Progressive Business Publications Reviews

First of all, I am grateful for all the reviews found on Consumer Affairs. I too had the same experience - Nonprofit Board Report calls me in the middle of a workday in July, asks if I want a free newsletter, I said yes. Few weeks or month later, we get invoices that we just throw away because it's free, right? I get a phone call from the company a little while after that, asking how I liked the subscription. I said we didn't read it or want it and we are a small non-profit and we're not interested in paying for a subscription. Fast forward a few months later (January), a phone call from a collection agency arrives saying we owe $250 because we didn't cancel the subscription. One (1) email with directions on how to cancel were apparently emailed to me in July. How unethical to scam on non-profits, especially small ones like ours where $250 is a big deal.

Just received a call from their collections department saying we owed $249 for a subscription to the NON-PROFIT BOARD REPORT. I recall getting a call and after repeatedly saying I did not want their service, they said they were mailing it just so I could see it. Apparently I was supposed to cancel within 30 days, but I wasn't aware of that. They are SCAMMERS.

I have also received an invoice for a subscription that was never ordered in the amount of $299. I have tried to call but only get voice mail, I was able to get the name of the "Customer service manager", his name is Matt ** , if anyone attempts to call, press 9 then enter ** , that will ring his extension, but good luck getting him to answer.

I have called them and faxed them to stop sending me faxes and they continue, the fax says that bill W talked to me..... which is untrue. I have never spoke with anyone from this company - other than to tell them to stop faxing me.

International Credit Agency calling about overdue $265, but will settle for $110, if paid today. All about a supervisor subscription to a newsletter I did not know I was even getting. They claimed I agreed to receive it by giving my birth date which of course anyone can get off the internet free :) They have been calling me several times a week. A new person each time suggesting it has escalated and if it came to trial I would be liable personally. I am very stressed about this because I never agreed to such a thing. So I am going to call them for the 4th time and do what one of the reviews here suggested cancel after choosing option to make a payment.

Salesperson caught me on the phone in the middle of doing 18 different things offering a "sample" for a Keep Up To Date on Payroll newsletter. I hurriedly answered questions to get them off the phone, and was given the impression that the information that I'd be receiving would be at no charge. Six months later, I'm now receiving multiple calls a day from International Credit Recovery claiming that I owe $230 for a newsletter that I never agreed to pay for. We've never received an invoice prior to ICR contacting us, or an actual "newsletter" to be honest. Now, I'm stuck dealing with an overly aggressive ICR and their repeated phone calls for a debt that our company does not owe.

I received several phone calls and a pretty useless newsletter in the mail from Progressive Business Publications. The telemarketer told me they would send our organization copies of a newsletter for a free trial. I told them that it was fine to send free copies. I do not recall anyone saying that I had to call and cancel or else I would be charged for a subscription. I remember several calls and the telemarketer being aggressive and just telling him to send the trial copies to get him to stop calling me. Several months later I believe the controller at our organization showed me an invoice for a newsletter subscription. He asked if I ordered it and I said no, I didn't order or agree to order anything. So I assume he disposed of the invoice. That was the only invoice we ever received and I never received any emails. This week I received a call from a "collection agency" telling me that we ignored several invoices and emails regarding our subscription and it was handed over to this collection agency.

I received an invoice today coming from our accounts payable and was so surprised that I owe $295 subscription that I never sign and remembered agreed upon. They said it is a fourth notice. The problem is I don't even received the 1st notice nor sign for this to begin with.

They are nothing but tricksters. Was told about a free publication, for which my email ID was collected. Within few months got a call from a collection agency demanding money for subscription of service. It is my opinion that this publication needs to brought to justice by all of us collectively.

Called my business. Said they would send free subscription to "The NONPROFIT BOARD REPORT". Then 1 month later I get an invoice for $249.00. Says it's their 2nd notice and payment is overdue. They never sent the first invoice and the subscription was free. No telephone number to call to speak with a company representative - given only PO Box as an address. I am sending a cancel my subscription letter to their company and go from there.

I got a call from them 5/9/14 about their CFO&Controller Alert asking if I wanted to give it a try. It didn't sound too bad and they said I could get trials and then choose to subscribe or not. Then I started receiving many email "newsletters" and sporadic paper "newsletter" here and there. When they kept on sending them to me after few weeks, I thought maybe I should call them and ask them why they keep sending them to me. I tried calling their number found online, but they would only say to leave a voice mail with my account number, which I could not find anywhere!

