So a couple of weeks ago, I got an official-looking mailing, apparently from “County of Suffolk.” Now I knew that it was not actually from Suffolk County, let alone from the government of the county, because the postage came from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. A scan of the outside of the mailing is below.
Let’s enumerate the warning signs:
* “County of Suffolk” is not an actual entity. Something from the county clerk would say “Office of the Suffolk County Clerk.” Something from the sheriff would say “Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office.” And so on. “County of Suffolk” is no one.
* There is no insignia. County offices have shields and other symbols representing official documents. They even put these on the outside of envelopes.
* Jury notification or the like would have printed on the envelope, “Jury Notification,” or the like.
* The cancellation was from Florida. Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, officials don’t mail things from Florida.
* Many mass-mailing services are located in Florida, where it’s cheaper to print tons of crap than it is in New York.
And so, of course, this was an advertisement for a car dealership in my town.