This sweet young American Indian girl, very cute, with a bubbly, magnetic personality, knocked on my door after 8:30 in the evening on a Friday, while my fianc was at work. She was about 13 or 14 years old. She had come up the very dark outside stairwell to my apartment; my porch light wasn't on as I was not expecting any company (I turn the light on shortly before my fianc gets home). She was full of smiles and enthusiasm.
I found it kind of odd that the first thing she asked me was if I talked to my neighbors much, but I decided to let it go. Sometimes kids say things that don't make much sense. I answered that no, I really don't (which, looking back on later, was probably just what they' were hoping to hear). She then asked if I had received the pink flyer announcing that their organization was going to be coming around the neighborhood. I hadn't.
That's when she went into the pitch about selling magazines to earn enough points to win a trip to the Bahamas or somewhere, and something about winning $1,000.00 through American Cash Award. She handed me a somewhat tattered flyer listing the magazines I could subscribe to.
While I looked it over, she asked me what I did for a living. My response excited her and she said that my profession earned her extra points. She wanted a high-five, and then asked what my husband did for a living. I told her he's not my husband yet, but we're getting married this year, and I told her what he does. More high-fives: HIS profession earned her extra points! It seemed that everything I said or did earned her even more points: the fact that I had bitchin checks', this, that, you name it, it earned her points.
I invited her in. She said I was the most awesome person she'd run into all day (undoubtedly because I was falling hook, line and sinker for the pitch, signing up for 3 different magazines I didn't really want). She said I could make it look like she was selling more if I paid for part of it with a check and part of it with a credit card. She wrote out a separate receipt for each magazine, asking me what my fianc's and my pet's names were.
I told her my fianc's name and that my fish don't have names, so she made up a name for one of my fish, and wrote this all down (looking at the receipts later, I appeared to be the recipient of gift subscriptions from my fianc and my pet fish). She told me that after I gave my credit card number (in my case actually a debit card), the operator would want to sign me up for a free trial of some kind of identity theft protection. She encouraged me NOT to sign up for it, because I had already given her enough points.
When she handed me the receipts to sign, I saw the ungodly price of $48.00 each for 2 of the mags and $42.00 for the 3rd, each with a $10.00 handling fee of its own. I wrote a check for 2 of the subscriptions. To complete the credit card transaction for the 3rd, she dialed an 800 number from my phone, and busily wrote down my debit card information while I read it to the operator and authorized the amount (I was to discover later, while looking at my receipts, that she had written my debit card info on some other piece of paper which I was not given a copy of).
I dutifully refused the identity theft protection. I signed these receipts, not thinking much of the price, because the point was that I was helping a child stay off the streets and better herself. At the moment, it seemed worth it. She gave me another high-five and a big hug, saying she'd come back to visit me sometime.
After she was gone (running down the stairs, cheering out loud in excitement at how successful she'd been), I began to worry as it all started coming together that I may have been taken for a ride, and indeed been a victim of possible identity theft (why all those questions about my fianc's name and what we did for a living, and why get as many different account numbers as possible? Why the need to write down a credit card number I was giving to someone over the phone?).
As I entered the transactions into my check register it hit me that I had just spent almost $170.00 on 3 magazines (I'm now certain that they write the receipts up separately because if the full amount showed on 1 receipt, you'd never agree to it ~ it seems like a lot less money when viewed separately).
I decided to look the company up on the Internet, and came up with all kinds of terrible stories about Great Lakes Circulation. I panicked, and decided to cancel my check and the debit card transaction the very next morning at my bank, and decided that the minute my outstanding checks are all in, I'll close my account. I spent that night barely able to sleep. At the bank on Saturday morning, I turned my debit card into them to deactivate and destroy; however, they said that while they could stop payment on the check for me, they would not be able to cancel the debit card transaction.
Unfortunately, though, I didn't mail my subscription cancellations within 3 business days (with Saturday counted as a business day ~ hmmm, extremely unusual) in writing with my signature, according to the rules on the backs of GLC's receipts.
This has been close to 2 weeks ago, and I've since read all kinds of horror stories about Great Lakes Circulation, not only about how customers have never received their magazines, but about how the people they employ are treated (particularly when they don't make enough sales).
Yes, I bear in mind that the Internet is what it is, and that people may embellish the truth, but enough people in different locations around the country have told essentially the same story. That tells me that there must be something to what they're saying. GLC, Inc. Is splashed all over complaint.com, and has had numerous complaints through the Better Business Bureau; there are online versions of news reports, there are Parent Watch warnings, and on and on and on.
I want no part of these shady practices! I wasn't aware of what a widespread problem this magazine sales scam is, or how long it's been around, because normally I just tell the salesperson I'm not interested, or I don't even answer the door. I don't know why this time was different ~ this kid was just magnetic, a real sales prodigy, and she sucked me right in. I feel like a fool.
They have my money from the debit card, but from what I've read about how canceling my check is the worst thing I could have done (in a rebuttal letter from a company employee on complaint.com), I now fully expect that I'll be reported to a collection agency, and for my life to begin a Living Hell' phase. As for the possibility of identity theft, the employee states for the record that the company has no interest in anyone's account numbers, other than to bill for the magazines. That may be so, but what about these vans full of kids being driven around these cities that I'm reading about? Or the unknown quantities DRIVING the vans? I'm praying to God that I get through this unscathed.
I'm also praying for that young girl ~ based on what I've read, she must have been overly ecstatic to get my sale because it meant she might not be shoved out of the van and left to fend for herself on the streets of a strange city (when she was taking my address down, she didn't know what town she was in: she thought she was in a neighboring suburb), hungry and with no money. My stomach is in knots.
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