LETTERS

Re: David Lazarus’ consumer column, “Tossing out junk mail’s defense,” April 8:

I am a junk mail writer, have been for many years, mostly in healthcare. I’ll create, for example, the postcard from the local dentist with the offer for a $99 teeth whitening.

There is a dirty little secret about junk mail that most consumers don’t want to admit, and what no one in our industry seems to want to report: Junk mail works. It works even with online offers. In fact, it sometimes works better because of the Internet.

The industry did not get so big because junk mail fails. Believe me, if it did not work, those advertising and marketing dollars would shift so fast it would make your head spin.

So before anyone bashes junk mail -- yet again -- please remember that we are only responding to the public’s desire to have ads sent to them.

And as soon as they stop responding, we’ll stop sending the mail. That’s a guarantee.

Steve Smith

Costa Mesa

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The junk mail advertising that I receive two or three times a week is usually more useful to me than the ads that are published in The Times that cost me $252 a year.

I welcome the supermarket circulars and specials that are offered from various businesses in my area. Items that I am not interested in go directly into the recycle bin, along with the daily newspaper.

What have you got against people trying to make a living ? It’s very simple: If you don’t like junk mail, don’t read it.

Bennett Cane

Orange

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Your column didn’t even mention that most of that junk mail ends up in our landfills, or how the industry destabilizes postage rates. Or that many of the mailers are from fraudsters and hucksters looking to capitalize on the weak, unsuspecting and uneducated.

Other than that, junk mailers are swell.

David Dutra

Tucson, Ariz.