So, as the other reviews are stating, I also received an invoice of $240 for a publication I never signed up for. I spoke to a girl about 2 months ago about a free trial and told her it wasn't my say on what we subscribe to, but insisted it was easy to cancel and I would just receive one complimentary issue, so I gave her my email address to hurry up the phone call. I never received any newsletters or anything, until I just got the invoice. Luckily I am 11 days before my "60 day" free trial and did everything to try and cancel the subscription and waive the fee. I wrote cancel on the invoice and faxed and mailed it to the office, and left a message and email to cancel it.

I got a call from 'collection agency' named International Credit Recovery, Inc.on behalf of Progressive Business Publications that we were way overdo on an invoice for $230. They claim that an employee at my company had verbally confirmed an order for Keep Up To Date On Payroll on 9/25/13 and that the employee's birthday was provided as confirmation. Moreover, they claim an email was sent around the same time to the employee's email address confirming the order. They also said that if we had wanted to cancel we would've had to have written 'CANCEL' on the first invoice they sent. The problem? We never received any invoices (they claim they sent 5) or any newsletters (they claim they sent 10). There was also no email sent to this employee. ICR, Inc said they had no phone number for Progressive Business Publications. ICR said we had until close of business on 5/22/14 to pay or else it would move 'forward', whatever that meant.

We were sent a "second notice" from Progressive Business Publications for a one year publication subscription that we NEVER approved. This publication was not even related to our business. When I spoke to Nicki in customer service, she stated our billing supervisor had approved this publication and had used her email (public information) as "proof" that she had approved this order. When I asked to listen to the recorded phone conversation, I was told by Nicki that they don't keep the phone call logs very long. No kidding. What a waste of time this company causes Other companies, who are actually providing a REAL services!

We have received invoices every month and every month we send them back "return to sender". We have called and left messages. We get no return calls. I am ready to call the Better Business Bureau and see if something can be done. I am sending another invoice back today with "cancel-not interested nor have we ever been interested" all highlighted in yellow. I would like some feedback on what my next step should be. As of today I will be saving them and sending them back all at once.

I add my voice to the chorus of "Fraud!" I cancelled this "trial subscription" by e-mail and by phone, after following these charlatans' instructions for cancellation failed, repeatedly. They do not cancel... they just invoice over and over again.

I was solicited to receive a newsletter some time ago and then come to find out that I owe $299 for a subscription. This was not disclosed. I did not find out until I was called for collections. Supposedly, I had invoices sent for 5 months - I did not receive any invoices.

I have no idea who this company is, but now I am getting invoiced for 5 months, and have never seen a publication. They said it may look like junk mail, and we could have thrown it away!

Like all other complaints listed here, my business has been subjected to collection notices and calls for a service we did not request or authorize. After some research, it appears to me the best course of action is to file complaints with the Southern Pennsylvania Better Business Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Attorney General's Office of your state. I also filed a complaint with Pennsylvania's Attorney General's Office for good measure. There are thousands of complaints logged against this company every year. Also beware of International Credit Recovery of New York, their "collection agency." Most importantly, as we are aware we are being scammed, we will not pay them a red cent!!

This company is a fraud and really needs to be investigated by department of justice or have a class action law suit filed against them. This company will research your employees, call one person and then pretend you've ordered newsletters with them which you don't receive until mths later. Then they pretend they've billed you and you get a call from a collection agency (who appears to be same company) threatening to report you to collection for non payment. You can attempt to call them but they will not refund your money. Even though there is no proof that you ever ordered anything. We've posted notices at all our businesses to hang up the phone when this company calls and filed a complaint at Better Business Bureau and plan on pursuing legal action against them.

Same story as everyone else on here. The guy from collections is repeatedly calling me although after I told him to not call anymore. He is creepy.

Like the others, I am receiving these publications that I did not ask for. The CEO from my company called and told them to stop sending us these publications. She told them that this was a scam. The lady kept denying it and got loud and nasty with my boss. My boss also said that there was a baby crying in the background which didn't make her case any better. This is a scam.

