How to Stop Uline Catalogs and Special-Offer Mailers

Why Uline Catalogs Keep Showing Up

You don't have to place an order to land on Uline's mailing file. The company's privacy policy says it collects information directly from you, indirectly as you move around its website, and from third parties, including its service providers. The first identifiers it lists are name, billing address and shipping address. The same policy says those identifiers go to third-party service providers acting on Uline's behalf, including for marketing purposes. An order, a catalog request, or a record that reached Uline from somewhere else can each put a business address on the list.

Uline sells to businesses, and its own product menu shows the range: boxes, bubble cushioning, poly bags, bins and totes, carts, barcode labels and printers, and cleanroom supplies. So the catalog tends to arrive at offices, warehouses, shops and home businesses, often addressed to a person and a company name together. That pairing matters later, because the removal form asks for both.

Uline handles print mail through its own form rather than a general contact address. Its privacy policy points "Direct Mail" to a marketing preferences page, and that page splits print mail into two separate settings: regular catalog mailings, and print promotions and special offers. Turning off one leaves the other running, so the first step below covers both in a single submission.

Email, text messages and online ads are separate choices again, handled in different places. They're covered after the steps, so the print request isn't mistaken for a full opt-out.

How to stop Uline catalogs: step by step

1. Use Uline's own form first. Open Uline's Mail Preferences page . Under Catalogs, choose "Unsubscribe from All Catalogs." Under Print Promotions & Special Offers, choose "Unsubscribe from All Special Offers." Then enter your full name, company name and address. The form marks the customer number as optional, and the page says it's printed in the yellow box on the back of the catalog. Keep a catalog within reach when you fill it in. The form sits on a public page, so there's no account to sign in to.

2. Copy the label exactly. Because the form works from name, company and address, type them exactly as they appear on the mailing label, including suite numbers and abbreviations. If catalogs reach the same building under more than one name or spelling (a coworker, a former employee, a shortened company name), treat each label as its own record and submit the form once for each.

3. Call customer service if you'd rather talk to someone. 1-800-295-5510 is the number printed at the top of Uline's website and the number its privacy policy gives its Customer Service Team for privacy requests. Have the customer number and the label wording ready so the agent can find the right record.

4. Register with DMAchoice for everything else in the mailbox. The Federal Trade Commission's junk-mail guidance describes DMAchoice , run by the Association of National Advertisers, where you choose which catalogs, magazine offers and other mail you want to get. The FTC says it stops most, but not all, promotional mail. Registering online costs a $6 processing fee and lasts 10 years. Without online access, the FTC says you can register by mail with your name, address and signature and a $7 fee. Want to stop all junk mail, not just catalogs? OptOut.ws walks through the rest of the mailbox.

5. Log the request with Catalog Choice. The nonprofit's ULINE listing says the company accepts opt-out requests on its own website and sends you there to finish, so this is a record of the request rather than a second channel. If a form has a comments box, Catalog Choice suggests: "Please remove me from your postal mailings list. I no longer wish to receive your mailings. Do not rent or sell my name or address to other organizations." It also warns that a request can take up to 90 days to process.

6. Optional: add a mail-management app. PaperKarma is an app for stopping postal junk mail across many senders. For Uline it's a supplement at most, since the company's own form is the channel its privacy policy names for catalog mail.

7. Use a privacy-rights request for what the form doesn't reach. Uline's privacy policy says to contact the company to opt out of partner marketing or to update or remove personal information. Depending on your state, it lists rights to know what Uline has collected, get a copy, correct it, have it deleted, and opt out of its sale or sharing. To use them, call 1-800-295-5510 or write to ULINE Direct Marketing Department, 12100 Uline Place, Pleasant Prairie, WI 53158, and reference "Privacy Rights." Uline will ask for contact information to verify the request. The online privacy-request page requires signing in to a Uline account, so the phone and the letter are the routes that don't.

What the mail form doesn't touch

The Mail Preferences form covers print. Uline's privacy policy lists four other choices, each handled somewhere else:

• Email. Marketing emails carry an "Unsubscribe" link at the bottom. The policy says it won't remove you from non-promotional messages about your account, such as order confirmations.
• Text messages. To stop order updates or other texts, reply "stop" to the number the message came from.
• Interest-based ads. The policy points to its "Ads & Tracking" page.
• Sale or sharing of personal information. The policy points to a separate "Do Not Sell or Share my Personal Information" option.

The same policy says Uline doesn't knowingly disclose mobile phone numbers to third parties for marketing purposes. If your concern is the phone rather than the mailbox, the text-message opt-out is the relevant one.

What to expect

Uline's Mail Preferences page doesn't state a processing time. Catalog Choice's listing puts the outer limit at 90 days, and the FTC describes DMAchoice as stopping most, but not all, promotional mail, so neither step is instant or complete on its own. Mark a date 90 days after you submit the form. A catalog that arrives in the first few weeks may already have been addressed before your request was processed. Keep one or two of those pieces anyway: the customer number and label wording on them are what you'll need if you have to follow up.

If Uline catalogs are still arriving after 90 days

Start by comparing the new label with what you typed. A different company name, a missing suite number or a changed spelling points to a second record, not a failed request, and the fix is another submission for that label. If the label matches, call 1-800-295-5510 with the customer number and ask for the address to be removed from catalog and special-offer mailings. If mail still continues, a written "Privacy Rights" request to the Direct Marketing Department in Pleasant Prairie puts the request on paper with the department the policy names. If Uline rejects or denies a rights request, the policy says you can appeal within 30 days of receiving the denial by replying to the message that denied it.

Why a business address needs a careful pass

The form's company-name field is the clue. At a workplace, the catalog may be addressed to several people over the years, to a department, or to a company name spelled three ways. Each combination can be its own record, and a request filed for one leaves the others running. Filing for a colleague or a former employee is less clear-cut. Uline's policy says an agent may act on someone's behalf with a signed authorization agreement, which applies to privacy-rights requests. For a simple catalog stop, entering the label exactly as printed is the route the form itself offers.

What doesn't work

Recycling an addressed catalog sends nothing back to Uline, and silence isn't read as an opt-out. Unsubscribing from the emails doesn't stop the printed catalog, because the policy treats direct mail and email as separate choices. Texting "stop" affects text messages only. DMAchoice helps with the wider mailbox, but the FTC says it stops most, not all, promotional mail, so it isn't a substitute for Uline's own form.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a customer number to stop the catalog? No. The Mail Preferences form marks it optional. It's printed in the yellow box on the back of the catalog, and including it helps match your request to the right record.

I've never ordered from Uline. Why am I getting catalogs? Uline's privacy policy says it collects information from third parties, including its service providers, as well as directly from customers. An order isn't the only way onto the list.

Can I stop the special offers but keep the catalog? Yes. The form gives regular catalog mailings and print promotions and special offers their own settings, so you can choose each one separately.

Will unsubscribing from the emails stop the printed catalog? No. Uline's privacy policy lists direct mail and email as separate choices with separate opt-outs.

Will I still get order confirmations after I unsubscribe from marketing email? Yes. The policy says the unsubscribe link won't remove you from non-promotional messages about your account, such as order confirmations.

References

• Uline: Mail Preferences — the separate catalog and special-offer settings, the form fields, and where the customer number is printed
• Uline Privacy Policy — what Uline collects and discloses, the email, text, ad and sale-or-share choices, state privacy rights, the Privacy Rights contact and the 30-day appeal
• Catalog Choice: ULINE — how the nonprofit routes Uline opt-outs, its suggested wording and the 90-day processing window
• FTC: How To Stop Junk Mail — DMAchoice's coverage, fees and registration period