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Iste voluntas scutari cursorium ab cunabulum ad sepulcrum, could be the motto of the Direct Marketing Association: you will receive junk mail from cradle to grave. Or, maybe its motto should be 'you will receive junk mail ulterius sepulcrum'; beyond the grave, for the average person is allegedly sent no less than 80 pieces of addressed junk mail in the first year following death. The statistic probably somewhat overestimates the scale of the problem, but it's a very real problem nonetheless. What should you do if a deceased friend or relative is being sent junk mail?
The most obvious solution is to contact the sender(s) directly. Explain that the person has deceased and ask them to confirm that his or her name will be taken off its mailing list. I'd recommend contacting the sender via e-mail as you will automatically have a record of your request; should the junk mail continue you can easily remind the sender of your earlier request(s) and if it ever comes to a complaint you will be able to show evidence that you did ask the sender to stop sending advertisements.
If you prefer not to contact the sender directly you could return the junk mail to the sender. Cross out the name and address of the recipient, write 'Return to sender, deceased' on the envelope and put it back in the post, unstamped. Be aware though that junk mailers usually respond slowly to such requests - for many a junk mailer sending out junk mail is much more of a priority than dealing with returned adverts. Also, be aware that if you return advertisements you will no longer have evidence that the item was actually sent in the first place. If you really want the junk mail stopped and are prepared to make a complaint if necessary you should contact the sender directly and keep hold of mail-out and any correspondence you have with the sender.
There are three opt-out services that may be useful. Your best option is to try them all.
Mailing Preference Service
You can register the details of someone who has deceased with the Mailing Preference Service. This should stop addressed junk mail from organisations with whom the deceased never had any dealings (the postal equivalent of cold calling). The service will not stop mailings from organisations that are not a member of the Direct Marketing Association. More about the limitations of the Mailing Preference Service can be found on the Mailing Preference Service page in this guide.
Bereavement Register and Deceased Preference Service
The Bereavement Register and Deceased Preference Service actively collect the details of people who have died. They use these details to create a so-called 'suppression file' (that is a list with the details of people who are deceased) which they sell to junk mailers. Mail houses that buy the list can then then remove the details of people who have died from its mailing list(s). Registering the details of a deceased relative or friend is free:
As is the case with the Mailing Preference Service, both schemes have their limitations. Not every company buys deceased suppression files. Most large companies apparently do buy the lists but smaller (mostly local and regional) businesses usually don't. Charities hardly ever clean their mailing list, partly because of the expense and partly because they assume that people don't see charity junk mail as junk mail. The Bereavement Register and Deceased Preference Service estimate that they each cover about 70 per cent of all addressed junk mail. In other words, signing up to the services may reduce junk mail by about 70 per cent - but there are no guarantees.
It is important to be aware that the junk mail will not stop immediately. Both the Bereavement Register and the Deceased Preference Service suggest that you can expect the junk mail to stop within six weeks time but in reality it can take significantly longer. The reason for this is that it usually takes three to four months to organise a mail-out. Most junk mailers only check at the very start of a mailing campaign if there are any deceased people on its mailing list; by the time a mail-out is actually handed to Royal Mail for delivery there will be people on the list who died many months ago. Some mail houses will do a check just before the letters go in the post and pull any letters that are addressed to people who died recently but most can be bothered (it's too complicated and expensive…).
What if contacting senders directly and registering with three different opt-out service doesn't work? Is there any legislation that obliges junk mailers not to send junk mail to people who have died? As per usual, the answer is not very straightforward…
The Data Protection Act 1998 states that any personal data an organisation keeps needs to be relevant, accurate and up to date (amongst many others). Clearly, if you have told an organisation that a friend or relative has passed away and they continue to send advertisements addressed to that person they are not keeping data in accordance with current legislation. However, it can still be difficult to enforce your rights. The problem is that the Data Protection Act does not clearly define when an organisation is not handling personal data properly. As I mentioned above, most junk mailers only 'clean' their mailing list at the very start of a mailing campaign. If you advised Company X of the death of a friend or relative (whether directly or via one of the three opt-out services) and you're still receiving junk mail addressed to the deceased four months later you'll probably find that Company X has not committed an offence; Company X could argue that all the junk mail could not have been prevented (because it was received after the mailing list was 'cleaned'.
