Not too long ago my husband got a call at work, like soo many others that got "forced" into this, by a female from this company. She claimed that all the managers with his company get special discounts on so many magazines per month. He was extremely busy so he was naturally saying uh huh, yeah, okay, send me the information and I will see. She had told him that she would send the information package and if he decided to get the magazines to send it back with the first months payment of approx. $32-34.
About a week after he had gotten the phone call he had received a paper that pretty much said the same thing that she had explained the week before. It was a yellowish peice of paper. Just ONE peice. It stated at the bottom that all he had to do was sign the paper and send it in with the first months payment and they would get everything started. It also stated that he would not receive ANYTHING until they received the paper with his sig and the first payment. It had said that if they did not receive anything they would not sign him up.
My husband never read the letter. He told me about the phone call the day he got it and I told him there was no way we could afford that since we have kids and more important things to spend our money on. He definately agreed but he had said that she wouldn't let him talk at all and when he did get to say anything at all it was basically a very few question and some yeahs, okays, and uh huhs. I told him that when the stuff came in we would just throw it away. Well, when he received the first letter I read it and immediately shredded it and threw it away, due to the fact that I don't want trach divers getting anything in our names.
About another week after this he received a payment booklet, like a car or loan payment booklet. Crazy right? I thought so. Well, on back and front pages of the payment booklet it had said the same thing as the letter we had gotten the week before, " Please hurry and send in your first payment to start receiving your magazines" and " We will not send anything until we receive your first payment". With this in mind it says to me that if we don't send anything in they will leave us alone. That, I hope, is what any smart person would get out of these statements. Well, I again knew we didn't want this so I shredded the booklet and any other papers that came with it and threw it away.
Well, a week later he received about 6 magazines. I threw them in the trash. Neither one of us read or looked at them. When they came in there was no return address, no bar code, not even a supposed account number. It seemed that every week we got at least two more magazines. We immediately threw them away. We didn't want them and we hadn't paid for them and we had no way of returning them so we thought it best to just throw them out. It was getting very aggravating.
Well, about 2 months after we started receiving all this crap S and L.B. Started calling his work and our house at least 2-5 times a week. They kept telling him that he owed $30 and then it turned to $90. My husbands boss picked the phone up one day and spoke with Lisa (the supervisor) and told her to stop calling my husband at work and that what they were doing was illegal and that he was going to turn the matter over to the company's attorney's. She didn't seem to care. She started calling the house, as well as Shannon, just about every day of the week, except sat and sun. Lisa told my husband (on speaker phone) that if he would write her a personal check made out to L B for $300 she would make sure everything was taken care of and it would all be finished. (WIERD!) They also said that he could pay $300 to pay off 2 yrs of the 5 yr contract but in order to pay off the whole contract he would have to pay $906 and it would be completely over.
I had told both of them to stop calling our house and I had a lot of choice words with L.B. It didn't phase her. I told her that there was NO contract and that what she was doing was illegal and she was harrassing us and she needed to stop. She told me that they had my husband on "TAPE" saying that he agreed to the contract and that was just as good as a written contract. (Now, everyone, lets remember that my husband is a manager and it is extremely busy.) I told her she was "full of poo" and that a voice recording would never hold up in court. I told her that I wanted her to send me a copy of the tape and a copy of the contract that had my husbands sig on it. She said that she couldn't send me a copy of the tape and that they didn't have a signed contract. I told her to stop calling my husband at home and at work and she said she had to be able to call one or the other. I told her if she called again I would get MY attorney involved and I hung up on her. She called again and I immediately hung up and then she called again... I hung up again. She didn't not call again.
They finally stopped sending magazines after us getting them for 5 months. Then we started getting a bill... A bill... After 5 months of not getting one but having several harrassing phone calls over something we didn't want and stressed several times. The bill was between $100-$200. I didn't respond to them and told my husband that we were NOT paying for anything because we didn't sign up for it. We didn't and don't want them. We kept getting bills for about 3 months and the first two were the sme amount and then the next one was about $60 more. Again, wierd. Well, they kept threatening to turn him over to the company's collection agency and I told my husband it would be funny to see this due to the fact that they didn't and don't have any of his information except his nick name and a po box. They never got anything else. No method of payment, nothing. Humm...
We decided it would be a good idea to report the company to the BBB. L.B. Tried her "skill" in BS with the BBB and kept responding by saying that my husband and her had made an agreement on whatever date she made up at the time that he would pay her $300 and it would all be settled up. Wow... She's willing to lie to the BBB. She told them that same lie two times. Finally she didn't respond anymore after we had better, more logical, responses than her. The BBB filed them as a "Bad company"... Can't think of the words they used but this is the same as.
We haven't heard anything from them in probably 2 months and all of a sudden a company by the name of Leuke, Baker & Assoc is showing up on our caller ID... Hummm... Collection agency for IMS Great Lakes: Direct Readers Guild. Well, I plan on doing the wonderful plan of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act into affect very soon. Actually tomorrow to be exact. I'm tired of this crap and I know that there are so many others taht are going through this same thing with this same company. Its obvious. There are also sooo many people that are just going ahead and paying these people just to avoid getting their credit hurt. I have called the numbers that have shown up on my called ID and the first time I called Shannon it was her cell phone and when I asked to speak to her supervisor she told me she was out for the day but that I could reach her and another number. When I called that number, guess who's cell phone that was... L b. Wow. These people are horrible. What I figure is that they are going to W-M or another local store, buying up magazines for maybe 2 bucks a peice and then selling 6 together (as a package deal) for $30. Lets see... Once they add S&H (unnoticed) that puts it to about $34 per package. Humm... Lets say they spend $12 on 6 mags then turn around and sell them for $34... They make a $22 profit. Thats per person they con into this made up 5 year contract that supposedly is only bound by a voice recording.
If there is anyone else that is going through this or has can you maybe speak up and help me and others get this crap stopped!
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