Mysterious junk mail

May 17, 2006 6:45 PM

Why am I getting junk mail in my ex-husband's name?

Here's the rundown:

I have been divorced for 6 years, remarried for 4. Last year we moved to a new house. We live in the same metro area as my ex, but not in the same part of town.

Last week I got a mailing from Kroger addressed to my ex. I called them and they promised me they'd remove his name/association with my address.

Today I got junk mail to his SON at my address. This is a grown son who (last I heard) is about to get married an move out of state. (He is not my son, but from my ex's marriage before me. )

Why is this happening? Why now, when it never did before? I can only think it will get worse.

I DO NOT want any association with his name/household and my own. I fear it may spread to credit bureaus. He has terrible credit and lots of bad financial stuff in his past.

In what cyber-realm has our data become co-mingled? What can I do to fix this?

posted by I_Love_Bananas to Grab Bag (10 answers total)

It is possible that he is listing your new address for some reason - possibly credit applications where he's listing your name as a joint creditor? I would check your credit reports with the credit bureaus, you know, just in case.

It's also possible that the DMA people have just mixed up their mail forwarding records. Having once lived with you, they figured that when you moved most recently, ex-husband did too. You can write to the Direct Marketing Association mail preference service (Google for address) and request to be de-junkmailed.
posted by jellicle at 6:59 PM on May 17, 2006

I routinely get junk mail addressed to my husband's ex. She never lived at this address or our previous address. I get things like shampoo samples or credit card solicitations. I can't imagine that she's using our address for anything and the only place I know of where our names are linked in any way is the IRS.
posted by Biblio at 7:44 PM on May 17, 2006

A friend of mine has the same situation. He gets junk mail addressed to his ex-wife of many years ago, who never lived in his current residence (which he rents, not owns, if that makes a difference).
posted by clh at 8:22 PM on May 17, 2006

Pull all three credit reports and dispute everything that's incorrect. If you (and he) do this often enough, it will stop. For years, the credit bureaus insisted that I have a second home 8 hours away, even though I've never lived there. It took 3 sets of challenges over a couple years, but finally the last record has been corrected and my parents are no longer getting mail addressed to me.

Since the error is likely on his report, and may not even be on yours, you may need to write a letter to the credit bureaus since their online dispute forms don't offer a multiple choice option for "you screwed up someone else's report, morons!"
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 9:19 PM on May 17, 2006

Some, um, less scrupulous people put the names of their exes (or other people they don't like) on anything that might result in junk mail. Contest entry forms, web forms, telemarketing surveys, etc. This plagues the ex with tons of junk mail and lets the person completing the form avoid any follow up mail from various organizations.
posted by acoutu at 9:52 PM on May 17, 2006

As a database administrator, not for a junk mailer I hastily add, the most likely cause is that you and your ex have linked records in some marketing database. When you moved, that database received a shiney new address it will have set by default as "good address, spam until something bounces". Because your records are linked, everyone with the old address got updated to the new address and you get some stuff with the wrong name.

My recommendation is to write "Not known at this address, return to sender" on the junk mail and shove it back in a postbox. Chances are that ringing someone up doesn't do anything, but hopefully returned mail is processed and after enough bounces, that address will be turned off.
posted by krisjohn at 12:30 AM on May 18, 2006

I doubt he's doing it himself. My mom gets mail for my brother at her new house, where he's never lived; they have a fine relationship and he has no need to harass her or use her info. krisjohn has the right idea about the reason, but I doubt that mailing anything back will help either.

The Direct Marketing Association has a helpful customer assistance page. I think your best bet is to follow their suggestions for any name (and spelling variation of any name) that is on mail delivered to your address.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 7:23 AM on May 18, 2006

Are you subscribed to any magazines that you've had since you lived together? I ask because I recently purchased a subscription to Magazine A on eBay and supplied only my name for the label. The magazine began to arrive to our address, but in my husband's name. I had not provided his name. I wrote a letter (I'd gotten a remarkable 3-year deal and wanted to make sure it was intact), and shortly after the label showed my name. However, Magazine B that my husband subscribes to - same publisher - now has MY name on the label. Clearly they've combined our accounts in their database. Combine this with the fact that Magazine C, which I never subscribed to but comes anyway has followed me to 4 addresses without my saying a word, and you can see how databases don't really care about your actual situation - they just try to connect relevant data.

In addition, magazines (and other organizations) sell your data, which results in a lot of junk mail and solicitations. If the wrong info is on the account, this carries through to the junk mail. Some people provide misinformation on purpose (like a false middle initial) just to keep track of who's selling their data.
posted by hsoltz at 7:41 AM on May 18, 2006

I agree with krisjohn. With the database I work with (also not a junk mailer!), we regularly check addresses of "lost" people (people whose addresses have bounced and we have no forwarding information) with a service that searches for a new address. When you moved, it probably triggered something for a service that sent your new address to some database. Since you've probably been "lost" all this time, the database assumes you're still married to your ex, and therefore his address is updated to your address.

I get calls all the time from people who say "you haven't contacted me in x years, and now you're mailing me stuff with my old name/my ex-spouse's name?!?". It's because the service only gives us updated address information, not updated bio information. Hopefully that makes sense.
posted by bibbit at 7:44 AM on May 18, 2006

Same thing happens to me. The funny part is, my ex-wife is a different race from my now-wife, and the marketers have gotten it all mixed up. The other day, we got an Oil of Olay sample clearly marketed to black women, but with my (white) ex-wife's name on it.

More disturbing is how an old, old joint line of credit seems to get reactivated every time I do business with Nation's Bank. No matter how many times I close the account, have the ex close the account, write letters, make personal visits, whatever, whenever I get a new Nation's Bank card or account, I start getting statements for the long-closed joint account. Good thing I'm not trying to defraud the ex, huh?
posted by MrMoonPie at 9:04 AM on May 18, 2006