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Magazine Subscriptions

Subscription Woes • Big Sky Periodicals • Big Sky Responds • Diversified Marketing • Magazine Source --- News • Direct Sales International to Pay $7 Million • Negative Option Marketing: When No Means Yes

Magazines are great. Without them, there'd be nothing to read at the dentist's office. But the fine art of selling magazine subscriptions has turned into a huckster's paradise as the following complaints show. The moral? If there are a couple of magazines you just can't live without, subscribe to them directly. Don't deal with Ed McMahon and his clones.

If, like those below, you believe you are being billed for magazines you did not order, you should do some or all of the following:

• Write, don't call. Send a certified, return-receipt-requested letter to the subscription bureau stating that you did not authorize the subscription, will not honor the invoices and stating that you hereby withdraw any prior authorization for them to draft your bank account or place charges on your credit card.
• Write, don't call. Send a certified, return-receipt-requested letter to your credit card company informing that you disputing previous charges and rescinding any authorization for future charges from the subscription bureau in question.
• Call the United States Postal Inspector, listed in the Federal Government pages of your local telephone book, and arrange to file a complaint.
• Sue the subscription bureau and the credit card company in Small Claims Court if you continue to be charged (assuming there is no valid authorization for the charges).

A REMINDER …
You do not have to buy anything or use any "official" coupon or entry form to enter any lottery. Any lottery that requires any kind of purchase whatsoever is illegal - and, therefore, a scam not a lottery. Many people get sucked into scams of various types by making what they think is a token purchase in order to "win a chance to win." Never happens.

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