As almost every other review that I read on here, I was receiving bogus e-mails and calls about postings that had nothing to do with my job. I had tried to unsubscribe from this service multiple times over the phone and on their website, but with no luck. Today, I was able to talk to a live person at 1.800.220.5000, extension **. So hopefully, the calls and e-mails stop and hopefully this will help others out as well.

Progressive Business Publications, beware. Our organization received past due invoices for publications that we never ordered or received. When I called to dispute the invoice, the customer service representative was rude and aggressive.

I received a phone call from a salesperson requesting that I sample publications. I was in a hurry to get this individual off the line as there was work I had to attend to. I agreed to sample some of the publications at no charge. Six months later, I started receiving invoices from the company. I thought that this was a mistake as I never agreed to purchase any service. I disregarded the letters (along with the articles). PBP sent me to credit collections for the amount of over $200. After several attempts, there was no way of getting out of paying. This company should be ashamed for the line of dishonest work that they do. I felt extremely taken advantage of and will broadcast this scam so that others do not fall into the same trap as I did.

I am receiving calls to collect for publications that my employee cancelled on several occasions. This has happened several times with my company to other employees. What can we do to stop this from happening in the future?

I wrote a review of this company many months ago about their fraudulent attempts to get my money. They were at it again. This morning, I received an email that was targeting me to get OSHA logs from them, to fill out for my company since I'm the safety manager. They knew that it's the time of year when all safety professionals have to fill out their OSHA logs. So, they were targeting us so we'll click on the links they provided. This time, their emails were concealed as "PB Compliance". They also provided a "priority code" which was code for, "You've just subscribed to our publication." Beware of these crooks! They're sneaky and if your guard is down, they'll get you.

I have made several attempts to stop the billing of a service/publication that I never approved of: CFO Controller Alerts. I am not the CFO or the controller of our agency. This is a bogus agency and let me tell you that the publication for the cost of $299.00 is not worth the paper that it's printed on.

This company called and said they were the legal team representative and before turning our company over to collections, we could settle without the extra charges. We had never received an invoice from this company nor had we received the publications. So to avoid problems, I decided to give them a credit card number to resolve. After the call, I went online to find numerous complaints about this company. How can we allow companies to scam and fraud hardworking individuals out of hard earned money and there be no repercussions for this company? Please help!

I remember getting a call from a company asking me for some free newsletters. I didn't think anything of it until several weeks later - I get a letter stating that I owe for some newsletters that I did not receive. I now have a bill for $195.50 stating that my account is overdue. I searched online about this company when I saw the bill, because it has no phone number to contact them. I'm not paying this.

I used to work for Progressive Business Publications and just want to warn every one of some facts. When I worked with the company, we were just a roomful of people with headsets on, which automatically called one person after another. We were told to ask for the person in the company that the BS newsletter have us try to push for hundreds of dollars. These calls were all recorded; they showed us how to operate a little recorder that was hooked to all the computers. We were instructed to do all we could to get the month and date of anybody's birth, because as stated, that was what they said they had on record that they basically claimed was with your signature, and that you agreed to ordering their crappy newsletters.

Our commercial & industrial painting business has received several mailings from this company that appear to be invoices due and other mailings that appear to be warning about not being 'safety compliant'. Luckily, we are a small business and only two of us in the office, so we know what is an actual invoice due and what is not. I can see how a larger business Accts Payable dept. could let one of these invoices 'slip' through and get paid. There is no telling how much money this company makes in error. This company keeps sending these false invoices claiming the following: "Thank you for your order for a one year subscription to injury prevention & cost control alert." Then it goes on to layout the supposed subscription terms and says in capital letters, "YOUR ACCOUNT IS OVER 90 DAYS PAST DUE”, and states "Unpaid bills are referred to a collection agency”. I assure the public - no one here has ever ordered anything from this company, went to their website, or spoke with them. This is all false and I don't see how they can get away with this.

We began receiving invoices from this company for subscriptions that were never ordered. When I was finally able to get a hold of someone in the customer service department (which proved rather difficult), they were unable to produce any proof that these subscriptions were ever actually ordered. They simply told me that they were given verbal confirmation over the phone (which I know to be untrue). Not to mention the fact that the rep was extremely rude and insisted on speaking over me as I tried to clarify the situation. To further the situation, they had supposedly been sending emails to an email account that doesn't even exist and furthermore is not even associated with the company (meaning not sharing the company domain name). We hadn't received any of the "newsletters" they claim to have sent, and despite this, they are still trying to charge us for a partial subscription. Beware of this scam!

