You Are Being Followed
Is there no privacy anymore? We are losing our rights as American citizens. Our computer activity is being monitored and Americans are being ‘felt’ before getting on an airplane. Now, as an American citizen, I am being followed. I realize that most people probably wouldn’t even give it a second thought, but to me, it’s scary and almost violating.
As many of you are aware, Ken and I moved about 3 months ago. Besides all of the packing, you also go through the changing of phone numbers and your address. Well, a decision we had made was that we weren’t going to give out our new address to anyone except family, utilities and DMV (department of motor vehicles). We haven’t changed our bank account or anything along those lines.
Now, I’ve always heard that these ‘mailing lists’ are sold from one company to another. I know that the grocery stores ‘track’ what you purchase in order to provide you with better coupons and deals. But there is definitely a lot more ‘behind the scenes’ stuff going on than I ever realized. Here’s why.
Yesterday, I received the coupon flyer from JoAnn Fabric addressed to me at our new address. They are a nation wide fabric and craft store that many of you probably know. How did they find me? I have NOT given them my new address. Not only that but it’s been a year and a half since I’ve even shopped there! How did they find me??? Because everything is connected. We are all inter-connected.
Oh, guess what? Ken got ‘found’ too. A few weeks ago he received a donation request from the Disabled Veterans of America. Now, I can tell you that they are one of the few organizations we would send donations. Ken did NOT give them our new address. The donation request he received was addressed to him at our new address. And they gave him pre-printed return address label stickers with his name and new address on them!
And, oh yeah, even Publisher’s Clearing House has my new address! How did that happen? We are all inter-connected, there is no privacy anymore!
When you purchase a product or service and give the company your name and address, the chances are you are being added to one or more mailing lists used for direct marketing. This is true when you buy a car or a house, use a shopping card, sign up for a credit card, subscribe to a magazine, buy something from a catalog, give money to a charity, or fill out a product registration form.
Your name, address, and other contact information, as well as the type of product or service, is entered into a computer database. The business that collected the information will use it to solicit more business from you. They might also rent their list to other businesses so they can send you advertisements.
The U.S. Postal Service provides the addresses from its Change of Address cards to mailers who have your old name and address. This often includes the major marketing and financial companies. The Postal Service’s goal is to have less misaddressed mail. This is one way unsolicited mail is able to follow you to your new address.
Source: PrivacyRights.org
It is amazing how quickly and efficiently ‘they’ find you when you move. Just about anything you purchase while not using cash is logged and tracked. It’s nearly impossible to get away from it. And with the recent talk of a cashless society, it will then be entirely and completely impossible to escape from it.
And what else is going on behind our backs?…
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Imformation is big money.Just like you I moved to new address and within days had catalogs from places I had not done business with in years.But my question is how easy is it for the goverment to watch what you buy are they going to come to the door one day asking why I brought this or that.
There could be quite a number of abuses to tracking everything that you buy (and where you bought it). One example could be that of your health insurance company raising your premium because you bought too much ice-cream, or maybe you bought too much alcohol last month (in their opinion) so you have become a higher risk. Maybe the gov’t. would put you on a ‘watch list’ because you bought too much ammunition last week, or you bought ‘too many’ firearms last year, etc.
A friend of mine was raised LDS/Mormon then quit in young adulthood. Every time she moved, no matter whether or not she filled out a change of address card, they found her and sent evangelists directly to her house to try to get her to come back. They also knew who her parents were and where she had lived previously and what ward she was in… creepy.
