I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve been receiving offers from Publishers Clearing House for at least forty-five years. I used to order magazines through them and enter the sweepstakes. Later on they started offering other “items” for purchase when the bottom seemed to fall out of the magazine ordering business. I’ve ordered a few things from that over the years.
But lately it’s gotten completely ridiculous, and today when I opened the 50th sweepstakes envelope I’ve received this year, I snapped. If you don’t buy something, they often don’t want you to use the order form to enter the contest. Instead, your are required to jump through other hoops. Lately, they’ve also included a flimsy slip of paper on which you are asked to explain your decision NOT to purchase something when you enter. 
Since I’m older now, I often find reasons to send out letters, telling a company how I feel about the way they operate. Today is one of those days, and I’m including the “attachment” I’m sending in with my sweepstakes entry. I hope some of you agree with me.
Why I’m Not Ordering
By Patricia Smith Wood
You want to know why I’m not ordering today, but the slip you sent me to outline that information for you is too small. So here’s the story.
I’m a member of the older generation of Americans, much as that pains me to admit to you. Because of that I have decades of experience and wisdom about purchasing and spending money. Yes, I have purchased items from you in the past. Sometimes a gee gaw reaches the childlike portions of my brain and says, “Oh, look at the interesting toy! Buy me!”
I’ve gone years at a time without even opening your sweepstakes mail because I know: 1) I don’t need anything you are offering; 2) I’m strapped financially and am watching my expenditures; 3) I resent the concept that I can enter the sweepstakes “free” but often I’m told I can only do it online or by sending in an empty envelope with my forty-seven cent stamp.
Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE to buy stuff, but I’ve become more selective in that process over the years. Plus, as most Americans my age, I’m trying to downsize and get rid of the “junk” purchases I’ve collected during my lifetime. I’m in the process right now of cleaning out my elderly mother’s home after forty-one years of occupancy. I don’t want that same sort of burden to fall to my daughter.
You want to know why I’m not ordering today? Please don’t send me two sweepstake offers a week—it cheapens the entire process. What a waste of postage on your part, and a definite landfill glut for the public. If I send in an entry once, that should be enough. Either you draw my number or you don’t. Please avoid implying that multiple entries matter in the grand scheme of things. I didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday.
Be clearer on how many of these “sweepstakes” you are running at once. Eventually it becomes suspect, and we think there is NO sweepstake at all! I’ve never seen the “announcement” on television you are always touting. All I see are commercials about Publishers Clearing House and people who may or may not be real people notified that they have won.
Now you know why I’m not ordering today, and perhaps never again. I hope someone in charge reads this. I suspect, instead, this will go into the same trash I’ve been tossing the majority of the entry letters all these years.