magazine scam?

Question

I answered a phone call and the telemarketer said I was in a drawing and needed to purchase magazines. So I agreed. $58 for 16 months and I had 30 days to cancel. I called 32 days later because of the weekend, and now they wont cancel. They stopped billing my card, but are going to send me a bill for $933. They also signed me up for discount group, and I have been calling them for 4 days, but no answer, just a machine that said leave message, but the message box is full. Can I take legal action for this? I read that a lot of these are scams. The magazine people are called Active Periodicals and the benefit people are called, United Benefit Advantage. Some one please help, and please no bad remarks, I already know it was a stupid move on my behalf. Just need to know how to fix it.

I have called on day 26, 27, 28, 29 and still no one picks up the phone. They aren't listed in the BBB.

Answer 1

You could call the Better Buisiness Bureau, but they will not get directly involved with getting your money back.

You should contact the credit card company, and dispute the charges.

They will send you a short form, where you can explain the circumstances. They will very likely credit your account.

Answer 2

I am so sorry for your problem i do not know how much help this will be but i have been a victum of a scam before myself. Their are a couple of things that i can sugest let me know if everything works out for you. The very first thing i would recommend that you do is call your banking institue and let them know the name of the company that is taking unautharized payments, and let them know that you would like to put an alert to your account that no payments are to be given to them, also cancel your exsisting cards to the account/s that they are charging (because sometime it may just be the card information that they have and not your account information). If this does not work with your bank then withdraw your money, and deposit it into another account or new account that they have no acknowlagement of. It can be with either your current bank or you can choose another banking institue (Make sure that if you do that you must close the old account, cross all of your T's and dot your I's). The next thing would be something that another reader has posed and that would be to go to the police and make a report of identity theft (I highly support this idea). After that pull your Credit report and dispute it (make sure that as this time you also report identity theft to all 3 of your credit reports). And or last but not lease after you have filed your report with the police the next step would be to file a law suit against them (that is if all other avenues do not work this is a final resort if all else fail's) if they fail to provide proof of your acceptance of their service by either you, or your boyfriend, signature on fill, and all recorded phone calls then things should be in your favor. If they are a scam then they may not even show up to court in which case the judge will automaticly rule in your favor. Hope this helps some! and good luck to you and your loverboy lol.

Answer 3

Return all the magazines to sender. Do not read them, deface them or otherwise damage them. Just return them.

Return all invoices to the billing department, marked "cancelled".

File a billing dispute with your credit card company immediately upon seeing any charge on your statement.

If they call you, tell them you want them to add you to their "do not call list" and hang up. Keep track of the date and time of their calls. If they call you after you request no further calls, tell them that you will file a complaint asking that they pay penalties for violating the "do not call" law.

They will probably give up. But they don't have to. Maybe you agreed to pay more than you should have for what you would receive, but you had 30 days to cancel and you did not do that. Their contract with you is probably enforceable and if you are sued in small claims, you will probably lose.

Next time, call on day 29.

Answer 4

Maybe try contacting the Better Business Bureau, and see if they can help.
Here is their website:
http://www.us.bbb.org/WWWRoot/SitePage.aspx?site=113&id=6cda12e2-5967-437f-876e-bd452a591b91

They exist to help consumers make informed decisions about charities and businesses and they also help resolve consumer complaints.

**EDIT**
Nonetheless, CALL the BBB and talk to a person there. They need to know about this scam and they can probably advise you on what your next recourse of action should be.