A few days ago I got an item in the mail supposedly offering me a $100 refund as a Unitil customer. The name on the return address was “SmartEnergy,” not Unitil, so it immediately looked fake. It is.
The text inside says:
“Your order is not automatic.
To get started, you must call:
1-800-485-4839
Your REFUND OPTIONS (choose one):
I. Mail me a $100 Visa Prepaid Card
II. Mail me a $100 refund checkSmartEnergy would like to issue you a $100 refund.
Judicial Watch is pouring out the paper junk mail. I keep getting stuff from them, for reasons I don’t know. Their consistent features are deception and petulance. One of their mailings tried to look like a US census form. They demanded that I return it if I wasn’t interested, then sent a follow-up speculating on why I hadn’t.
Given how dishonest their mailings are, I wasn’t particularly worried when I got an envelope from them labelled “LEGAL NOTICE,” but I wondered what trick they were pulling. The mailing includes a “litigation support form” to return with a “yes” sticker placed on this statement: “I fully support the Litigation Efforts of Judicial Watch to EXPOSE and LEGALLY CHALLENGE the outrageous abuse of my tax dollars and to demand in a court of law that DC bureaucrats cut wasteful and fraudulent spending on evil, Marxist, racist and woke programs.” The mailing says on the inside that the form must be returned “Within the Next 72 Hours.”
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In an earlier post, I wrote about a fake census from Judicial Watch, and I added a note about a second mailing where JW told me to return their mail if I wasn’t interested. Any mass mailing will be ignored by most people, but this one must have been a flop of colossal dimensions, one so monumental it left them grasping for explanations. This week I got two pieces of US mail from them on the same day. One of them (I tossed the other after a quick glance) said on the envelope: “As a commonsense conservative, you have an enormous stake in draining the Washington swamp and dismantling the Deep State. Yet you weren’t one of the tens of thousands who’ve answered my letters about our success exposing deep State corruption at the FBI, Justice and State Departments. I’m the president of Judicial Watch, and I think I know why…”
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This week I went to my mailbox and got an alarming item. The return address said:
2025 NATIONAL CENSUS
U.S. Citizen Census Record Transmission
Form 1983 (2025) 72 hour return enclosed
OFFICIAL USE ONLY
www.judicialwatch.org
This is still, at least officially, a blog by a writer for writers. This week I came across a blog that will interest anyone who writes for money: Writer Beware. It presents worthwhile information on scams that writers may encounter, as well as advice on dealing with publishers, agents, and so on.
I encourage people to use RSS feeds rather than social media sites when possible to follow blogs and news sites, so here’s the RSS link, which should work with any RSS reader (I’ve subscribed to it with Leaf).