Pete C. wrote:

Pete Keillor wrote:

On Mon, 9 Mar 2009 19:22:45 -0700 (PDT), engineman
wrote:


The other day I got a letter from someplace called "Readers Payment
Service".
They sent me an invoice for a year's subscription to Popular Mechanics
magazine.
I have a subscripton and I renewed it in December.
Why are they sending me this bill?
I have received similar letters in the past and have sent them money
without checking to see when I renewed.The money was applied to my
subscription but it meant having more money tied up in the
subscription than I wanted.
I have even received letters from them or someone similar asking for
more money than the subscription price directly to the magazine.
How many of you have had this experience?
Is there someone I can complain to about this?
I could complain to Popular Mechanics but this would do no good for
the other magazines I've gotten invoices for.
Some of them were for magazines I don't even subscribe to.
Engineman

Scam. They overcharge, then forward the subscription to the magazine.
They are also not authorized by the magazine. Magazines would rather
you subscribe directly. Toss 'em.

Pete Keillor


From other than the publisher they're scammers, skimming funds barely
legally as noted.

From the publisher it's just a common scam to extend your subscription
further well before it's due to expire, so they can get the money now
and make the payments on their press or whatnot.

Also common is sending an unsolicited subscription for a magazine you
might be interested in based on whatever demographic info they can find,
and then sending you a renewal invoice in a year.


While those are undoubtedly scams, on the other side of the coin are
subscription services like Ebsco who offer darned good rates for
practically any magazine you'd want and bill you once a year for all
your subscriptions.

http://www.ebscomags.com/

We've been using Ebsco for over ten years and subscribe to about 10
magazines through them. They have alway had very good and helpful
telephone customer service when we wanted to add or remove a magazine
from our subscription list.

Interestingly, we receive renewal notices directly from the publishers
of nearly all the magazines we've gotten through Ebsco, and their
renewal rates are always higher than what we've paid to Ebsco. I just
toss those notices out and smile.

Just my .02.

Jeff

--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
The speed of light is 1.8*10^12 furlongs per fortnight.