Late last year, a bunch of catalogs and marketing communications started to pile up in my mailbox. It wasn't a surprise, with holiday shopping just around the corner. I even enjoyed flipping through some of them, like the Pendleton catalog, and daydreaming about all the thick wool blankets I might own if I ever happened to live in eastern Canada.
But as the junk mail collected, I decided to save it all and make a project for myself to unsubscribe from these marketing lists around Christmas and New Year's when I had a few days off from work. Here's how it went and which method of unsubscribing was the most effective:
Do 'Unsubscribe' Services Work?
I've heard about services that will remove your name from marketing lists, so I started my journey there.
The Federal Trade Commission advises consumers to head to the Direct Marketing Association’s consumer website DMAchoice.org and start there. For $4, you can ask the association to remove your name and address from lists, which the FTC says "will stop most, but not all, promotional mail." However, the catalogs and postcards I received seemed to be from companies where my partner or I had made purchases before, so I assumed we were on marketing lists that perhaps each company controlled directly rather than a mass mailing list of consumers that's bought and sold. Plus, when I logged into the DMAchoice website, I noticed that I had already opted out back in 2015. That call to cease junk mail is still good until 2025.
I poked around at another service called Catalog Choice run by a nonprofit organization that acts as a middleman between you and the services sending you mail. The site keeps a database of companies that send mailers. You look up the one you want to cancel and submit your name, address, and other details that might be on the mailing label. They take care of the rest. A dashboard lets you check in on the progress.
While the site sounded promising, I really wanted a more direct and surefire approach, and I didn't want to wait around for results. In addition, a colleague told me he tried it a few years ago and didn't notice much difference in the catalogs he received.
Unsubscribing by Going Directly to the Company
Going directly to the companies that were sending me mail seemed like a better option. After all, I only had maybe a dozen or so catalogs and postcards, which wasn't too many. So one by one, I searched online for the company name and "unsubscribe from catalog" or "cancel catalog/mail."
My favorite outcome was to find an online form where I could submit the details of my mailer and opt out immediately, as was the case with Pendleton.
Other times I found an online form to reach customer service or a recommendation to email the support team. So in most cases, I used those methods. I especially liked that I could attach a picture of the mailing label so that the company would have absolutely all the information it needed.
It worked with Vuori, OuterKnown, FultonFishMarket, Mack Weldon, L. L. Bean, and others. The benefit of using this tactic is I often heard back from the companies with a confirmation email that my address had been removed. Two or three customer service representatives even explained that I might still receive one or two more mailers since they are prepared and printed well in advance, but indeed they would stop soon. Writing to the companies took a little more legwork, but the results were what I wanted.
Sending a Fax to Cancel a Subscription
Overall, I was extremely pleased with my little project and its progress. But one mailer was giving me real trouble: The Harry & David catalog.
Known for its boxes of gold-foil-wrapped pears, the Harry & David company has a perfectly modernized website, but it doesn't have any online forms or even a customer service email address. Surprising, right? I did find a phone number, but when I called, an automated system answered and gave me only three choices: I could place an order, get help using the website, or ask questions about an existing order. I wasn't about to waste my time with that.
While the contact page had no email address and no web form, it did have a fax number. And that's how I decided to send Harry & David a fax.
If you haven't sent a fax in a while, or ever, what you absolutely need to know is that online fax apps are extremely easy to use. They can be free, and they don't require you to have a fax machine or even a fax number. For my purposes, I chose FaxZero, which is free to send a maximum of three pages plus a cover page up to five times per day. FaxZero does put its branding on the cover page when you use the free version of the service, but in this case, it was no bother to me.
So I sent Harry & David a fax asking to be removed from the catalog and all physical mail. I also added a sentence chastising the company for making it so hard to get in touch.
For good measure, I also looked up Harry & David in Catalog Choice to see if it could request removal on my behalf. It did.
One Month Later…
It's been a little more than a month since I embarked on my unsubscribe spree, but so far, I haven't received any mailers from the companies in question. I have the most confidence in the unsubscribe requests that received an email reply. Harry & David is still on my watchlist at the moment.
If you're desperate to stop physical mailers, I highly recommend saving up the mail and then contacting the companies directly one by one. You might try Catalog Choice as a second option, although it doesn't seem like it will save you significantly more time than writing a handful of emails.
For more advice on tidying up, see our guide to unsubscribing from unwanted email and tips for managing email more efficiently.