Why must organizations I support use my info to blanket me with junk mail?

[CreekDog]

With respect to charities, I now give anonymously because as fast as I begin giving to them, I get blanketed by junk mail from them, repeatedly. However, with one time credit card donations, this doesn't work. They end up with your name and the mailing, begins.

I was shredding a few months of junk mail this weekend and the vast majority of stuff sent to me was:

My university alumni association hawking credit cards at me.
My union hawking credit cards at me.
The charity I sent money for Haitian relief last year asking for more or telling me how wonderful they are (I have no idea --I don't read it).
Democratic and related liberal causes. (automatically to the recycle bin, unread...I love ya mostly, but you're part of the reason people have to check my mail when I go away --and I don't like that)
Credo mobile, and other Credo offers --tons of them!

There was a lot of other stuff, from insurance companies, Capital One bank, mortgage refinancing, etc. But the bulk of the stuff was from causes I'm sympathetic to --but very resentful at being sent a boatload of junk mail from them.

Stop it guys. And I haven't even covered the charities and organizations which share their donor info and which 3rd parties (no, Charles Rangel, I never specifically supported you or what you're doing, don't thank me because I was on some Democratic list somewhere) start hitting me up for stuff or support.

Benevolent organizations: I'm considering withholding my support in favor of groups that do the same thing that promise me one thing: TO NOT SEND ME A SHRED OF PAPER MAIL about it.

:rant:

[LibDemAlways]

1. My elderly mom sent out a single check last year to one charity. Now

almost every day she gets solicitations from various organizations looking for money. It's a shame that a person can't donate to a worthy cause without ending up on multiple mailing lists. Enough already!

[CreekDog]

2. I agree 100%

in fact, my policy is to NEVER respond to any mailed solicitation and in fact, for organizations that mail me, I refuse to donate to an incoming phone call or through a mailed pledge card.

i tell one after another, "i'll donate through your website, but i will not respond to mailed solicitations or phone solicitations directly." the DNC was particularly pissy about this. last year, they called me about 4 days before the Martha Coakley election asking for donations to help. i said, "sure, i'll help, after i hang up, i'll donate via her website." the caller said that was great and i donated right after i hung up.

then they sent me a pledge form which arrived about two weeks later, i ignored it. then they called me to pester me about it, one caller saying, "you promised to donate and you have not done so" and I said that i did exactly as i'd promised. then i told him it was 2010, get with the program. i told him they were right to get my help for her campaign and that i did the thing most expeditious to helping (arguably they probably would've done better with the money than she did --she turned out to be totally incompetent campaign-wise). but no matter, to get the money in her hands soonest, i did the smart thing --i think all they were doing was piggybacking their fundraising off her election.

but the mailing associated with them and others i support --what a nightmare.

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. If the "fundraiser" is a contracted out one, they got "pissy" because you ate their profit margin.

Most fundraising IS contracted out, and they make a lot of money as their "fee".

The "pester you till hell freezes over" award, IMHO, goes to AARP.
15 years ago I signed up, paid one membership, let it lapse, and since then, even after moving TWICE
across country, they STILL somehow find my address and send me solicitations.
STILL!

I learned that anything I donate to, like KIVA, to write my name as follows:

dixiegrrrl KV ( for Kiva) , then last name.

or buy online:

dixiegrrrl AMZ ( for amazon) then last name, address, etc.

Sure enough, 6 weeks later, I will get junk mail with the offender's code on it.

( KIVA and Amazon have never sold my name).

then I contact the offending company that sold my name and give them hell.

biggest offender?
Medicare.
Sold our names to everybody in the health insurance business, 5 minutes after my 65th birthday.
Wasn't AARP, I used a different version of my name for them.

[CreekDog]

8. thanks, that's interesting

sometime during the past couple years, the DNC calls i got started to sound a little different and i was wondering if they had paid fundraisers working for them.

in fact, i think during 2008, they called and i was willing to donate and i said, i'd go right to their website and donate and the caller said, it wouldn't count for that campaign if i didn't give through my credit card right at that moment --i forget if he said a pledge card was an option (i was open to that method a while back --but haven't been for at least a year now).

the thing is, i wouldn't have adopted this policy, nor would i have ranted about it here, if the organizations that i generally like hadn't gone so over the top in abusing it.

would i care if various Democrats sent me, say 5 solicitations per year?
if the Haiti relief charity sent me one follow up?
if my alumni association sent 1 mailing of any sort to me in a year?
if my union did the same?

no. i would not be complaining.

but in the American way, all these organizations mail me not once, not twice, not 5 times, not a dozen, but many times more because they can. they don't get when they are overdoing it.

and the result is that now i want the USPS to not deliver as often, but the only thing holding me back from that is the jobs of postal workers --but that's it, and it's not quite as convincing as it was before.

