To lock, or not to lock

Most commercial stop junk mail services are not worth mentioning, but here's is an idea that is intriguing and actually quite interesting: a company called UK Letterbox Choice (UKLC) has come up with a 'letterbox lock' scheme that promises to stop all unaddressed junk mail. The Big Question: is it worth paying £29.95 plus an annual membership fee of £5?

Let's look at the advantages first. Compared with the 'block-it-yourself' method the scheme is fairly hassle free. A "Trading Standards approved" installer will to fit the letterbox for you and there's no need for you to keep locking and unlocking the letterbox yourself. Instead, the company will send a copy of your letterbox key to Royal Mail so that your postie can unlock the letterbox (and hopefully lock it again after delivering your mail).

Another plus is that UKLC will register your household with Royal Mail's Door-to-Door Opt-Out and the Mailing Preference Service. The company has somehow forgotten about the Your Choice scheme, but it does show that UKLC, which claims to be a not-for-profit business, genuinely wants to help you get rid of junk mail.

The main selling point is of course that the lock will stop all unaddressed junk mail delivered by others than Royal Mail, completely and with immediate effect. Whereas a 'no junk mail' sign is 'just' a polite request not to deliver unaddressed mail, the lock makes it impossible for junk mailers to harass you any longer.

Its effectiveness is also the main disadvantage of the scheme. For it to work, UKLC needs Royal Mail to co-operate. Although Royal Mail is happy to give postmen a copy of your letterbox key, the company doesn't force postmen to use them. If your postie doesn't feel like unlocking and locking your letter box day in day out, your mail will go back to the sorting office. According to UKLC, you can then collect your post from your local collection centre, but I can't see how you can possibly know that mail has not been delivered. After all, the postman won't be able to leave you a card to notify you that there's mail waiting for you at the collection centre, would he? It seems more likely that your mail will be returned to the sender.

UKLC does offer postmen an incentive to co-operate with the scheme; it will pay participating posties an annual donation taken from the scheme's membership fees. But there is no guarantee that your 'normal' mail will still be delivered. It seems to me that without Royal Mail's full support the scheme is unworkable. Consumers have to risk not receiving any mail anymore and UKLC has to find a way of administrating the incentive scheme. How are they going to keep track of each and every postman in the country in order to pay out the annual donation?

There are other disadvantages. The lock is intended to stop any mail not delivered by Royal Mail. That includes for instance mail delivered by for instance TNT (which might actually explain why Royal Mail is not that unsympathetic towards the scheme). The lock would also stop free newspapers and non-commercial leaflets delivered by local organisations. As most people object to commercial leaflets (the restaurant menus and taxi cards) but do want to receive items which are not trying to sell something, it would be nice if a distinction could be made between commercial and non-commercial leaflets. Unfortunately, the lock system is not that flexible.

And, finally, there is 'junk mail psychology'. What does the junk mail deliverer do when faced with a locked letterbox? One would hope that he or she would give up and never come near your letter box again. But it seems just as likely that the mail will be left behind your door handle, on the doorstep or under a plant pot. Delivers get paid per item delivered – a strong incentive to deliver the junk mail one way or other.

Failing not to deliver

Royal Mail's door-to-door opt-out is by far the most effective opt-out service. Signing up will stop roughly twice as much junk mail as registering with the Mailing Preference Service will do. But, does the opt-out service actually work?

A quick look in the Stop Junk Mail inbox suggests the answer is 'no'. The number one complaint we get is about Royal Mail ignoring people who have gone through the trouble of registering with its opt-out scheme. In fact, I had a hard time trying to stop Royal Junk Mail myself...

As Royal Mail does not research how (un)happy householders are with its opt-out service we decided to do it for them. For a couple of months we asked people who requested a door-to-door opt-out form via Junk Buster what they made of the service. The results can be found in detail on our website. It's quite a long read, so if you're not as obsessed with opt-out services as I am this pretty chart might do it for you:


So what does the chart tell you?

15% of householders never signed up because they either never received an opt-out form (6%) or because they were put off by Royal Mail's warnings about the consequences of reducing unaddressed mail (9%).

13% did register but continued to receive just as much door-drops from their postman as before.

25% found that registering does not stop all leaflets delivered by the postman, but does now get less junk mail.

32% found that the opt-out actually does what it says on the label.

15% didn't know whether or not registering has made a difference.

The conclusion: Royal Mail is failing not to deliver!

How to stop political junk mail

Have the millions of 'election communications' posted through our letterboxes in any way influenced the outcome of the elections? The common sense answer seems to be 'no'. Ever heard a political commentator announce that this or that political party leaflet has increased (or, for that matter, decreased) the number of votes a particular party gained?

Leaflets, or political propaganda in general, are more likely to simply confirm perceptions people already have about political parties. If a leaflet confirms negative opinions it may result in postmen refusing to deliver it. Or, it may encourage the 'target audience' to set up facebook groups like these.

So, how do you stop political junk mail? The answer is that it's easy and near-impossible, depending on whether the junk mail is addressed or unaddressed.

Addressed political advertising comes under the Data Protection Act 1998. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the organisation responsible for enforcing the Act, considers the promotion of a political party "to be within the definition of direct marketing." That means that you can contact the sender and ask them to stop (or to never begin) sending you advertisements. Political parties do have access to the full electoral register during election time, but they are not allowed to simply use the electoral roll as a mailing list. Before producing a mail-out political parties have to check if you have sent them a Data Protection Notice asking the party not to "process your personal data for marketing purposes". If they don't do this they risk a telling off from the ICO.

Unaddressed political junk mail is much more difficult to stop. Usually, 'election communications' such as the BNP leaflet in the image above are distributed by Royal Mail. Even if your household is registered with the door-to-door opt-out, the postman will still push 'election information' through your door; it does not come under the opt-out.

You can still contact the sender and ask them to never again deliver a leaflet to your house and, if they fail to comply, you can still complain to the ICO. However, they may not be willing to deal with the complaint. It is difficult to argue that the sender is 'processing personal data' when it comes to door-to-door leaflets. Your best option is to send it back to the offender.

More junk mail envelopes

Here are 30 more junk mail envelopes. The first lot of 30 can be found here. You can now also buy them (£1 for a set of five) from the Goodies section to the left.