On my last credit card statement, I saw that I had been charged almost $100. For magazines - from some place I'd never heard of. I googled the telephone number by the charge and got complaints, which has a number of complaints about the company.
I tried calling the telephone number beside the charges, and it was an automated telephone number - no chance of talking to a human being. I'm calling from England, and could quickly end up spending more than the cost of the magazines.
I finally decided that this must be the result of a gift I gave my sister-in-law in September. She moved into a new house, I sent a food and drink hamper and another screen flashed up offering magazines at very low prices. I subscribed to some for her. (I can't ask her about it - she's in the Philippines for the next three weeks. That is simply the only way I can see they got my credit card number. When I talked to her daughter, she said she thought her mother had cancelled the subscriptions.)
I went back and looked at old credit card statements - I have indeed been paying large sums of money split between three, four or five magazines every February. I was stupid: OK, admitted - I should have caught it earlier. However, nothing was said about subscribing in perpetuity.
This is probably not illegal but it's certainly a sharp practice. I've paid a couple of hundred dollars for being stupid — that's stupidity fine enough!
Crone
Canterbury
United Kingdom
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