Joan Aragone: Be careful of direct mailings

It's nice to be popular. Or is it?

I recently received at my home an innocuous-looking postcard mailing — one of those tear-off-and-mail-the-attached-card formats — announcing itself as an update on California long-term care.

Printed in black and white with a prepaid postage return, it looked official, as though the state were sending me information I needed to know.

An anonymous message — no name or government agency was identified — said that new legislation would limit my access to government-paid long-term care. Thus, I needed to provide long-term care insurance for myself. For more information, all I had to do was provide my signature and phone number and birth dates for myself and my spouse...

Mercury News: Joan Aragone: Be careful of direct mailings