I hate magazine subscription cards—how can I fight the power?

Question

Is there any way to stop these monsters from filling their magazines with small pieces of cardboard?

Answer 1

Try reading a book instead. You can use one of your magazine cards as a bookmark.

Answer 2

Los Angeles Magazine

Answer 3

If you become the victim of the scam where some one or some persons fill in magazine subscription (or other subscription) cards in your name, in the State of California, you have several options.

Ultimately it should be treated as "identity theft" especially if they also have your phone number and email address. Here are several things you can and should do.

1. If you receive email invoices to your 'spam' folder or in box, go online and find the name of the publisher of the magazine. eMail their customer service and tell them you placed no orders and you wish for all items in your name to be cancelled and flagged as FRAUD.

2. Go to the California District Attorney Department of Consumer Affairs site and file a complaint against the publisher. If you receive an Invoice through the USPS, you can report both the PO box from which the Invoice originates, as well as the HQ of the publisher of the magazine.

For California Residents, this is the link:

http://oag.ca.gov/contact/consumer-complaint-against-business-or-company

Complete the form for EVERY invoice you receive. Mail the invoice back to the company explaining you did not order the item, you want the item and any other items on file cancelled, and that they should be receiving a PIU letter from the District Attorney's Consumer Affairs office on your behalf.

3. File a report with the USPS and the FTC (Federal Trade Commission). The FTC will assign your complaint a number (hold onto the number for reference). The USPS will acknowledge your complaint. You can post that acknowledgment to your mail box and also give a copy to your postal carrier asking that they please send ANY AND ALL magazines in your name back as "NOT ORDERED". They can do this

4. The FTC will provide a form to be completed so that you can sent it to any of the three Credit Reporting Agencies (I recommend Experian). The form is here:

http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/pdf-0094-identity-theft-affidavit.pdf

Fill it in to the best of your ability. If you have your local police department complete a Case Number for you, include that information. There is a place within the form for an Officer to sign.

5. Contact one of the three credit reporting agencies and put a 90-120 day fraud alert onto your credit. Again, I recommend Experian. They will respond with a letter and an identification number against which you can send back to them a copy of the Identity Theft Affidavit and/or the Police Report along with copies of the District Attorney's acknowledgement letters or simply create a list of PIU numbers.

What will happen is this:

A. The Consumer Affairs Department will sent you acknowledgment letters with PIU numbers on them. They will also sent a letter to the business against which you have sent the complaint. That business is required to fill out a form. If they got a card they will often provide a photocopy of it so you can see if you recognize the hand writing. In some instances the cards are hand written, others the jerks doing this put labels onto them. Either way, the card is proof of the (Mail) Fraud.

B. The Post Office can kick any magazines for which labels were generated before you could get the account cancelled back as "Not Ordered" so you do not have pounds of magazines showing up at your house.

C. Sending the invoices back with notes and with a copy of the D.A. complaint form should get the company to cancel the account so you receive no additional bills; also, you will have proof with the complaint and the PIU number that you actively pursed getting all subscriptions cancelled so that you are not suddenly faced with a 'collections' situation.

Keep every piece of paper associated with the Fraud // Identity Theft.

Send every invoice back UNOPENED with notes.

Try to find the publisher's information online; if you contact them by phone you may find that they have more than one magazine subscription in your name even if they only sent you one invoice. You want to be sure they cancel any, every, and ALL subscriptions.

BE AWARE, people who pull this prank also submit cards to places like Bradford Exchange, Danbury Mint, WatchTower Bible Study, Salvation Army, etc. etc. Whoever these jerks are, they love to fill out cards.

EVERY instance of an invoice arriving for something you did not order must be reported immediately to the DA link above, and must be sent back unopened (you will be using a lot of #10 envelopes and postage). If you write "refused" on it, it will (by USPS standard practice) just end up in the trash.

You can amend your Identity Theft Affidavit and your Police report as needed, as you will receive both conformation letters from the DA's office, and some number of responses from the publishers of these magazines.

From November 2013 to January 2014 I have had over 30 of these come through, and I have received 6 written responses and 3 email responses (from the publishers).

Good Luck!!!

Answer 4

I hate them, and then when I take them it bends like pages have been ripped out. It's maddening. But they make good book marks :)

I suppose you could write to the magazines about how they are wasting trees for no good reason. But I doubt as if they'd listen.

Answer 5

Uh...stop reading magazines.

Answer 6

Mail them all back without any information on them.
I drop a handfull in the mail box every few days.

Answer 7

I thought I was the only 1 who hated those dumb things. Mail them back blank.

Answer 8

Mail them back with stupid things on them. (Ex. Adress: 188 Lunar St., Earths moon. Zip: 55555)

Answer 9

Most of them have pre-paid postage on them, just write "NO THANKS" on them and drop them in the mail the mag gets the postage bill and you get a small measure of revenge.

Answer 10

cant stop it, just have to endure it for the long run, damn