If you continue to receive junk mail from an organisation you have contacted more than four months ago you should consider complaining to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). This is the body that enforced the Data Protection Act and they have a (usually) very helpful helpline: 0303 123 1113. More information about the Data Protection Act, your rights and lodging complaints can be found on the ICO's website:
Apart from the ICO the opt-out services themselves may be able to help. If you have registered the deceased's details with the Mailing Preference Service this could be your first port of call. If you make a complaint the Mailing Preference Service will usually check if the sender is a member of the Direct Marketing Association and, if so, contact the sender about the mail-out. Ultimately, your complaint could be passed to the Advertising Standards Authority.
The Bereavement Register also invites registrants to contact them if the junk mail doesn't stop. They do not have a formal complaints procedure in place but they will contact the sender, even if the sender doesn't buy the Bereavement Register's suppression file (that is, the list with the names of people who have died which is used to 'clean' mailing lists). This is partly marketing (the sender may decide to purchase the suppression file after being contacted), partly a genuine attempt to help resolve the issue (being contact by the Bereavement Register should encourage the sender to take immediate action). It should be noted that the Bereavement Register cannot force junk mailers to stop sending junk mail to people who have died, and that the company also cannot make a complaint to the ICO (whether as a Limited Company or on your behalf).
On average, some 80 pieces of addressed junk mail are sent to people who have died in the first twelve months following death. As I mentioned in the first paragraph of this article, this statistic should be taken with a pinch of salt. It comes from the offices of the Bereavement Register, one of the commercial opt-out services aiming to reduce the amount of junk mail targeted at people who have died. The Bereavement Register, part of the REaD Group, has a commercial interest in exaggerating the problem, which probably explains why details of its research into the amount of junk mail sent to the deceased have never been made public (and probably never will).
So, how much junk mail is being sent to the deceased? We simply don't know the answer. The junk mail industry undertakes and commissions an incredible amount of research into just about every aspect of 'direct mail' but it never publishes details about the methodology of any of this research. It's worth stressing this point; I've yet to see the first piece of junk mail research that explains what data was used, what questions respondents were asked and what assumptions were made in the research. Us mere mortals are expected to just swallow the conclusions of the industry's research into itself.
The claim that 80 pieces of addressed junk mail are sent to the deceased in the first year following death seems to have been used since 2005. In that year 4.54 billion pieces of addressed junk mail were sent out. The population at the time was 60 million and so it follows that the average Briton received approximately 75 pieces of addressed junk mail in 2005. In other words, the Bereavement Register seems to be claiming that the deceased are getting more junk mail than the living. If that is the case the Bereavement Register is doing a pretty shoddy job!
I did put this point to the Bereavement Register and they admitted that the figure is probably too high. In fact, there is no real calculation. The statistic is based on the above figures, but assumes that a disproportional amount of junk mail is sent to the elderly (who are more likely to die than young people). There's probably some justification for this assumption but it's unlikely that the statistic comes anywhere near being realistic, in particular because the amount of addressed junk mail produced annually has decreased steadily since 2005.
'So what?', you may ask. And you're right. The Bereavement Register wanted to put a figure on the problem, to make both junk mailers and the general public aware that junk mail sent to the deceased is a real problem. That the figure overestimates the scale of the problem does not take away anything from the fact that there is a problem. What does concern me is that the figure is used for marketing campaigns. The Bereavement Register / REaD Group used to regularly send press releases to local newspapers stating how many pieces of junk mail were sent to the deceased in the area covered by the newspaper. Many papers published these press releases word by word, providing the Bereavement Register with lots of free publicity. The press releases advised people who have been bereaved to register the deceased's details with the Bereavement Register (it's competitor, the Deceased Preference Service, was never mentioned) and urged companies to buy the Bereavement Register suppression file. They also contained a bit of advice for anyone receiving junk mail; people could sign up to another opt-out service run by… the REaD Group. The opt-out service in question has nothing to do with junk mail sent to the deceased and can hardly be called a 'service' (it's more or less an opt-in / opt-out variation on the free Mailing Preference Service for which you have to pay £5 per annum). I should add that the Bereavement Register told me shortly after publishing this article that this particular marketing strategy has now been suspended / abandoned.
Overestimating the scale of the problem is one thing, providing newspapers with false data in order to sell a commercial product is quite another. Do the ends justifies the means? Personally, I think they don't. The Bereavement Register (as well as the Deceased Preference Service, who started copying the Bereavement Register's tactics in 2008) should be concentrating on working towards a system whereby every bulk mailer has access to the suppression file, and whereby its use is obligatory. The scheme could be funded by charging bulk mailers a fee based on the volume of their annual mail-outs, which would be particularly beneficial for small companies and charities. It's all possible, if only the industry would stop seeing deceased opt-out schemes as a commodity.