivering them every day.  Just saying as I see Royal Mail stating on Twitter they only deliver 25% of unaddressed mail in the UK.  I’ve also seen people constantly complaining on Twitter that they are getting junk even after filling out their opt-out form.  Search ‘Royal Mail Junk’ and you’ll see the messages on Twitter.

I’ve read it can take 6-8 weeks for the opt out form to be actioned.  Then you may need to complete it every two years to renew.  Wasting more time and paper.  Of course.

Surely it would just be a lot easier for Royal Mail to teach their postmen to read and obey a sign on someone’s private property instead.  Plus all the admin time to receive these forms and process them…. But hey-ho they must like wasting everyone’s time as well as trees.