Progressive Business Publications contacted me at my last company I worked for and they just contacted me last week at my new place of employment. I filed a complaint with the FTC back in 2010 against them. I did so again today. They sent me lots of newsletters (12 copies) that I didn't order. Then, they tried to bill me $900 for them. I ignored the requests because I didn't order the newsletter. Our company was sent to collections. I settled with them for about $180 to make them go away. Now, they contacted me again and I haven't received any kind of newsletter from them and asked them back in 2010 to be on their Do Not Contact list. I called them yesterday and told them this story and was very harsh in telling them to not ever, ever, ever, under any circumstance, never, ever, contact me ever, ever, never again. I told them I know what they're doing and what their scam is and that I would be reporting it soon.

We received a call from International Credit Recovery, Inc. stating we owed $299 for the "Environmental Compliance Alert", which is a news source for air, water and waste issues for "environmental professionals". First, this is not our line of business, and second, we did not order this publication. They told me that they needed my month and day of birth to remove me from their list. Now they say that by giving them that, I was confirming the order of the publication, and they say they have that recorded. I have yet to receive the recording. ICR has been calling our staff daily and harassing them asking for me and our CEO. When I asked them for the number for Progessive Business Publications, they refused to give it to me and got very nasty telling me they could cancel the publication and I had no reason to contact PBP. This company is scamming people all over the country. Something should be done to stop it.

Janice in Reading, MI stated exactly what just happened to me. International Collection called and left a voicemail. I returned the call and Amanda said Progressive Publications had turned over my account to them for collection. She said I accepted their offer to provide a 30-day free trial for their subscription with a 30-day cancellation period in February of this year. I did not cancel and had received the publications. I politely told her I had not received any publication and did not order any publication from Progressive since I was trying to eliminate all publications for the last two or more years. She then stated she had a recording with a birth date of October 6 on file when I placed and accepted their offer. I told her that the birth date is wrong and not even close. I asked to listen to or get a copy of the recording she had on file. She then accused me of lying to her and she would contact Progressive and hung up. This is a scam and everyone should be aware of Progressive tactics. They are rated as F from the BBB. Before you even listen to the solicitor state, you do not want the free trial (which I did) and do not send any material either by post or email.

Phone tactics – They call to confirm an address. Most of the time, they are talking to someone who has no authority to purchase anything on the company’s behalf. Then, you receive invoice after invoice. And then after invoicing for a number of times, they threaten to send you to collection saying they have a recording confirming the order when, in fact, the person was just confirming the address. What a scam they have going on. I have asked to have the company’s phone number and address removed from their list, only to get more invoices. The last time took me almost a year to get the threats stopped. I do not have the time to keep up with all the scams going on today. Shame on Progressive Business Publications.

Out of the blue, or even if they have called and I said I didn't want the publication, I receive the publication and then get billed for it even though I send a note back saying I didn't order the publication and don’t want it and I am asking them to cancel it. Multiple times with multiple publications! I don't want to sue anyone, but if you need to talk to me about this company, please call me.

I received an email add from "What's New in Benefits & Compensation" on 8/12/12. I received a bill and one issue on 9/11/12. I have no use for this publication. I did not order it. Their invoice said they sent 4 issues and I had access to their website for 8 weeks. All news to me; obviously this is a scam! No email address to contact them. I called their 800-200-5000 subscription number, told them I didn't order it, don't want it, don't need it, and that they should cease sending it.

Invoiced for product not ordered - I received a call offering a free trial, which I rejected. Having been in this position in the past, I knew the best thing to do was to say, "No, thank you." I don't hang up on phone marketers, because that is their livelihood; but as a practice, I tell them that I already receive plenty of information here and I'm a member of a professional organization that provides the same information. I always stop them before they go too far down the road and say that I don't want to waste their time and that they would probably have more success with the next person on the list. I received a few copies anyway, and then suddenly, a third notice came. No first or second notice, just the third notice. I looked them up online and sent an email to customer service simply stating that I did not order the product and to cancel immediately. I recommend sending an email so you have written confirmation that you cancelled.