This is not the first step you should take to stop junk mail. It is a part of a larger plan I have been working on for years.
Today will be all about telling your bank to stop sharing your information with everyone. A couple of readers have chatted with me about stopping their parent’s junk mail. They moved their parents into an assisted living facility. Soon after the junk mail would start pouring into their new address. The only place they told where their parents had moved to: The Bank.
A lot has happened in the world of Big Data in the years since I wrote my guide to locking your data down. Big Data Part 1, Big Data Part 2. Both state and federal governments have realized that banks are collecting and sharing their customer’s data. That data is turned into all kinds of targeted advertising including junk mail. Every year your bank is supposed to send you a letter that talks about opting out of data collection. I have yet to see this letter from my bank. They must hide it in some small print, in a terms of service letter that I glance at, and toss out.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has an entire page devoted to how you can protect your financial data:
Privacy Choices for Your Personal Financial Information
Companies involved in financial activities that must send their customers privacy notices include:
- banks, savings and loans, and credit unions
- insurance companies
- securities and commodities brokerage firms
- retailers that issue their own credit cards (like department stores or gas stations)
- mortgage brokers; automobile dealerships that extend or arrange financing or leasing
- check cashers and payday lenders
- financial advisors and credit counseling services
- companies that sell money orders or travelers checks
If you have accounts with these types of businesses, you need to go to their website and find their “Privacy Center” and set it as tight as you can. I’m in California, I may have more control over my data than you do. California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
I can’t look up every bank in America. But I will be linking to the top 4 banks in the US, that way you can see the type of webpage you should be looking for on your bank’s website. Or you can call your bank’s main phone number and ask to “opt-out of the selling of your Personal Information”. Be prepared to have all of your ID’s on hand when you call.
Wells Fargo: California Consumer Privacy Act Notice
How to Make Requests
If you are a California resident, you can make an Access Request or a Deletion Request by:
- Contacting us at 1-844-774-9229; or
- Submitting your request at www.wellsfargo.com/privacycenter/
Wells Fargo Online® customers and Wells Fargo employees: you can make a request by using your existing Wells Fargo log in credentials.
For all other individuals, we will ask you to provide the following information to identify yourself:
- Name, contact information, social security or individual taxpayer identification number, date of birth; and
- A copy of government issued photo ID. We accept your Driver’s license, State ID, or Matricula Card.
When you make a request, we will attempt to verify that you are who you say you are. For example, we will attempt to match information that you provide in making your request with other sources of similar information to reasonably verify identity.
Chase: California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) Disclosure
| To limit our sharing | Call 1–888–868–8618 – our menu will prompt you through your choice(s). We accept operator relay calls.Visit us online: chase.com/privacypreferences Please note: If you are a new customer, we can begin sharing your information 30 days from the date we sent this notice. When you are no longer our customer, we continue to share your information as described in this notice. However, you can contact us at anytime to limit our sharing. |
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Bank of America: Privacy & Security: Set Your Privacy Choices
- Visit us online: bankofamerica.com/privacy
- Call 888.341.5000 — our menu will prompt you through your choices
- Talk to your assigned financial advisor
Please Note: Direct marketing is email, postal mail and telephone marketing. Your telephone and postal mail opt-out choices will last for five years, subject to applicable law. Even if you limit direct marketing, we may still contact you to service your account or as otherwise allowed by law.
Citibank: U.S. Privacy Notice for Consumers
B. Submission of Requests. You may exercise these rights by managing this information through Citi’s Privacy Hub at online.citi.com/dataprivacyhub or by calling us at (833) 971-1191. If you wish to submit a request to have your Personal Information deleted (see section I.A.3 in this Appendix) or wish to opt-out of the selling of your Personal Information, call us at (833) 981 0270. If you wish to submit any type of CCPA request through an authorized agent, please follow the process in Section I.D. below.
Bonus tips:
You can also submit a California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) Opt-Out Request with each credit bureau. This won’t stop junk mail for credit card offers. It stops them from selling your information to 3rd parties.
To opt-out of credit card junk mail, go to Opt Out Prescreen. They will ask for your Social Security Number. It is OK this site is run by the credit bureaus, your Social Security Number is how they ID you.
Have you caught your bank sharing your information?
Today’s photo is from Library of Congress. It is of 25-ton door, safe deposit vault, main office, Old Colony Trust Company, Boston, Mass. Taken around 1913.
Drowning in Junk Mail 
Did they submit an USPS COA (change of address) for their parents? If so, then their info was submitted to the NCOA (national change of address) database. This is how our junk mail follows us!
Is the “new” address listed on their parents credit reports (Experian, Equifax, transunion & innovis). Call the dispute number on the reports and ask the clerk what creditor(s) are reporting said info. That is the culprit! Also, they need to opt out of each bureau separately from the opt out prescreen for preapproved offers.
Also, have them Google their parents personal info to see if the new address is listed. Start with truepeoplesearch, Melissa Data, whitepages, intelius (anywho, addresses), peoplefinders, radaris, beenverified (google address + beenverified to access their free info), spokeo.
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I receive these letters every year, and every year I have to bell the bank and instruct them not to share my information. I do it for obvious reasons, but I feel if I have told them once that I do not want my information shared for any reason, that should be sufficient notice for the rest of my life. It is ridiculous and stressful to have to do this year after year. The same is true of “opting out” with the Direct Marketing Association.” Every year they require innocent people write to them to opt out of marketing from their members. Why should we be forced to take on this task year after year? This sort of predatory marketing is not allowed in Europe, and it should not be allowed here. Once you tell someone the first time that you do not want to have you information shared or used by marketers, that should be a standing order as it t’were. No one should have to deal with this year after year after year.
If you or I continually contacted anyone else after being told not to contact that person again, police would charge us with harassment, and we would be arrested and face jail time, fines, and a record. If the rest of us cannot get away with this sort of behaviour, why should these lousy marketers get away with it? There is something rotten in Denmark if you ask me. The law puts up with almost anything that businesses want to do for the sake of “profits,” but the rest of us are held to an entirely different standard. It turns my stomach.
In the past, I have gone to EXTREME measures to keep companies from sending me junk mail because they just would not stop after repeated requests. Often, I would be told, “you have been removed from our list, but you may still receive catalogs, etc., from us for up to six months.” What?!! If you have asked to not be contacted anymore, that means from that moment onwards—not after six more months. There was one company who failed to take me off of their marketing list after I repeatedly contacted them. Finally, I belled the store manager at the store nearest my home at that time and detailed this frustration with their junk mail. I told him,”the next piece of junk mail I receive from Service Merchandise will be brought to your store, and I will proceed to cause the biggest stink in front of everyone that you have ever seen in your life. I bet a lot of your customers will walk out and never come back.” The junk mail stopped at that point after at least 5 years of my requests to stop sending me junk mail. I am glad it worked, but bloody hell, no one should have to go to that extent to be left in peace at their own home, you know? No company could get away with this sort of so-called “direct marketing” in Europe. It is against the law there, and it should be against the law here, too.
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