Mr. Belvedere Posted February 19, 2009 Report Posted February 19, 2009 A few months ago I made the mistake of responding to a card I got in the mail from Collectible Automobile Magazine. It said to give our magazine a try for free on us, just check the box and send it back to them for a free trial issue of their magazine. Ha! shoulda known better and in the back of my mind I figured I would live to regret this, and so I have. In all honesty I can not remember what the small print said on this card said or if there was any, a thing they probably count on. It may have said something like "you must send in a cancellation notice by such and such a date or it will be assumed you want the subscription and you will be billed. Well this is what they now claim. At any rate I received my "free" issue and then an invoice for my subscription. Well I don't care for the magazine. So I have not paid the subsription and now I get a never ending stream of hate mail and threats that they are going to turn me over to collections if I don't pay-up. Well I am thinking about sending the "free issue" back to them and telling them to go pound sand, but before I do I was wondering if they can ding my credit or whatever if I refuse to pay them? My wife says to ignore it but I'm not as ballsy as she:o . Am I up a creek on this one? Quote
JIPJOBXX Posted February 20, 2009 Report Posted February 20, 2009 Ah yes and there is no free lunch. I would just do the same thing your doing and forget about it. How much money would be involved if they tried to attach your pay check? I would just resend them a note and to them stateing you'll be hearing from your lawyer for harassment. Quote
Tom Skinner Posted February 20, 2009 Report Posted February 20, 2009 Heck, If millions of Americans can walk away from their mortgages without a blink and no penalty involved, then I say (in NY accent) forgetta abouta man. send those jokers their magazine(s) back and tell them to pound salt. A namby pamby country like ours can do anything man, we are now all good for taking a s--t and falling back in it. Tough luck for those people that give a damn. I say go's go's anything go's someone will bail you out dude. Maybe Obama will pay the damn thing he's such a good guy. Quote
oldmopar Posted February 20, 2009 Report Posted February 20, 2009 I would turn the tables and file harassment charges on them with the attorney general, better business bureau and what ever consumer agency you have in your state . The best defense is to attack not retreat especially in a case like this. Quote
Norm's Coupe Posted February 20, 2009 Report Posted February 20, 2009 I would draw a line from corner to corner of the bill and write cancel, along with the date. Make a copy of it for yourself and then drop the original in the mail. If they call you on the phone to try and collect. Simply refer to the bill you wrote canceled on with the date. Then if you received a second or third issue prior to that date you wrote, I'd say, I'll only pay for the one or two I received, not counting the free one, and none after that date. Quote
RobertKB Posted February 20, 2009 Report Posted February 20, 2009 My wife always gets suckered by Readers' Digest. I just send back every package with "Not requested" written on it. They have to pay return postage. Quote
rolliejoe Posted February 20, 2009 Report Posted February 20, 2009 I got a 1 year free subscription to Rolling Stone magazine for my purchase at best buy awhile back. figured I'd be nice and have it sent to work, to share my windfall with my coworkers, under the name of Peter Gozina of course. Let me tell ya, I'm so glad I had the 'rolling stone" sent to work and not my home. What a waste of paper. had more to do with liberal politics than music. Anyways after the year was up they sent a bill, pay now or lose your subscription. Darn, lose my free subscription to crapola. Well they kept sending the magazine and they kept sending notes reminding Peter Gozina to pay. The first one was a friendly reminder, then they got progressively nastier. The 6th notice said they had no choice but to turn Peter Gozina over to their legal department. GO AHEAD A-HOLES, SUE PETER GOZINA FOR A FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO A MAGAZINE NOT EVEN WORTHY OF TOILET PAPER! moral of story: when signing up for something free, use an alias! and when they try to mess with you, tell them PETER GOZINA will see their butts in court! Quote
CaseyJoeS. Posted February 20, 2009 Report Posted February 20, 2009 My father had the exact same problem with this same magazine. He ended up calling them up and told them to take him out of their database and stop harrasing him. <(that was the nice version) We havent heard from them since and this was several months ago. It wont hurt your credit or anything like that. Quote
