I received a call from someone who said they were with Reader's Digest and said I needed to renew my subscription which would be expiring in a month. I decided to do it and after I gave them my credit card info, they said something about it being four monthly payments of $24.99 each for a four year subscription. It seems they didn't mention that before they took the credit card information. Then the lady quickly said that they would be sending me more information by mail and hung up before I really had a chance to protest.
After the call, I started to have second thoughts, so I called Reader's Digest directly and asked if someone from their office had just called me. They said no, and that my subscription was actually paid up until 2016! My next thought was that I had just been scammed, so I quickly called my credit card company and had my credit card number changed. I figured I would never hear back from the scammers.
Then today, I received a receipt in the mail from Magazine Readers Service Center, with a physical address and phone number with the information about the four monthly payments. I immediately called them and complained about the whole situation—about how they had lied about being from Reader's Digest, about lying to me about the expiration date on my subscription, and not being upfront about the four year obligation. The lady I talked to tried to make excuses and said that the order would not be processed and I would never get a call from them again.
I also called Reader's Digest back again today to see if this company actually does take subscription orders for them. The lady I talked to said that they did not.
My advice would be to never respond to any solicitation by phone, especially for magazines. This company in particular seems to just be in the business of ripping people off. There is no evidence that I know of that anyone would ever receive anything of value by placing an order with them!
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