Comments on: Snookered!

By: Festival of Frugality #160 - Credit Withdrawal - Helping You Kick the Credit Habit

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 06:06:10 +0000

[...] presents Snookered! posted at Funny about [...]

By: SimplyForties

SimplyForties — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 03:03:32 +0000

I love that you wrote in. I hate when they send those letters, knowing that most of us won’t check. It makes me angry and much more likely not to re-up, just on principal. I’ll be looking forward to reading what, if any, response you receive!

By: copyeditorsdesk

copyeditorsdesk — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:48:58 +0000

Isn’t that outrageous!

The Arizona Republic pulled a similar scam on me. I actually had called and told them to cancel the paper, and they kept right on delivering it. I did not pay for a renewal, and I refused to pay for the papers they delivered after I canceled. They had a collection agent call me up and harass me. A call to the state attorney general’s office solved the problem.

There are some shady operators out there who prey on legitimate magazines. They send you renewal notices and ask you to re-up, getting you to send the money to their fulfillment operation instead of direct to the magazine. You’ve then paid for a subscription when you get another bill from the real rag, whose circulation department is unaware that you’ve already resubscribed through a different fulfillment house or simply thrown money down a rathole. It’s possible this is what happened with Scientific American. If so, then I’m out a year’s worth of magazines, because I’m not paying twice, even if the first payment went to a con artist.

By: Patricia Tucker

Patricia Tucker — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:33:47 +0000

You have hit on a very sore spot for me. About two months ago, I received a notice from a collection agency stating that if I didn’t pay the money they were claiming that I owed to them on behalf of a magazine, they would puruse collections through the courts and noting this on my credit report. I was outraged as this is a magazine I conciously did not renew for I felt no further need or use for it. A call to the magazine revealed that they assumed that I was renewing because I didn’t tell them I wasn’t renewing. So they “sent me to collections” for failure to pay the renewal fee. Mind you, they weren’t sending me magazines, just bills. A scathing (but polite) letter to them has gone unacknowledged. Surprise, surprise. And ultimately, the publisher of the magainze was Rodale – BIG disappointment.

Thanks for the post and the thoughts on a spreadsheet.