@Ken; Yeah, I had a hell of a time trying to get my company to fess up to someone selling peoples names to mailing list firms. My name is first name, middle name, last name, III as I am the third. They sent me something one time that was addressed to fn,mn,ln, Iii. The Iii was very unique as no one had f****d my name up like that before. My employer said they didn’t sell names so I sent them several documents mailed from the company with Iii on them and some “junk mail” with Iii on it. When I followed up my inquiries for some closure I got no response from the human race horses people. The name was never sent again with the Iii from the company but the damage was done. Using some “creative” reply mail I was able to get the mail to stop. In my late 40s and early 50s I started getting junk mail from the communist AARP organization. I would tear up all the mailing material except the name space and stuff it into the “postage paid” envelope and send it back but apparently they didn’t get the hint. Well, they kept sending it, so one day I got one and went and found a 1/16 inch metal plate and cut it to fit in the envelope with all the other crap and a nasty note. The envelopes charged for by the weight of the mail. Well, I haven’t gotten one for almost 10 years now. so you can do things that will get you off their lists. EVERY piece of junk mail I get is returned with as much S**t as I can stuff in it if it comes with a “paid” envelope. If everyone would start sending back their junk mail in the prepaid envelopes these f***tards might stop sending them. You can only hope. The internet is yet another story. Survive well. Enjoy.
Good Lord, that’s the kind of story that terrifies me.
What are we supposed to do?
I don’t have a driver’s license or bank account or anything, hub has all that but like another comment said, it’s big money to extract and mine our data and sell it to the highest bidder.
if there should be a law against ANYTHING, it should be against that!
Thank you for your great blog too. I link to your stories almost everyday.
Great work.
@ Pamela: Thanks Pamela! I was watching our mail all ‘catch up’ with us and after some research found that it’s the post office that gives out your new address! So much for privacy! One thing you can do is be vocal, tell people what you see and what you read. More people have to get active about this stuff rather than sit there and take it all! Stay well, Lauren
Same happens here in England,
I got a rain forest of junk when we moved house, as well as all the phone calls from companies offering savings or a survey etc… I just leave the phone on hold now, and let them sit listening to our tv. It costs them and they can’t use their phone until I put the receiver down. They soon stop!
But then again, our government and MPs are either so dilatory or decietful, cough… I know which one… that they take confidential records out of the office and take them home… Then “accidentally on purpose” leave them on the public train!
Who needs someone selling your ID when the government will do it for you…
If you think, this is terrifying, read this article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html
Its about a company which creates personal profiles from your shopping habits which are so precise, that they can predict a womans due days on +/- 2 weeks. Without any direct information of the woman – just by profiling.
If you don’t like this: Use cash – its not trackable. And don’t use customer cards.
I’ve not had that challenge. I moved about 3 years ago, did not notify anyone that I’ve moved. My mail comes to a permanent address that I go by from time to time to pick up the mail. Most transactions are done with cash. I do not give my phone number to Lowes or Homedepot or any other store that requests it. The number I do give them is the local information phone number (not 411, but XXX-XXX-1212 or 2121).
I have two personas for the internet. One is private and very few people know, the other is public and I don’t care who knows. I learned a very long time ago to LIE about anything the internet or a website asks for. My two personas are distinct and separate. I use VPN connections and TOR client (Vidalia)to do my “you don’t need to know what the f*ck I’m doing” surfing. Those that were gullible to being honest on the internet will get bitten later for it. The days of “papers please” and “we’d like to talk with you, please get into the car” are coming soon. Be aware and stay several steps ahead of the game, it might be a life saver.
Using a VPN is a very good precaution. The notion of a false internet identity is wise. I would suspect though that given enough interest, an agency like the NSA could still piece the puzzle together to figure out who ‘you’ are. Staying entirely ‘off the grid’ is truly the only way. You have good suggestions though, and will probably work well for most snoops.
True. If they *really* want to know who you are, they will find out. The idea is to make it difficult. Here’s a list of “No”.
1. No pictures of yourself posted on any social network or website.
2. No social websites with your real name and location.
3. No “friending” anybody on a social website that could ID you and know the
“real you”.
3. No use of just one email account. Multiple accounts for a specific
purposes on different networks is best.
4. No posting of specific information that could come back to haunt you,
use generality’s or be vague to those details.
5. No mixing of your public and private persona’s.
Each and every mainstream e-mail I have ever used has done things like: missing inbox letters from before a certain date- most recently this was g-mail and all e-mails i had from before sept.4,2012 are gone.
On a y-mail account, my contact list was hi jacked and viruses sent to everyone./ and, i can go on with many more examples.
I am going to find out what the previous commenter above is talking about with VPN.
oh ya, I have multiple e-mail addresses and that seems to be okay- yet still a bit problematic due to what i explained.