For the first time in over a year the person who’s junk mail I am trying to stop, has gone 10 days with no junk mail.
She died in February. For the past 3 months I have told all of her junk mailers that she is dead. Phone calls, emails, notes in pre-paid envelopes. I think it may have soaked into their computer databases that she won’t be sending them any more money.
If this keeps up for a month, I will declare victory over junk mail.
Update: This wound up being one of the hardest groups to stop. I had to file a complaint with the DMA.
One!! 1! Only one piece this week!
I am on count down right now. The longest I have gone in the past year with out junk mail for her has been 8 days. 8 post office delivery days. This piece came on April 28. That is 4 days so far. When I can go a month without junk mail for her I will consider this project done.
Who was the lucky winner this week? Our old friends James Carney and Citizen Guardian phone number (202) 469-3433, and email info@CitizenGuardian.org
I found 2 addresses for them:
Citizen Audit page, Open Secrets page.
Their fundraiser is called Greenmail, but the address 880 N. East St. Frederick, MD 21701 is for Name Exchange. They are a mailing list rental firm. chris@nameexchange.us (301) 695-6140
This week Citizen Guardian is not only trying to repeal Obama care, they want a “Constitutional Amendment to prohibit any federal control of health care”. I guess this means they also want to stop Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the Department of Defense TRICARE, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) program, and the Indian Health Service (IHS) program.
Here is another version of the straw poll included in the mailpiece. I just want to point out the first question:
1. Scientific polls show the majority of Americans are strongly opposed to the passage of the massive 2 trillion dollar Federal Health Care Reform Bill “ObamaCare” but politicians in Congress passed it anyway.
Did you support the passage of the Federal Obamacare bill?
There is no such thing as a “Scientific poll” every poll is manipulated so that the poll taker gets the answer they want. Scientific American talking about polling. Questions to ask about a political poll.
“Please be as generous as you can in this critical national grassroots effort.. Thank you!”
Grassroots? Really? When is $5 million a “grassroots effort”? This mailpiece, and the people who made it are ridiculous. They could save a lot of time, money, and trees, if they were more like the scamers. Just sent a postcard asking for money. I would respect them more if they were more upfront. Just come out and say it: “I want your money.” You know that when the little old lady fills out the straw poll, and carefully folds it into the envelope, it just lands in the trash when the person in the mailroom rips it open looking for the check she sent.
For anyone who stumbles on this post, please read how this fits into my over all strategy for stopping junk mail. This is not the first step. This is for groups who will not stop sending junk mail after being repeatedly asked to do so.
I have gotten a couple of requests asking how I find who is behind the junk mail. This takes a little foot work, and a little Google-fu to get what you are looking for.
For Charities, 501(c)3:
Sign up for Charity Navigator and Guidestar. They both have the IRS 990’s for charities. But they only give you access to the documents if you sign up. I like Charity Navigator better, but sometimes only Guidestar will have the documents you are looking for.
Look up the charity who’s junk mail you want to stop. In this case I have picked United States Justice Foundation in Charity Navigator.
Look past the 1 star rating and click on the IRS (Forms 990) tab
Scroll down to the bottom of the page where the links to the PDF’s are. The IRS documents will always be out of date. In this case the newest 990’s are from 2013. You just have to hope that they haven’t changed fundraisers.
This is the first page of the PDF. It gives all the vitals, address, phone number, who is in charge.
This is when you start scrolling.
This is what you are looking for.
Section B. Independent Contractors. This is for independent contractors that received over $100,000 in compensation. There are only 5 spaces. This is only the top 5 independent contractors that got over $100,000. In this case they are all for direct marketing. Sometimes they list printers, or the delightfully vague “consulting”.
They are:
Keep scrolling
Supplemental Information Regarding Fundraising or Gaming Activities. This is the other section where you will find fundraisers. In this case it is their biggest fundraiser Richard Norman Company. Who they paid over $200,000 in 2013.
For Political Action Committees, PACs, 501(c)4, Dark Money groups:
Open Secrets used to be my goto for documents, but they aren’t consistent with giving a link to IRS documents for every group. Now I use Citizen Audit for looking up IRS documents for PACs.
Citizen Audit is very easy to use
Just type in the group you are looking for and click “Search”. It will appear under the search bar.
Click through to the group’s page.
Scroll down a little and look for the “See PDF” for the newest IRS 990. It is the same form that charities use.