BobT-47P15 Posted February 20, 2009 Report Posted February 20, 2009 I've seen numerous offers like that, which said "we will send you the free item, then will send you the bill, and if you wish to - just write CANCEL on the bill and send it to us and we won't send the item any more". I usually try and avoid those offers for reasons stated above. Quote
Norm's Coupe Posted February 20, 2009 Report Posted February 20, 2009 What's that old saying. "If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is". I just got my usual mailer from Rod & Custom to order a subscription. If I ordered now, I only pay $14.97 for a years subscription. That's a whopping $53.91 cents savings for the one year cover price of $71.88. AND, to entice me even more they sent me a "free" Rod & Custom sticker, plus with my paid subscription I even get a "free" Rod & Custom T-Shirt. What a deal that is. Not only do I get the cheap $14.97 one year subscription, BUT...........I also get a free sticker to advertise their magazine, and a free T-Shirt to advertise "their" magazine. So.........I then become a walking "free" advertisement for them every time I wear that T-Shirt. Now, I ask, "How could they go wrong". Not only do they charge me for the magazine, but they get "free" advertising every time I wear it, or someone see's that sticker I stuck on something. Such a deal. Well.........do I have great news for them. I'll save even more, because I'll also save the $14.97 since I normally don't buy even one magazine per year. So..........they'll have to give my T-Shirt to someone else. As for the sticker that came along with the offer, that will go in file 13. Quote
Willis Pingel Posted February 21, 2009 Report Posted February 21, 2009 In 1999 I subscriped to a magazine called Farm Journal for a year and didn't like it so I just egnored it and it kept coming, for 5 years, no bills , no threats, and then it stoped for a couple of years and now it's back, no bills, no threats. Go figure. Bill Quote
Norm's Coupe Posted February 21, 2009 Report Posted February 21, 2009 In 1999 I subscriped to a magazine called Farm Journal for a year and didn't like it so I just egnored it and it kept coming, for 5 years, no bills , no threats, and then it stoped for a couple of years and now it's back, no bills, no threats. Go figure. Bill I get business magazines like that all the time. They seem to just all of a sudden appear in the mail. No one ordered it. Then after about a year, it will have a renewal card on it to fill out for another year free. We never fill the cards out, just toss them in file 13. Yet, the magazine keeps on coming. In fact, I just got a car from one yesterday. Said they wanted to renew my free subscription. Told them no thanks, I didn't want to because I didn't order it to begin with. I'd be willing to bet a dollar to a donut, I'll keep getting it anyway. That's happened before. The reason for that is. A trade magazine such as your farm magazine doesn't rely on getting paid for the magazine through subscriptions. It relies on getting all their money from advertisers. The more people on the subscription list, the more they can charge for the ads, plus they use that number as a selling tool to sell to the companies advertising in the magazine. So.........that's probably why you keep getting that farm magazine. Quote
JIPJOBXX Posted February 21, 2009 Report Posted February 21, 2009 Norm here is the deal you have been waiting for!!!!!! Just open this site and you can win 10,000,000 dollars! Hope you win your buddy Jon:D http://www.pch.com Quote
DonaldSmith Posted February 21, 2009 Report Posted February 21, 2009 Got a bill from Money Magazine for "Previous Balance" of almost 40 bucks, for "12 issue automatic renewal subscription, while the subscription end date on the magazine label jumped from feb 09 to feb10. I called their 800 number and jumped through the hoops, only to find out that the real persons don't work there on a Saturday. I got on-line, but was given the choice only to let my subscription run out, or cancel it immediately, with no way to leave a message. So I marked up the bill "Cancel -we did not renew". We'll mail it back and see what happens. Quote
Don Coatney Posted February 21, 2009 Report Posted February 21, 2009 I just got a letter from Car Craft magazine and opened it as I was reading this thread. For twenty bucks I can save $195.64 over the cover price plus get a car craft wall clock with a nice picture of a chevelle. So my best option is to save my twenty bucks as I dont have time to read the magazines I currently subscribe to. Quote
billwillard Posted February 21, 2009 Report Posted February 21, 2009 Sorry Norm, You can't win the $10,000,000 becauce I used the form. Bill Quote
Norm's Coupe Posted February 21, 2009 Report Posted February 21, 2009 Sorry Norm, You can't win the $10,000,000 becauce I used the form.Bill Bill, You must have gone through a lot of trouble to use my form. When I refer to file 13, there is a shredder on top of that file 13. You must have used a lot of tape or glue to get it back together. Quote
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