This week a client asked me how he could stop receiving junk mail that is addressed to his deceased father. It seems that shortly after the client was appointed as the personal representative of his father's estate and had all of his father's mail forwarded to the client's address, the client realized just how much junk mail his father received now that it was being dumped into his own mailbox.
So what can my client do? There are several steps that can be taken to stop receiving a deceased loved one's junk mail:
- If the estate is officially closed, then send a copy of the order closing the estate and dismissing the personal representative to the deceased person's local post office and request that all mail service be stopped immediately.
- If the estate is still open, then contact the Deceased Do Not Contact website and enter your loved one's information. According to the website, the amount of mail received as a result of commercial marketing lists (in other words, junk mail) should decrease in about three months.
- For mail that is not technically "junk" mail (for example, solicitations from charities to which the deceased person previously made donations), contact the organization directly to inform them of your loved one's death.
This is insufficient. Why should junk mailers be able to continue to try to get money from dead persons after long they are gone? Do they have any decency left? Why do they send all mail to the next of kin and not cull their own mailing lists instead of getting solicitations to the dead? I still get this junk three years after my mother died, even though she never lived at my address. How many generations will these solicitations continue?
I just attempted to stop mail from my partner who died seven years ago…they told me to send a letter…what!
I just wrote ‘deceased’ across the forms and letter…jammed it all into the postage paid envelope and hope that works…
Really…seven years?
I have same situation… My husband deceased 12 years ago, and can you imagine how do I feel when I receive a letter from Life Insurance?..