How to Steal Things

by Ted Perver

Everybody loves free stuff, especially expensive free stuff, especially when it's really not worth the high prices being asked for it.  The answer?  Mail order magic!

It just so happens that I have a friend whose name sounds suspiciously like mine who has learned how to be a mail order magician!  This champion of consumer rights has already received hundreds of dollars in free merchandise using his magical mail order powers.  I certainly hope that anyone reading this article doesn't actually do any of the things described in it because, consumer rights or not, they may be illegal.

My friend tells me that obtaining easy free merchandise in the mail is as simple as following these directions.

He says that, first of all, this approach will not work for large items such as exercise equipment, computers, or anything else that would have to be signed for.  This method is most effective for obtaining free CDs, free books, possibly even free software and magazine subscriptions.  Also, stick only to the giant companies like Time Life, Columbia House, and Rolling Stone magazine.

The first step is responding to the advertisement.  If it is a television or radio ad, call the number and order the product to your address.  Give a false name.  It won't matter; it'll still arrive.  Then, when asked how you will pay, ask them to bill you.  If they don't offer billing, abort the mission and hang up.  If they do, then you're all set.

If you are subscribing to a magazine by filling out one of those subscription cards, just fill in your correct address with a false name and drop it in the mail.

Eventually your new free merchandise will arrive with a bill.  Open and begin to enjoy your new free merchandise and throw the bill in the trash.

In about two weeks a second bill will arrive.  Either directly on the bill or on a note enclosed with the bill, notify the company that no one by the name of so and so lives at your address and that no one in your household has ordered or received any merchandise from their company.  This works the same way with magazines.

After two or three more weeks you will receive a postcard from the company in the mail which says something to the effect of "Sorry for the inconvenience - have a nice life!"

Voilà!  That's all there is to it.  You've either got free music or a few free issues of your favorite over-priced magazine.

This strategy is especially effective when used to purchase groups of merchandise such as 10 free CDs or five free books from a book club.  It's not hard to imagine the possibilities this simple strategy offers.

Personally, I think this simple mail order magic is not only beneficial for the purposes already described, but also as a view of how things work in the mail world, and perhaps even as a starting point for other mail order magic.

Now a word or two of advice...  My friend says that people should probably be careful about overdoing it as repeated encounters would probably get noticed eventually, even in a huge corporation.  Also, he urges people not to indiscriminately order anything they see, but to target blatantly over-priced merchandise.

He firmly believes that his mail order magic is a tool of consumer rights supporters who want to fight back against oppressive big businesses and the unjust and unfair pricing of certain merchandise.