Get $1 for stopping junk mail

Want a free buck? GreenDimes, a service for reducing the junk mail you receive, will now pay you to join their service. In fact, GreenDimes is offering $1 to the first 5 MILLION people who sign up for its FREE service.

Too good to be true? Well, sort of. The free subscribers won't get the full service that GreenDimes offers. What freeloaders will receive: Do-it-yourself removal from common junk mail and catalog lists. If you want GreenDimes to do the work for you -- for ex., auto-removing your name from lists and monitoring your junk mail -- you'll need to fork over $20.

You may ask how exactly GreenDimes is providing a free service when you have to, you know, do the work yourself. That's a fair question. In fact, the "service" GreenDimes is offering for free now is already offered free by Catalog Choice and ProQuo (reviewed here).

However, no company besides GreenDimes will actually PAY you to reduce junk mail, to my knowledge. Even if you're not that impressed by the free "service" GreenDimes is offering, you can still sign up to get that dollar. If you prefer, you can elect to have a tree planted on your behalf, or get a free trial issue of Plenty magazine, in lieu of the buck.

Perhaps that dollar incentive will entice some people who wouldn't have bothered to reduce junk mail otherwise. If all of them seriously take advantage of even just free service, we'd reduce paper waste fairly significantly.

I guess GreenDimes is betting some people will come on the site to sign up for the $20 or $35 services they offer, instead of just taking their free buck. I just hope this green company doesn't just end up $5 million in the red...

Earlier: Get the 'Do Not Mail' registry started

Comments

[SanjDimes]

GreenDimes here,

We appreciate the thorough write-up. Our responses to our Free DIY/$ program and our premium services have been pheomenal. We're hoping to solve this junk mail issue for good!

Thanks for the positive endorsement and spreading the word.