CHEVY HIGH PERFORMANCE Magazine: Scam

[ssn696]

Two weeks a got I got a phone call from 'Chevy High Performance Magazine Subscription Service'. First, they left a voicemail - 'listen for a call with a great offer on your subscription...' Next day, I got a call, with an enthusiastic person verifying my address is XXXX (correct) and trying to offer me a 'screaming deal for 26.95' to renew my subscription. I looked in my checking account, and I paid these guys 24.95 a year and a half ago for 2 years renewal. 'Fine, we can do $24.95. Let me contact my supervisor. I'll call you back.'

Got a call back 5 minutes later, 'This is so-and-so's surpervisor, we are happy to honor this price. Act now and lock in your rate for the next fours years!'. Hmm. That's half what I paid. Sounds good.
'So let me confirm: $24.95 gets me 48 months of magazines.'
'No, this is the low lock-in price of $24.95 for the next fours years! Please tell how you'd like to make a one-time payment of $99.76. You save X hundred dollars over regular subscription fees.' Wait, what?!?

Dial tone. I'll wait until Christmas when it's $24.95 for two years again.

 

[FE3X CLONE]

My rule of thumb is that I don't do any business over the phone UNLESS I am the one that initiates the call.
Even if they have my info and it sounds legit. You just never know these days.

 

[King_V]

Feh, phone subscriptions.... scam.

Hell, my brother wound up with TWO subscriptions to the SAME magazine, that he NEVER ordered.

Hilarious was when they tried to call and insist he owed the money.

I pick up the phone - "Hello"

"Hi, is (my brother's name) there."

"Who's this?"

"It's Josh."

(thinking to myself... my brother doesn't know anyone named Josh).

"Nah, he's not home, can he call you back?"

"I'll reach back out to him."

Basically, it was some publishing house. Now my brother used to work the night shift, so he had a REALLY out of kilter sleep schedule, and when they got a hold of him, they insisted that "Well, on December 19, we called you at 10am and have a recording of you ordering these magazines."

"Why would I order TWO subscriptions of the SAME magazine for myself?"

"Well, you ordered them."

So when he tells me this story, I tell him to call their bluff about the recording next time. When he asks why, I remind him that on December 19th, we had been in California visiting our parents for 3 days, and didn't return home for nearly a week after that.

Unfortunately, he simply told them that next time, which elicited the response of "Uh, well, actually, our mistake, we called on December 12."

They threatened to put it in collections, we never heard from them after.



Uh, ok, long-winded and semi-amusing by me, but the long and the short of it is that ANY magazine that you may or may not have subscribed to is going to try to pull a stunt like that. Either being fast-and-loose with the pricing, or BSing about you having actually agreed to subscribe.