How To Stop Charity Junk Mail Solicitations, IRS Scams

BIRMINGHAM, MI – How much junk mail do senior citizens and others receive a year from charities seeking donations?

More than 300 pieces, according to Birmingham resident Marion Beck, who started saving mail from charities a year ago just to get an assessment of a situation she says is frustrating and annoying for her and her peers.

The mailings included 23 from the American Diabetes Association, 18 each from the St. Labre Indian School in Montana and St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, 16 each from Disabled Veterans National Association and Wounded Warriors, and so on.

“Some of the charities you do support, but a lot of them just keep sending me stuff,” Beck told The Birmingham Eccentric. “You feel pressured.”

Beck said other people her age share her frustration, and the mailings are only part of the problem. Most seniors also get dozens of phone calls from charities and private groups a week, she said.

“It’s very annoying,” Beck said.

And then there are the phone and e-mail scams. Beck said she received several calls last year from con artists posing as IRS agents.

The IRS scams are so pervasive nationally that the Treasury Department warned taxpayers Tuesday about ruthless, aggressive calls in which scammers claim they’re IRS agents collecting back taxes and threaten people with arrest if they don’t pay up immediately.

As many as 900,000 fake calls have been made since October 2013, and as many as 5,000 victims have paid more than $26.5 to the scammers, Deputy Inspector General for Investigations Timothy Camus told ABC News.

“They’re just ruthless criminals and they really don’t care about people, they don’t care about anything other than trying to intimidate you into paying them money,” said Camus said in another interview with CBS News.

How to Stop the Mailings and Phone Calls

Charity Navigator and Charity Watch offer some tips for dealing with unsolicited junk mail and phone calls:

• If a charity hasn’t demonstrated a commitment to donor privacy, don’t give. Charity Navigator’s Accountability & Transparency evaluations offer an assessment of each charity’s donor privacy policy.
• When you do give, make sure you “opt out” and let charities know that you do not wish to have your personal information distributed.
• Register with services whose aim is to stop junk mail. The Direct Marketing Association’s Mail Preference Service program is one option, but be sure to specify that you don’t want to receive solicitations from either commercial or charitable organizations. Take a photo of the junk mail and send it to PaperKarma, which will contact the mailer for you and ask that you be removed from their distribution list. Unwanted mail can also be reported to Catalog Choice, which will process your request.
• Contact the charity directly, either by phone or in writing, and ask to be removed from the solicitation mailing lists. Also ask for the referring organization that shared your name and contact it directly, too. Make sure you have the solicitation mailing on hand in case the charity needs it to locate your name in its records.
• If you do plan to support a charity, call the organization directly and share your giving plans, whether once a month, once a quarter or annually. Charities prefer to have donors they can depend on to regularly give without having to be reminded.
• Avoid making small donations to many charities. Donations of $25 or less may not cover the charity’s costs in soliciting the donation, so to recoup their money, they may sell your information to another charity doing similar work. Charities are more protective of donors who give large gifts, so they don’t divulge their donors’ names to other charities doing similar work.
• Give anonymously through the Network for Good online giving system, which Charity Navigator uses to enable people to make online donations. An option for anonymity is available.
• The national do-not-call list doesn’t restrict charities, but you may be able to reduce calls from for-profit fundraising companies that charities hire. To get on the list, call (888) 382-1222 or register at www.donotcall.gov/.
• To reduce unwanted telephone appeals, click here or write to: Telephone Preference Service, Direct Marketing Association, P.O/ Box 1559, Carmel, NY 10512.
• If you’ve been inundated with credit card offers, call (888) 567-8688, which will stop the offers for two years. You can also notify the three major credit bureaus that you do not want them to disclose personal information about you for promotional purposes. Write to: Equifax Inc., Options, P.O. Box 740123, Atlanta,GA 30374-0123; Experian Consumer Opt Out, 701 Experian Pkwy., Allen, TX 75013; and/or Trans Union LLC, Name Removal Option, P.O. Box 97328, Jackson, MS 39288-7328. In letters to Equifax and Trans Union, include your Social Security number. Trans Union also needs your date of birth.

How to Recognize an IRS Scam

The Consumer Protection Division of the Michigan Attorney General’s Office offers some tips on spotting an IRS scam. The IRS will never ask for a taxpayer’s personal information by either phone or in e-mails, which remain the method of choice for scammers.

Here are some tips on recognizing an e-mail IRS scam:

• It will include what looks like an official IRS logo.
• The e-mail will contain entire sections of text from the IRS’ website.
• The e-mail will include a fake “from” address (some reported Michigan variations include irs@getrefundnow.com, support@irs.gov, service@irs.jg.gov, tax-refunds@irs.gov and other variations on the irs.gov theme),
• The e-mail will include forms with numbers similar to those the IRS already uses, often with a jumble of numbers and letters.

» Photo by Judith E. Bell via Flickr / Creative Commons