Return To Sender

By Amy Hart in News on Jan 18, 2006 1:00PM

If you’re like Chicagoist, you have a pile of junk mail on your desk. Catalogs, credit card offers, magazine subscription offers, etc. It’s amazing there are any trees left in the world.

If you are sick and tired of revving up your shredder on a regular basis, then maybe you need to get behind State Representative Careen Gordon’s bill to limit unsolicited mail, which, aside from being incredibly annoying, results in identity theft and consumer fraud, especially among the elderly.

Sounds great, right? Well, the suggested Do Not Mail registry would have limited impact since it would only be a state law. Plus, it would still allow mailings from not-for-profit groups, companies soliciting their current customers, insurance companies, real estate companies, and the dreaded catalogs. However, you can supposedly opt out of receiving catalogs now via a link on the United States Postal Service webpage. However, Chicagoist did this a while ago and we are still getting about 17 Victoria’s Secret catalogs a week.

So, is this bill even worth it? It is probably a good start, and after seeing our grandparents fleeced out of so much money through the mail, we're willing to take any help we can get.