Beware of a possible scam with magazine sales through a company called Great American Readers.
My husband and I are buying a house so when my husband received a call on his cell phone from Jason offering him a $1000 online shopping spree, he wasn't thinking "scam"; he was thinking of what we wanted to buy for our new house.
He agreed verbally on the call that was being recorded to ordering 5 years worth of magazines for $49.90 per month for 20 months. After that there would be no other fees/charges. The voucher for his shopping spree would be sent within the next few days via regular mail.
When he came home and told me, I of course thought "scam" and stated that we didn't need 5 years worth of magazines. Also our house inspector had just provided us with up to $2000 worth of discounts from Home Depot and Lowes so we didn't need the online shopping spree either.
The first charge of $49.90 showed up in my online bank account and with it there was a toll free number. When I called that to cancel the order I was told I was not authorized and my husband had to give me authorization. My husband called in asked to have me added and then stated he wanted to cancel. He was told a "supervisor" would call back. That night we got a call from Brad Truax (x4169) the "supervisor". My husband was not home so Brad talked to me and this began the drama over us not being allowed to cancel this order.
Brad gave me the spiel about having made a commitment to order, blah, blah, blah and finally I told him to answer yes/no. Was he telling me we could not cancel and the answer was no. I had to give him all my reasons for cancelling and listen to his sales spiel several times before we got to this point and then he stated that he needed to talk to my husband since he evidently wanted this offer.
When my husband came home he called Brad and left a message. Brad called back and it all began again. We stated that a reputable company would have no issue cancelling, etc. Etc. Finally we put him on speaker and he let us know that he would work us a better deal (cutting the payments by half per month) and indicated my husband was not a man of his word and that legally we could not cancel. I advised we'd go to our attorney and BBB and would call him back. I also confirmed that if we proceeded we could make one lump payment and change our magazine selections and those were all okay.
I then read another report on this website and am so thankful I did!!! I opened a complaint with BBB and didn't realize that within 3 days they contact the company and then the company has 10 days to respond. I saw that over 100 complaints have been filed against this company and that many had been closed. All I wanted was to cancel this order.
I left a message at this company's voice mail indicating I wanted to cancel and had filed with BBB and woud be contacting the attorney general. When I received no return call my husband called in with this information and the person he spoke to, Theresa stated we didn't need to do all that and cancelled the order. She stated it was cancelled and a "refund" form would be sent for the one payment already taken. My husband called back to get a confirmation number which they did not provide but again confirmed cancellation. Sad that we had to go this far to cancel an order within 5 days of talking to this company.
I see this morning that there is a pending credit against our account so it would appear no "refund" form was needed. BBB has contacted the company as well so who knows. I also cancelled my husband debit card and ordered a new one since they have this information on their file and I don't trust them.
SCAM, SCAM, SCAM! One final note... We did receive the paperwork for the voucher the day we talked to Brad and the form that you had to sign and return to get you $1000 shopping spree states that you "agree to the terms and conditions of the contract (20 consecutive payments of 49.90) and I am satisfied with the manner it was sold." That to me is binding and there was no way we were signing that so we would never have gotten our spree any way. Also, nowhere on this paperwork is there any mention of a cancellation policy (nothing saying we could or couldn't).
The fact that we went through all this just to cancel smacks of fraud to me and I advise everyone to avoid this company at all costs.
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