Door-to-door opt-out survey
Q6 - Are you still receiving unaddressed mail from the postman?
Are the 82 householders who returned the opt-out form no longer getting any unaddressed mail from their postie? And, if the junk mail has not stopped, are they now getting less?
Chart 7 - Are you still receiving unaddressed mail?
|
||
 Yes |
44 | 53.7% |
 No |
32 | 39.0% |
 Don't know |
6 | 7.3% |
The majority (53.7%) is still receiving junk mail. Only 39% of respondents told us that the opt-out works for them. Less than 1 in 10 respondents (7.3%) could not tell whether or not the opt-out is effective. The likely reason for this is that it can be difficult to know whether or not a particular leaflet has been delivered by the postman; leaflets usually don’t advertise the distributor.
Q7 - Are you now now receiving less unaddressed mail?
Chart 8 - Are you receiving less unaddressed mail?
|
||
| Yes |
25 | 56.8% |
| No |
13 | 29.5% |
| Don't know |
6 | 13.6% |
Of the 44 people who are still receiving junk mail, 25 (56.8%) said that the amount of advertising mail they receive has reduced. Only 29.5% indicated that opting out has made no difference whatsoever. This suggests that postmen from time to time forget that someone has registered with the opt-out. Postmen have to learn by heart which people on their round have opted out; one can imagine that it is easy to make mistakes.
Still, for people who have gone through the trouble of registering with the opt-out it is nevertheless a very poor service. We got no less than 23 comments from the people who continued to receive door-to-door items. The five comments below pretty much sum up the mood:
"We had no problems at our previous address and so the issue must be with one of the postmen who deliver to our current address (perhaps someone covering the normal postman?). Local delivery offices should make more of an effort to bring opt out preferences to the attention of all staff."
"I constantly tell my local postman that I have opted out of unaddressed mail but he insists he has to deliver it until he is told by the post office that I am opted out [...] If this continues I will save up all junk mail and send it back to Royal Mail in one large lump at their cost as I am getting very tired of trying to stop this rubbish from being put in my letterbox."
"The fact that junk mail is still being delivered is distressing. Talking to the postman about it has no effect. The Royal Mail opt-out service does not exist. It's a fictional project."
"It's a waste of time. However, it would be nice if the general public could charge the post office a handling fee for every piece of junk mail received and invoice them accordingly. Maybe they would then start to take notice."
"Even with a large yellow sticker on the letterbox the postman occasionally still puts unaddressed mail through. It's impossible to miss the sticker, so either he's working on autopilot and not thinking about what he's doing, or he can't read very well. It would be a good idea for Royal Mail to provide their own ‘official’ stickers and emphasise to delivery staff that they must take note when they see them."