Action Line: Play defense when junk mail overwhelms

A reader: All of a sudden I am receiving more mail than ever. I’m not sure how or why it is happening. Most of it is just junk. I don’t know how it happened but I am getting mailings from all kinds of lotteries and sweepstakes. What do I do to make it stop?

Action Line: It’s really hard to tell where the influx of mail originated. You can start by asking the senders individually to remove your name from their “list”.

To stop unwanted mail, you can register with the Mail Preferences Service of the Direct Marketing Association, https://www.dmachoice.org/. You can also register for phone calls and email as well. This will help but will not completely eliminate the “junk” mail.

You also need to allow several weeks to see the progress. I had one consumer tell me that if the “junk “ mail includes a postage-paid envelope, she takes the contents of the mailing, puts it back in their postage-paid envelope and mails it back to the sender on their dime.

If you suspect fraud, contact your U.S. Postal Inspector, at (877) 876-2455; the Federal Trade Commission ; and the Better Business Bureau’s online Scamstopper site, at www.bbb.org/council/bbb-scam-stopper/.

If you decide to open it and review the offers, the Federal Trade Commission warns that some con artists use the lure of a sweepstakes to convince consumers to send in money to claim a prize they've supposedly won. They tell consumers that the only thing that separates them from their winnings is a fee to cover the taxes or service charges.

But as all too many consumers know, the winnings as described never turn up. Crooks are getting bolder, using names of government agencies and legitimate phone numbers that mask where they're calling from. Claiming to represent the national consumer protection agency, the non-existent National Sweepstakes Bureau, and even the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), they say that the delivery of the sweepstakes prize is being supervised by the supposed government agency.

They also use Internet technology to make it appear that they're calling from Washington, DC, the nation's capital, or the consumer's own area code. These scammers then convince consumers to wire money to a foreign country and they usually suggest a money transfer company like Western Union to wire the money to an agent or an insurance company to ensure delivery of the prize.

In reality no insurance company is involved and con artists take the money and disappear. According to the real Federal Trade Commission, consumers can keep from falling for the lure of the sweepstakes scam by taking a few precautions. Avoid the following if:

▪ You have to pay anything

▪ You have to wire money

▪ You have to deposit a check they’ve sent you

▪ Your ”notice” was mailed by bulk rate

▪ You have to attend a sales meeting to win

▪ You receive an unsolicited call saying you have won something

This story was originally published July 6, 2015 at 6:05 AM with the headline "Action Line: Play defense when junk mail overwhelms."