Barbara Eastin spent three years trying to stop the junk mail being sent to her father. Even when she moved, the solicitations followed to her new house.
It wasn’t the volume of mail that bothered Eastin but the fact that her dad had long since passed away.
“It boggles my mind that you can send something back and write ‘deceased’ across it and it doesn’t have any effect at all,” said Eastin, whose father died in 1992.
While the solicitations eventually stopped, an association of marketers for the first time is offering people like Eastin a chance to stop them sooner – for a $1 fee. Some bereavement experts commend the effort as sparing families additional stress, while others worry it could make them the target of additional pitches.
The Direct Marketing Association’s Deceased/ Do-Not-Contact List lets people remove a deceased family member’s name, address, phone number and e-mail address from marketers’ distribution lists. The group established the list in July, and it will take effect next month.
More than 1,000 people have placed someone on the national list, which the association will distribute monthly beginning Oct. 1.
“We staff a consumer hotline, and one of the calls we got fairly often was from people who recently lost a loved one who were obviously upset to receive mail with the person’s name and wanted to know how to stop it,” said Stephanie Hendricks, director of public affairs for the New York-based association.
While the complaints generally centered on mail solicitations, the list will also cover telemarketing calls to households not already on the federal do-not-call list, she said.
The association’s 5,200 members will be required to abide by the lists. Nonmembers may also request the lists.
That won’t eliminate all junk mail, but it may cut off a large portion, Hendricks said.
The group has imposed a $1 credit-card charge to place names of the deceased on the list, which it says will help maintain records to prevent fraudulent listings.
“The dollar charge is not intended to be a profit generator,” Hendricks said. “It was the minimum charge allowed on credit cards, and it gives us a record of who made that request.”
Previously, some marketers relied on listings from the U.S. Social Security Administration, which showed people who were no longer receiving benefits.
Local bereavement experts said the Deceased/Do-Not-Contact List might provide a valuable service for people struggling with grief.
“For some grieving people, getting phone calls or mail addressed to the deceased person can be upsetting,” said Kevin Clark, manager of the bereavement department at the Hospice of Metro Denver. “If this list makes it so they get less of those contacts, I think it would help.”
Cordt Kassner, executive director of the Colorado Hospice Organization in Colorado Springs, said the list could be helpful but questioned the $1 fee.
He also worries that listing a deceased family member might open the registrants up for additional solicitations because professional marketers would be aware of households where deaths had occurred. That could open them up to pitches for grief services or scammers preying on the bereft, he said.
Hendricks said association members abide by an ethics policy that would prevent such use of the list. Additionally, nonmembers who request the list must sign a legal agreement that they will use it only to remove people from marketing lists – not to add them.
“If we find they have used the list for anything beyond that, then we will go after them,” she said.
The association plans to promote the list to funeral-home operators, hospitals, the American Medical Association and consumer groups.
Eastin, vice president of Fairmount Cemetery & Mortuary in Denver, said she probably would recommend the service.
“If somebody had told me for a dollar I could stop all (the mail), I’d have done it,” she said.
Staff writer Kristi Arellano can be reached at 303-820-1902 or karellano@denverpost.com.
