The Gone Away Suppression File, referred to by most people within the suppression industry as The GAS File was established in 1992 to address the problem of mailing people who had genuinely moved house, typically around 7,000 people every single day.

The GAS file contains records of people who have moved address within the last 7 years and contains circa 38 million records. The file is independently audited and has an accuracy rating of 98.2%.

90% of all home movers are captured within 12 months, and to ensure the integrity of the data, only non-assumed records are held on the GAS File.

Why is accuracy so important?

• Mailing Gone Aways encourages fraud and substantially increases the risk of bad debt
• Mailing performance is based on response rate – Gone Aways do not respond
• Mailing Gone Aways is detrimental to your brand image

Fact: Postal returns files do not solve the gone away problem – only 28% of incorrectly addressed mail is returned.

How is the Gone Away Suppression File Created?

The GAS File is created from both private and public domain data sources. The file is made available through The Read Group’s partnership with Skipton Information Group.

Move-in and move-out information is passed to The REaD Group in order to form a unique file of non-assumed home-moved records. Skipton Information Group, which includes marketing information company EuroDirect and credit reference agency Callcredit, is one of the UK’s largest database businesses, maintaining an array of accurate, up-to-date public and proprietary credit and marketing data on more than 40 million UK consumers.

What makes the GAS file unique?

38 million records Updated monthly with 150,000 – 300,000 new records 90% of all movers captured within 12 months Held by 88% of DMA registered bureaux No assumed data – genuine home mover records only Used to clean data up to 8 years old