First and foremost, NEVER EVER give your social security number or date of birth out to anyone you're not looking at face to face and know fully. While, I know GardenParty people are savvy enough to know this, someone else reading it might fall prey. Secondly, most of this stuff is urban legend. But more importantly, the link tells you the true way to get rid callers and mail, the right way. Excerpt from the link: "Returning junk mail to direct mailers on their dime (by stuffing it back into their postage-paid return envelopes) may cost them some money and provide you with a bit of personal satisfaction, but it won't cut down on the amount of junk mail you receive. In fact, it may actually increase your junk mail load, since the primary metric used to gauge the effectiveness of many direct mail campaigns is the number of responses received (even if those responses are negative). The best way to decrease the amount of unsolicited mail you receive is to register with the Direct Marketing Association's (DMA) Mail Preference Service (MPS). The DMA maintains a "do not mail" file of MPS registrants which they regularly update and send to their members, who are required to remove the listed entries from their rosters of prospective customers targeted for mailings. (The file is also made available to non-DMA members, but they are under no obligation to use it.)" Here is a link that might be useful: Urban legend

Flash The other day I got something from Xerox. Since I own some stock in them, I 'assumed' it was likely just something I really did not want or need to know, as usual, stock holders meeting, proxy voting, blah, blah, blah. Imagine my surprise when I opened it to find a check. I had filed paperwork months ago as part of a class action law suit, and was awarded some $ because I had held some stock between certain dates, when something was amiss. A similar thing happened a while back. I don't recall the return address name, but it was a dividend check from Idearc. I had not bought stock in them, but was 'given' some shares as a result of owning some Verizon stock. Those 'given' shares now pay a quarterly dividend. Granted some things I can tell for sure they are 'junk' but other things I now take the time and look over them b4 discarding in any way. I stopped 95% of junk mail from coming into out house... got off all the mailing lists! I did too. My mailbox is no longer stuffed. I made a few calls to get catalogs stopped (never ordered from them anyway) and many things I stuffed back in the postage paid envelopes and sent it back to them with a note to Please remove this name and address from all mailing lists. That got their attention, and they no longer must waste their advertising dollars mailing me stuff to have to deal with in any way. Sue

I don't know anyone who supplies there real info to web based email accounts. Why would anyone do that?? What ever info you enter should be written down and saved somewhere though. If you should ever forget your password or your account gets hijacked they will ask you for you "information". After all they can't just send out passwords for accounts to just anybody who asks for it claiming to be the owner of said account. I learned this the hard way with my Yahoo account. They needed to know my birthday in order to retrieve my password for me and how the heck would I remember what I had put down when I signed up? Good-bye Yahoo email account. Some email services ask for your referrer email account too so take note of that also.

I was curious when I posed the question. Years ago, I got the newspaper. Sunday ads were a "must look at" thing with me. It prompted me to SHOP - which led me to buy more than I anticipated! Other than that, the papers just piled up and made a mess. I finally discontinued the newspaper - (got tired of the mess). Junk mail is out of control! It comes in the house and gets thrown in a "pile" in the den. The only time I read it is if I'm thinking about going grocery shopping...I want to know if chicken breasts are on sale or? I get the big-lots, and some linens and some other misc ads that I may be interested in. Usually by time I read them, they are expired! lol. (A good thing - saves me money!) What I've found...IF I don't read the ads, I SAVE lots of $$$! And by cancelling the newspaper, I save more there too. I KNOW I can "save" using coupons from the paper, but if I don't SEE the coupon, I won't go to store! There is a way to cancel ALL junk mail delivered to house, but I won't do it - as there are two major and two minor grocers that I WANT ads from - to look for any sales on what I want to buy. (This is done sporadically - like, if I suddenly decide I want to cook a roast, "Are there any on sale?". (If not, I won't buy-lol!) I am currently gearing up for a huge shopping excursion on the sale items for Easter! (I like to buy lots while on sale to last for a few months - the good thing about holidays! lol) Other junk mail - like for auto related, I never know what to do with - as it seems everytime I throw them out, someone needs a coupon for oil change or something. There are two types of junk that REALLY irritate me: 1) CRAPPY PIZZA ads... they come in every week but expire three months from receipt. DH loves pizza, but geez...why pay for all the ads? (I think most people have their desired pizza places, and no ad will sway them.) So, if they just would QUIT, they could offer the same pizza at much lower price, and everyone would make out! 2) That MAJOR company that provides cable TV service! (I've been fighting them for three years now for "services not rendered" - so I especially have a very bad distaste for them). Now they "offer" phone and internet - as well as the "whole package deal". And I get NUMEROUS ads from them every single week, not to mention the ads on TV, and even when I call to complain about NON-service of TV, they STILL try to push off their new services! NO WAY! OK, that #2 was too graphic - need another thread for that one! To sum it up...I've actually SAVED a lot of $$$ by NOT reading the ads - even tho they enter my house. OTOH, when I DO decide I want to shop, I can scan the ads at home to see if what I want is on sale to save money.