IRS 990’s only ask for the top 5 independent contractors that received over $100,000 in compensation. The FEC wants all of a PAC’s expenses. Every pen and pencil, every taxi ride, every stamp for every envelope.
For FEC documents you have to go to the official FEC.gov. This website is AWFUL. No really, it is as bad as any geocities site from 1995. I am just going to link to the search page to save your brain from the terribleness of this website.
Candidate and Committee Viewer search
Type in the candidate or PAC you want to look up.
This is the page for Ryan Zinke the house representative for Montana. He was sending my gal junk mail. She was in California.
You want to click on the operating expenditures link. A note about the FEC website: NEVER, EVER use the search bar in the top right corner. It will plunge you in to the worst garbage search of all time.
These are the expenditures for team Zinke. It goes on, and on. Page after page. Click the “Purpose” bar to put the expenditures in alphabetical order. You are looking for key words like: Printing, Postage, Direct Mail, Marketing, Fundraising, Caging, List Rental
Capitol Caging corp: Caging fees. Open Secrets page
Forthright Strategy: creative fees, I am cheating with this one I already know who Forthright Strategy is.
Legacy List Marketing: List Rental
O’Neill Marketing Co: List Rental
CMS – Consolidated Mailing Services: Printing
Donor Bureau: Printing
I may not call the 2 company’s who do printing. Unless they keep popping up over and over with other PACs
So what do you do with this information? Look up each fundraiser in Google, go to their website, then email them and give them a phone call. They maybe confused. Tell them all about your junk mail problems until they take you off their mailing list. They may ignore you. Take note of the lack of response and move on to the next fundraiser. When the junk mail doesn’t stop, and you file your formal complaint with the DMA and your state’s attorney general, mention the lack of help you got from each company.
This was a bad week, her junk mail numbers are inching back up. I can tell that her information was sold again.
You may have noticed that I have new links in the side bar. I found another blog that documents junk mail Sgt. Bob’s Place. Sgt. Bob’s MIL was getting a lot of junk mail. He contacted his state’s attorney general about stopping junk mail. He wound up filling out 65 complaints and his state’s AG contacted the junk mailers for him.
Freedom Watch It is run by Larry Klayman. Wiki page. To opt-out call (310) 595-0800 and email leklayman@gmail.com If they blow you off, do what I had to do and send a complaint to the DMA. Junk mail from them should stop this month.
Pacific Legal Foundation Wiki page, Charity Navigator page 2 stars, 23% of budget spent on fundraising. Opt-out here plf@pacificlegal.org and call (916) 419-7111. When I called the lady on the phone looked up my gal and she is not on their mailing list. She was on a list they bought. Also the letter they sent was 10 pages long.
NARAL Pro-Choice America, Wiki page, Open Secrets page, Charity Navigator page 2 stars, 23% of budget spent on fundraising. Opt-out here Membership@ProChoiceAmerica.org and call (202) 973-3000
United States Deputy Sheriff’s Association Charity Navigator page, zero stars, 88% of budget spent on fundraising. Americas Worst Charities list. Opt-out here info@usdeputy.org and call (316) 263-2583. It will take 90 days to be dropped from their mailing list. Their fundraisers are RBS International Direct Marketing divisions: Brickmill Marketing Services, and PEP Response Systems, couldn’t find current contact information. All about Quadriga Arts a division of RBS. It is the same marketing firm that St. Joseph’s Indian School uses. Another fundraiser of their’s is Newport Creative Communications (800) 934-0586 info@newportcreative.com
There is a lot going on with this mailpiece. Is it a sweepstakes? A charity? It is both!
The Super Million Dollar XXII Sweepstakes is running between December 1, 2014 to January 30, 2016. That is 14 months of this mailpiece wandering around people’s mailboxes.
Because this mailpiece includes a sweepstakes, you can also fill out a form 1500 to make mail from them stop.
RealEstateCE.com (866) 324-4510
Oh No! Her real estate license must have expired! She was a realtor for over 40 years. I will never be able to stop the real estate junk mail. They are just using the publicly available database from the state.
This postcard is from Smartz Marketing, They have an F from the BBB, Old El Paso Coffee Company BBB page, PO Box 971618 El Paso TX 79997. (915) 546-9944. A very entertaining Rip-off Report complaint about Smartz Marketing and Jan-l Marketing. This is a sample of the “Your Coffee Club” MLM scam.
You can also fill out a form 1500 to make mail from them stop.
Best Life Herbals, Memory Health Journal 329 E 2100 S Salt Lake City, UT 84115 contact@bestlife-herbals.com and call (866) 405-5138. The address is for All West Call Centers. Contact page and call (800)532-5255. When I called Best Life Herbals the pre-operator message said that “the operators are not doctors and cannot give medical advice.”
2 pre-paid envelopes ready to go
I was contacted by another reporter this week. Will Tucker works for Houston Chronicle and was asking if I had gotten any junk mail from U.S. Rep. Steve Stockman in Texas. He may be the only politician that hasn’t sent me junk mail over the past year. So if you are getting lots of junk mail, live in Texas or are getting junk mail from Rep. Stockman drop Will a line at will@hearstdc.com.
I found this paper wandering around the internets Why Do Nigerian Scammers Say They are From Nigeria?. Gizmodo breaks it down nicely:
The scammers aren’t interested in seeming believable. They just want to find the most gullible victims they can, to maximize their return on their effort.
The emails (and by extension junk mail scams from the Netherlands) are written badly on purpose. Now I know why the scams are always so hard to read. It is to weed out people with functioning brains. They aren’t aiming at you and me. We still have good reading comprehension. They want people who only see the big $10,000,000,000 and who will write out the check with out a thought.
Midwest Equity Mortgage (855) 976-4949
We just wrapped up closing out the reverse mortgage on her house. Most of the money from the reverse mortgage went to junk mail. The reverse mortgage company got the house. This company scrapes public records and saw some action on her house.
United States Justice Foundation. Charity Navigator, Source Watch page. Opt-out here or call (760) 788-6624. Also op-out through Response Unlimited. They are the all time record holder my for my PaperKarma requests. 19 requests since August of last year. Junk mail from them should stop this month.
National Republican Congressional Committee. Wiki page, Ballotpedia page, Open Secrets page. Opt-out here and call (800) 424-0215. This should be the last mailpiece from them.
You may remember this weird add from it’s lager version
The Youth Secret (800) 940-4046 make sure you have the ad when you call. They will ask for the “Special Code” when you ask to be taken off their mailing list. This should be the last mailpiece from them.
Direct TV. She had Direct TV at her house. When we closed down the account she got a refund that came here. I am just using PaperKarma on this one.
Sweepstakes Clearinghouse PO Box 569600 Dallas TX 75356 and 2000 E Lemar BLVD Arlington TX 76006. These guys just aren’t listing. They have already gone to step 2 with a Prohibitory Order. And I am sending it in again.
Here is the Form 1500 part 2 going to New York.
The lady who mail this is, is still dead. But her estate isn’t fully settled yet. I have nothing to do with that. I just monitor the junk mail. I am hoping that in the next couple of weeks I can go over to the post office and put an end to the junk mail once and for all.
Until then the parade of scumbags continues.
United States Justice Foundation. Charity Navigator, Source Watch page. Opt-out here or call (760) 788-6624. Also op-out through Response Unlimited. Junk mail from them should stop this month. This is at least the forth time they have sent this “blah blah Notice” mailpiece. When do I get the third notice? Like last week I re-looked up some old friends to see what I could find. I did the same with the USJF and it’s Executive Director Michael Connelly. I found this little nugget about Michael Connelly on Renew America
Constitutional attorney and head of the United States Justice Foundation, Michael Connelly, told me the unbelievable this week. His fiancé, without any symptoms or presented concerns was forced to take an Alzheimer’s test at an annual “wellness” visit she had gone to. She was also asked whether she owned guns.
The column goes on to call Alzheimer’s screening tests a “violation of our right to privacy and punishment if we dare try and keep our medical or mental needs private.” Um this is your doctor. They are the ones who need to know your medical and mental needs and abilities. And there are laws that make your medical record private. The thing I find fascinating is, this is a little kernel to make people not want to take a Alzheimer’s screening test. What kind of person doesn’t want people to know their mental health status? Maybe the kind of person who’s income depends on elderly people giving them money. Preferably elderly people with a diminished mental capacity. The kind that give money over and over not realizing that they have given money for the same mailpiece 3 times.
To quote this mailpiece:
I urge you to immediately send in your 2015 United States Justice Foundation Voluntary Sponsorship of $20.
If you have already sent in your Voluntary Sponsorship, I thank you — but I still hope that you will also consider sending in a special emergency donation of $300, or even $450.
An “emergency donation” really? What emergency do you have? In 2013 you made over $4 million. If you need to do some belt tightening, cut down on your $700,000 junk mail, fundraising budget.
Leadership Conference Education Fund, Charity Navigator page a project of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Wiki page, Charity Navigator page, opt-out here and call (202) 466-3434. Their fundraiser is The Bonner Group.
This is the second invitation I have gotten to the The Leadership Conference Hubert H. Humphrey Civil and Human Rights Award Dinner. May 13 2015 at the Washington Hilton. The honorees are Eric Holder, Laura Murphy, and Bob Dole.
Freedom Watch featuring Sheriff Joe Arpaio. It is run by Larry Klayman. Wiki page. To opt-out call (310) 595-0800 and email leklayman@gmail.com If they blow you off, do what I had to do and send a complaint to the DMA. Junk mail from them should stop this month. Media Matters has a nice round up of what Larry has been up to lately. He is also suing his ex-wife’s lawyers for… something I can’t figure it out. For being better lawyers than him? He wants $6.5 million in damages, plus attorney’s fees.
American Seniors Against Obama Care a program of Citizen Guardian, Inc. GuideStar page, Opt-out info@CitizenGuardian.org and call (202) 469-3433. They use Engage Direct Mail and InfoCision. Mail from them should have stopped last month. Normally I would file a complaint with the DMA.
Note the huge font. No matter how bad your eyes are, you could read that in the dark.
Welcome to April! Here is my little calendar with all the groups that should stop this month. Note that Conservative StrikeForce is on there.
I am really getting down to the nitty gritty. This week is filled will old friends.
Not the kind that you want to have a cup of coffee and a chat with. The kind you need to take out a restraining order on. If you read this blog every week you can’t help but to notice that I cut and paste a lot. It made sense when I was getting over 100 pieces a week. I was spending 20+ hours a week on this blog and I needed some short cuts just to make my self imposed weekly deadline of Tuesday or Wednesday. I haven’t looked up some groups since I did my initial research. For some of them it has almost been a year. That is a lifetime in the direct marketing world. So this week I re-looked up everyone. And I found some changes. They are all still scumbags, that didn’t change.
Western Center for Journalism. Wiki page. Source Watch page. Run by Floyd Brown Opt-out here and call (623) 217-7766 also opt-out from Response Unlimited
It is apart of Liftable Media Inc witch includes click bait mills liftable.com and thoughtfulwomen.org. Bizapedia page, it is entirely run by Floyd Brown and his family. Patrick Brown has put up a slideshow made by Floyd on how to blog. I do everything he talks about, except the monetization.
Abraham Lincoln Foundation for Public Policy Research AKA Lincoln Institute for Research and Education, PO Box 254, Great Falls, Virginia 22066 Facebook page (no posts since 2011), Washington State page, Charity Navigator page (not rated), Guidestar page. Opt-out here contactus@lincolnreview.com (703) 759-4278. I got no response from either. Did you see that? I finally found a website for them. It has completely different contact information than the junk mail. The contact information listed in the mailpiece is novone@verizon,net and (703) 759-4599 that will get you nowhere.
Conservative StrikeForce, Open Secrets page. From Fox Detroit:
“Since 2010, the Conservative Strikeforce has raised nearly $10 million. More than $9 million of the loot was paid to the fundraisers. That means candidates got less than 8 percent of the money donors sent in.”
Opt-out here info@conservativestrikeforce.com and call (888) 295-6480, mailbox was full. Also opt-out from ForthRight Strategy AKA Base Connect. That is right Base Connect changed their name last month. Kimberly Bellissimo and Scott B. MacKenzie have hung up a new shingle to run their fundraising scams. Was it because they are listed as a fundraiser for one of America’s Worst Charities? Or was it because if you use them as the fundraiser for your political campaign, you will no help from the Republican establishment? No, it was because CFO Michael Centanni was caught with child porn. He plead guilty. For those of you keeping track that is the third name for this firm since 2002. I have contacted Conservative StrikeForce and ForthRight Strategy AKA Base Connect already. Normally I would send a complaint to the DMA.
There were a couple of interesting things about this mailpiece. One was the amount of money it asked for: $2.16, $20.16, $200.16, $2106.00.
The other was the pretense of the mailpiece. It is to pick who your Republican Presidential Preference is. The list is: Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Donald Trump, Bobby Jindal, Jim Gilmore, Rick Perry, John Kasich, Lindsey Graham, Chris Christie, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Sarah Palin, George Pataki, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, Marco Rubio, Undecided and Other. Over the past year I have gotten junk mail from no less than 7 of the people on this list.
American Seniors Against Obama Care a program of Citizen Guardian, Inc. GuideStar page, Opt-out info@CitizenGuardian.org and call (202) 469-3433. They use Engage Direct Mail and InfoCision. Mail from them should have stopped last month. Normally I would file a complaint with the DMA.
One part of the letter reads:
At a cost of about 45 cents for the printing and postage to get out petitions into the hands of just one person, I need to raise $450,00 within the next 30 days. And another $950,00 after to intensify the pressure right through June.
I need to stop mail from them before they “intensify the pressure right through June.”
Balboa Mailing Company George Taylor 510 W, Broadway STE 800 San Diego CA 92101. Opt-out info@moneymailerprogram.com no reply, or call (619) 760-0570 it is just a pre-recorded message about how great their program is. I have already sent in a form 1500 for these guys, but it won’t kick in until next month.
No pre-paid envelopes, and no form 1500‘s to send out.
Google has gone all out with it’s April Fools pranks this year. Here is a full rundown on all the pranks they have today.
The one I loved the best was the Google Smartbox. It is a smart mailbox for your real world mail.
It has many features. But the one I loved the best was what it does to junk mail:
My hope is that when the junk mail is flipped to the side, it falls into an incinerator never to be seen again.
This week makes the one year anniversary of the start of this blog. Here is the first blog post.
For any new people who are just now finding this blog and are wondering why I am bitching about 2 pieces of junk mail, a few months ago the person who’s junk mail this is, was getting over 100 pieces a week. This is what one week’s worth of her mail used to look like:
Any junk mail she gets now has slipped through multiple layers of my trying to stop it. So you will have to pardon me if I go hard on these last few stragglers.
The junk mail box is looking very empty this week, just the way I like it.
Let’s meet this week’s junk mail: Tools for Freedom and an old friend, the NRCC
Tools for Freedom call (800) 770-8802 and choose 4 in the phone tree to talk to a human. They offer “cutting-edge information and alternative health resources to empower, enlighten, awaken, raise consciousness, spread the message of freedom and promote the truth of what is happening in the world.” Whatever that means. They sell books, DVD’s, woo pills, and a side of paranoia.
This one has “Office of the Treasurer” in the return address corner of the envelope. But it is a lie just to get you to open it. It is from the Treasurer of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Wiki page, Ballotpedia page, Open Secrets page. Opt-out here and call (800) 424-0215
They are very concerned for my gal: “I hope everything is okay and you’ve simply delayed sending in your renewal.” (incase you don’t know, she died last month).
Another snippet reads” We’ve kept our overhaed low, but my current projections show we are facing a short fall of $687,500 going into the Second Quarter.” I am not a fancy treasurer, but my suggestion for helping you budget woes, is to stop sending so much junk mail.
Only one pre-paid envelope to send out this week.
As I am writing this week’s round, up one of my junk mail boyfriends, Ted Cruz has announced that he is running for president. Fire up the printing press! They are going to start churning out junk mail to raise money for his campaign. To opt-out of junk mail from Ted Cruz call (713) 353-4330. That is only for junk mail directly from the Cruz campaign, not other groups that use Mr. Cruz to solicit donations. According to Open Secrets, Club for Growth was his top donor for his senate campaign in 2012. Opt-out from Club for Growth here.
Only 4 pieces this week. All of them are on their last legs.
Freedom Watch run by Larry Klayman. Wiki page. To opt-out call (310) 595-0800 and email leklayman@gmail.com If they blow you off, do what I had to do and send a complaint to the DMA. Junk mail from them should stop in April.
American Seniors Against Obama Care a program of Citizen Guardian, Inc. GuideStar page, Opt-out info@CitizenGuardian.org and call (202) 469-3433. They use Engage Direct Mail and InfoCision. This should be the last piece of junk mail I get from them.
Frontiers of Freedom, run by George Landrith. Charity Navigator page (not rated), Source Watch page. Opt-out here info@ff.org. It is better to call them at (703) 246-0110, they have a choice in their voice mail just for getting of their mailing list.
Sweepstakes Clearinghouse PO Box 569600 Dallas TX 75356 and 2000 E Lemar BLVD Arlington TX 76006. These guys just aren’t listing. They have already gone to step 2 with a Prohibitory Order. So I put the notice in the pre-paid envelope. Maybe they will get it this time.
Drowning in Junk Mail 