I'm not sure how all of this got started, but my husband and I are currently trying to cut our ties with U.S. Magazine Service. My husband is a Marine, and at the time we ended up in this ridiculous entanglement with the magazine company, my husband was on night crew. They called my husband while he was asleep (during the late morning hours) to offer him more magazines.
My husband never remembered the conversation, but we received a notice in the mail telling us that we were overdue on our monthly payment of $49.81 to the company. Naturally, we called the number given to find out what this was all about, as neither one of us was aware that we were even being charged such an amount for anything at all!
The lady my husband talked to was extremely rude. She said that we had signed up for 4 year subsciptions with 4 different magazines - Maxim, Stuff, Car & Driver, and Sporting News. My husband handed the phone off to me because I handle our finances. The woman outright refused to speak with me at first.
Once my husband convinced her that it was me she needed to speak to, she continued to be very rude to me. She played the audio file of my husband agreeing to 4 years of subsciptions, but you could tell that my husband was asleep, and therefore simply having a conversation in his sleep - the reason why he never remembered it. The goes against contractual capacity - my husband was not in the correct state of mind to enter into a contract since he was asleep at the time.
I explained to the woman that my husband was in the military and would never enter into such a long contract, since he never truly knows how long he's going to be stationed at any given base. The lady told me that was his problem. I asked her why she was being so rude, and she hung up on me.
The had to call back and talk to someone else to have the magazine mailiing adresses changed, because if we must pay for it, we might as well get it sent to the right location. Currently we are still being forced to pay the $49.81 a month, because if the bill collectors contact my husband's command, he can be stripped of his rank, along with many other debilitating punishments for "being irresponsible with his money."
U.S. Magazine Service refuses to allow us to cancel our contract, claiming that we owe them tons of money. I have since called all of the previously mentioned magazines and either had our subsciptions cancelled, or at the very least put a hold on them. The magazines also informed us that we only had 1 year subscriptions with them - not the 4 that we were told. We recently recieved yet another magazine - Import Tuner - because U.S. Magazine Service thought they could get away with discretely adding another magazine to the list.
I immediately called and canceled the magazine. I am currently planning on filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, as well as informing U.S. Magazine Service that I have cancelled or put on hold all of the magazines they wrongfully signed us up for, filed a complaint with the BBB and if they continue to harass us, they will hear from our attourney.
This is completely wrong, and I am almost positive that they are banking on the fact that my husband is in the military and cannot have bill collectors calling his work. Do NOT do business with this company - they will only financially screw you!
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