I made the mistake of buying a product from Healthy Living through the letterbox catalogue several months ago. The company has either sold or passed on my address to at least three other firms who now send me unwanted junk mail up to four times per month. What's even more annoying is that, in passing on my address, the original company must have incorrectly typed my house number, with the result that (when the postman does not know me personally) the junk mail is delivered to a neighbour's letterbox. Obviously my neighbour is annoyed about it. I've tried returning unopened envelopes (a) with a sticker saying STOP sending mail (b) with a sticker to the Post Office saying 'Return to sender - unknown at this address'. I've also emailed the Healthy Living company to express my annoyance and to tell them I want to hear nothing more from them. Result: three packages today (from Healthy Living, Housewares Direct and Foot Friendly). What legal steps would you now advise me to take?
Personally addressed junk mail is the only type of junk mail that's covered by an Act of Parliament: the Data Protection Act 1998 gives you to right to force any UK organisation to stop using your personal details for 'direct marketing' purposes. The Act is enforced by the Information Commissioner's Office.
To enforce your right not to receive addressed junk mail you need to send the offenders a so-called 'data protection notice'. You can find an example letter / e-mail in the Guide to Stamping Out Junk Mail under Contact the sender. The page also explains a bit more about how to best write a notice and what to do if an organisation ignores your request.
In your case there's a complication in that the junk mail is being sent to the wrong address. As far as I'm aware you can only use a data protection notice to stop personally addressed junk mail send to your address. My advice is to send the notices using the name and address used by the senders. Do tell your neighbour about this though – you'd normally get a letter from the sender to confirm they've removed your details from their mailing list – you'll want to keep a copy of that letter (in case the junk mail continues). If you don't want to annoy your neighbour any further you could get advice on the best way forward from the Information Commissioner Office's helpline: 0303 123 1113.
Also worth mentioning is that the companies you've contacted are already in breach of the Data Protection Act. The Act is based on eight principles about how organisations should keep and process personal data. Organisations that ignore informal requests to stop targeting you with junk mail and that send junk mail to the wrong address are in breach of the fourth principle: the data isn't accurate
and kept up to date
. Should you prefer, you could lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office without sending a data protection notice. You could also do both: send a notice and make a complaint about the companies' data handling practices.
Finally, the Data Protection Act also gives you the right to request information about what personal details organisations hold about you. You may want to ask Healthy Living to provide you with a list of organisations they've passed your name and address to. If they give you that information you could next send all those organisations a data protection notice (even if they haven't sent you any junk mail yet). If you really want to stamp out the junk mail you could also ask those organisations whether or not they have passed your name and address to any other organisation.