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. I suspected fee-for-solicitation, but sometimes there are just plain rip-offs.

On MLK day, I got a call,from a charity, asking for money, I asked questions and while guy was on
phone looked up the website.
Site looked normal, so I said if I decided to donate, I would do it thru the Paypal at site.
And the guy actually says..."no , you need to do it now, directly, because there have issues with the
Paypal site.It does not work".

Red lights went on in my head.

So I offered to send a check to their online address.
He did not sound happy, I got rid of him and called the phone number of the site.
Got a recording.." We are closed for the holiday, please leave a message, etc".
Hmmmmmmmm.
I left them a message that someone was soliciting in their name on a holiday.

[msanthrope]

10. Thank you for posting that--that's a FANTASTIC trick! n/t

[tosh]

3. Thank you for this rant.

You have saved me from having to write almost exactly the same thing.

And it doesn't stop at junk mail. The phone calls!!! If you ask them not to call, most comply but by doubling down on the mail!!

They are never satisfied. There is no stopping them.

How do you do the anonymous donations? By a website?

This phase of my life (elderly parents & in-laws, elderly pets, etc.) requires a juggling act that is far beyond my skill level and these major annoyances are pushing me over the edge :mad:

I am fast becoming an ebenezer scrooge.

[CreekDog]

5. the only way to do it anonymously (I think) is through a third party

that will agree to not releasing your info to the charity. this is probably limited to paycheck type deductions that are consolidated through a workplace giving organization. lots of people will not have this option.

perhaps PayPal has a way of doing it.

and I'll echo some of what you said, I don't like when people call up my family members and ask them for credit card numbers over the telephone. i recently asked my mom, who is very sharp, "how on earth do you know they are who they say they are?".

now she mostly gives online. she now screens her calls and when the phone rings, she says, "it's probably the Democrats again.".

[MineralMan]

4. It's a good question, but a hard one to answer.

If you have sizable donations to make, I suggest going directly to the organization and talk to its executive director. Tell that person that you wish to make a sizable donation, but only on the condition that you will not be solicited for more donations. You'll find a ready willingness to do that.

If your donations are small, though, you cannot exercise this prerogative. Instead, you send a check or donate by credit card and your information is recorded by the staff. They sell this information to other parties as a means of a secondary source of funds. If you donate through a fundraising company, the problem is even worse. Those companies depend on selling their lists as part of their revenue.

For smaller donations, especially local ones, put the amount in an envelope in cash and go to the organization's office and hand the donation to them, then refuse to provide your personal information. The risk here is that the cash will be diverted into someone's pocket, but you can insist on seeing a person in a supervisory position and hand the donation to that person. If you need a receipt for tax purposes, though, you will have to provide your information, I'm afraid.

I can guarantee that any political organization will publish your information to several other affiliated organizations, and probably sell it to third party list wholesalers. There just doesn't seem to be any way around it, and it's too bad, because some people do not donate because of this constant list churning.

[CreekDog]

6. it was more a rhetorical question, but i agree with you overall about the options

i just hate that it's coming to this.

because of the inundation of junk fundraising mail like this, and the myriad coupon inserts, i tell people that drop things in my mail box to alert me that it's there --with all the junkmail, it's often overlooked.

i've signed up for the opt out of credit card offers, but it doesn't seem to be working anymore.

i'm at the point that i want the USPS to reduce the number of days they deliver. i actually don't want home delivery of mail anymore as its become almost abusive in scale, almost like forcing me to read or look at ads for fear that something i need might be strewn among the mysterious envelopes or mailings or that one of my bills is in there.

i don't like this game anymore.

[msanthrope]

9. I'm on the liberal 'ask her for a buck' train, too.

I haven't had to buy a calender, a return address label, a greeting card, or a 'to do' notepad for years....

I get at least 10 appeals per week. That's not counting the straight-out political stuff.

[Blue_Tires]

11. I was more than happy to let my ACLU and Sierra Club memberships lapse

they sent over a tidal wave of junk mail...

[CreekDog]

13. yeah, Sierra Club really overdoes it

:wtf: