The article about telephone prize scams truly touched a chord with me (Evening Press, November 30).

Possibly because of my hobby of entering consumer competitions my name and address must be on lots of listings, so we are constantly inundated with junk mail.

The letters inside usually start "Congratulations - you have come safely through the first three (four or more) stages of our competition and are now definitely set to win (an amount of money between £5,000 to £1 million)! All you have to do is complete the enclosed and return it to us within seven days..."

There is always a condition, one has to buy something or accept it for a trial period. Usually all these missives go straight in the bin, but I have returned the odd one. The most I have ever won is £3.

There seems no defence or answer to these mailings. I am sure I am not alone in being fed up with all this worthless stuff.

Is there a magic way of dealing with this type of problem? If so, do tell me!

Heather Causnett,

Escrick Park Gardens,

Escrick,

York.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.