Dear Heloise: I would like to share a recent experience. We received an envelope through the postal service that, at first glance, appeared to be junk mail. We did not recognize the sender’s name or address. The envelope was addressed to my husband with his full name. We opened it to see if there was any personally identifiable information (PII) inside. We were about to black out the PII when the words “data breach” caught my eye.

It was a letter from a company that staffs local emergency rooms with nurses. The breach had occurred several months prior; data from patients who visited emergency rooms during a certain time period was compromised. My husband had visited an emergency room during that time period. The letter included contact information for the three major credit reporting bureaus. We also did a search online.

Sure enough, that particular company had suffered a data breach. We’ve had freezes on our credits for several years and had recently run a routine check, so we didn’t take any additional action. We’ve filed that letter with those recent credit reports, just in case.

As far as junk emails are concerned, we also hover the mouse over the sender’s address to identify its origin. If junk email appears in our inbox, we move it to our junk mail folder and then delete it. Over time, email systems “learn” to place junk mail into that folder.

We still “survey” such emails to make sure we don’t miss anything important, as these systems are not 100% accurate. Not having these junk emails arrive in the inbox prevents an inadvertent opening of the message. — Anni, Colorado Springs, Colorado

Send a money-saving or timesaving hint to Heloise, P.O. Box 795001, San Antonio, TX 78279-5001, or you can fax it to 1-210-HELOISE or email it to Heloise@Heloise.com. I can’t answer your letter personally but will use the best hints received in my column.