Who Sold My Info To Mystic?

Yesterday I received not one but two offers in the mail from Mystic. Just more junk mail,so I am curious being I have never purchased from them or visited the Mystic web site, nor do I purchase anything from online dealers.

So I imagine an ebay seller is supplementing his income by selling his sales data. Possibly two sellers as I received the same offer for 1941 series wines twice, with two different offer codes above my address.

I just wish they would use business reply envelopes so I could send Mystic some credit card offers and insurance pitches. I recycle all my junk by mailing it back to others in business reply envelopes. Just my way of supporting the USPS.

Got the same junk. The thing that I couldn't explain is why they quoted savings from 2009 prices. Since I do not collect these, I assumed this series must have gone down since 2009. Why else would you quote 3-4 year old prices?

If you were ever a member of APS, then Mystic has your info. One of the unheralded benefits of APS membership is that dealers can purchase your information from APS. It saves you the trouble of having to contact these stamp companies that you never buy from.

I am no longer an APS member. But during my many years of previous membership, I received not only advertising mail from stamp dealers, but also unsolicited approvals as well. Some of the approvals had a letter explaining how they got my info (yeah, from APS). If you send me unsolicited approvals without an SASE, then I'm not sending it back.

For small sellers, it's usually because they haven't updated their catalogs.

For large sellers, it's often a sales tactic to give you the impression that you are getting a good deal. I'm not saying that's what they did, but it is a pretty typical sales hype/tactic.

Never an APS member, so I'm still leaning towards the ebay connection.

I would not consider myself a member but I do pay APS (Arizona Public Service) every month for electricity, but I don't think they sold my info to Mysterio.

Some years ago dealers could buy names in numbers (usually 100 to 1000 and even more) from different stamp wholesalers in the dealership books and catalogues for the trade only.

I am not sure if this is still applied today but it wouldn't surprise me.

Chimo

Bujutsu

Hi khj



You could always request the APS to remove your name from unsolicited offers.

When I joined I checked the application box that essentially turned off unsolicited offers.

Jerry B

Yes, I was aware of that, but thanks for pointing that out. Actually, I like receiving junk mail. I cut the used stamps out, and then junk the mail.

k

Hi to all
I found one way to stop some junk mail
When I get "offers" from companies like Readers Digest, or Time I just put my address as the readers Digest address for the time offers and vice versa.
Must take them months to sort it out.
Horamakhet

@Horamkhet: I like your idea. Let me guess you're a scam baiter as well?
http://www.419eater.com

I don't mind the junk Mystic sends, it is always good for a laugh. What irks me is they do not use stamps on their mail.

I never receive anything from Mystic but I did receive 3 or 4 years ago many auction catalogues and also a Greece stamp catalogue from Karamitsos, I think the biggest auction house in Greece for stamps, postal stationary, postcards etc.
These catalogue are beautiful. They all together weight around 10 kilos. I never heard about Karamitsos before but I did bought stamps from greek dealers. These were purchases for my Olympic collection, some of the Greek stamps issue for the 1896 Olympics in Athene. One of the dealer probably gave my name and address to Karamitsos. They probably thought I was a potential Greece stamps collector. At the time Karamitsos did not accept Paypal and I had no credit card. Finally I think they spend at least $40 to ship the catalogues with TNT. They just look beautiful. Wouldn't call them junk mail at all.

Why use stamps as postage at face value when they can sell it for 3x-5x face? I would have been completely shocked if they had used stamps as postage.

k

You took the words right out of my mouth.No sense in using perfectly good stamps that are purchased at 50% of face that can be pushed for 150% of catalogue.

That's a good point. The ONLY time I buy from Mystic is when I need a bunch of low FV moderns and can't find them all elsewhere from less than 4 dealers. Then the total cost makes Mystic favorable, and I get a great catalog every year that is great for identifying the year and major catalog of any issue.