Stop Junk Mail Forever

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By the way, Congress is considering a new "consumer-reporting—reform" bill to curb some of these marketing practices. Under the proposed law, banks and credit card companies couldn't go "fishing" for prospects by sending out so-called preapproved applications that in fact still need approvals. Credit-card solicitations would have to be firm offers of credit. You'd be told how your name was obtained and exactly how you could "opt-out" of future mailings. Of course, there's a long road from congressional bill to final law. Until then, to be removed from the credit bureaus' direct-marketing files, write to:

TRW—Target Marketing Services
Consumer Relations
901 North International Parkway
Richardson, TX 75081
800-527-3933

Equifax Options
PO. Box 740123
Atlanta, GA 30374-0123
404-885-8309

Trans Union
TransMark, Inc.
555 West Adams Street
Chicago, IL 60601
312-466-7815

Warranty Cards: Don't Fill Them Out!

Also known as product-registration cards, these are packaged with everything from VCRs, televisions, and fax machines, to toasters, irons, and hair dryers. When you buy a warranted product, the card usually gets returned not to the manufacturer, but to a post office box—often in Denver, Colorado.

For example, say you just purchased a combination telephone-and-thumb exer ciser that was infomercialed on insomniac TV. It arrives with a warranty card for you to return to Whatzit Manufacturing at P .O. Box 173035, in Denver.

P.O. Box 173035 isn't rented by Whatzit. It belongs to National Demographics & Lifestyles (NDL), which manages a consumer data base of over 30 million names, gathered from product registrations for about 100 companies. These cards contain questions about income, marital status, and hobbies, to name but a few. Once a warranty card is returned, the information is matched up with facts NDL collects from other sources, to develop a profile of each of us, as consumers—which NDL then sells to direct marketers.

You're covered by the manufacturer's warranty—whether you return the card or not. In fact, many cards include a statement like the following: "Failure to return the warranty card will not affect your rights under this warranty, so long as you retain another proof of purchase, such as a bill of sale." There's really only one reason to return a warranty card—to find out about product recalls. If you return a card for that reason, provide only your name, address, and the product's serial number. NDL reports that it now includes a checkoff box, where you can indicate that you don't want your name sold. But many warranty cards don't have them. If you decide to return a card without a check-off box, add a note saying that you want your name kept private. To be removed from the lists NDL markets, write to:

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