Urgent! If You Get Junk Mail, Read This Now!

Anyone with a driver’s license or a credit card is on somebody’s mailing list--and certainly gets a steady flow of advertising material all year. Right now, that flow has reached its pre-holiday flood.

For those who wish to avoid the excitement and crowds of shopping malls in favor of ordering by mail, the benefits of all this attention outweigh the nuisance. For others, the stacks of junk mail are a definite annoyance.

People who send out all this material, and this newspaper is among them, defend it as a service and as good business. They don’t like people calling it “junk.” They call it “direct mail advertising.”

Unwanted mail, by any other name, however, is still junk.

It’s possible to shut off mail like this, but most people don’t want to be rid of all of it, just see the quantity reduced and the quality improved.

The direct mail industry surely needs to clean up its act. The envelopes come with “open immediately” and “urgent” on them and turn out to be questionable deals on poor quality jewelry. A few use the one-to-a-customer ploy, but there is always special dispensation for the customer who wants to order more right away.

Then there’s the case of a piece that came in an 8-by-10 envelope with “official notification” at the top and a return address listed as “Auditing Dept., Box 1083, Hicksville, N.Y.”

One recipient panicked, thinking the Internal Revenue Service was giving official notice (though the big IRS facility in question is in Holtsville, not Hicksville, N.Y.). When the same piece arrived a week later, also labeled “official notification,” he didn’t react so strongly. Within was the by-now-familiar “notice to prize-winner,” with three categories of prizes and a big red “X” on the one from which his prize had been pre-selected.

What makes this offer remarkable is the amount of effort that must be put into figuring it out. To begin with, there’s an “urgent” at the bottom of the notice saying that the prize-winning number above the recipient’s name has to match the one on the “prize claim form.” A moment of doubt while he checked--but of course it did.

‘Astonishing Price’

The pitch for the products being sold is a classic in careful choice of words. What’s offered is “Carter & Van Peel’s Famous Nationally Advertised Publicity Versions of the world’s most expensive perfumes such as Joy, Opium, Chanel No. 5, etc.” The “astonishing price” is only $9.95 per ounce.

Normally, $9.95 won’t even get you a sniff of Joy or Chanel No. 5, and indeed, a careful reading shows that you certainly aren’t going to in this case. Remember it said “publicity versions” and if you look hard enough there’s the inevitable small type, in legalese, which says Carter & Van Peel isn’t selling the original manufacturers’ perfumes. So these must be the ubiquitous smell-alike copies that are increasingly available; $9.95 isn’t that much of a deal after all. So forget the perfume. What about the prize? It says no purchase is necessary to get it.

There are, however, things the recipient does have to do--such as follow instructions, lots of them, or else. For those who got this mailing and missed this small-print instruction, called Rule No. 3 in the “Official Sweepstakes Rules,” it is hereby printed in full:

“To claim your prize without purchase, do the following: (a) Carefully cut out your computer-printed name and address from upper right hand corner of the Prize Claim Form. (b) Affix computer-printed name and address--with glue or cellophane tape (no staples or paper clips)--to a 3x5 inch index card. (c) Also cut out the “No” paragraph (lower left hand corner of Prize Claim Form and affix it to the 3x5 card below your address label. (d) Then print on your 3x5 card, above your computer-printed name and address the words “CARTER & VAN PEEL SWEEPSTAKES.” (Use all capital letters.) (e) Finally, place 3x5 card (without bending) into a plain envelope (NOTE: Do NOT use the enclosed Official Prize Claim and CVP Perfume Reply Envelope or you may be disqualified), and mail to: CVP, Box 1788, Hicksville, NY 11802. Print this address correctly. Comply with above instructions carefully and completely or you may be disqualified from receiving your prize.”