Area Circulation Take money out of account; wont let you cancel Virginia Beach Virginia
Late july of 2007 I got a phone call from a woman claiming to represent major credit card companies. She said that because of my outstanding credit I was entitled to receive free offers, a vacation included, as well as a boost on my credit score if I would sign up for an offer involving magazine subscriptions.
For whatever reason, i agreed, dumb. Soon the woman started talking extremely fast as well as transferring me to other sales reps, explaining a host of fees that I would be responsible for if I agreed for the program.
I dont know how, but somehow I am signed up for this program now. Initially I was hit for 74 dollars literally minutes after I hung up the phone. This was to continue for 12 months!!!
I would never willingly pay 74 dollars a month for magazine subscriptions. Who has that kind of money? However they say they have the phone call recorded to verify that I did in fact agree to it?
Worst part, they wont let you cancel. They claim that they are now legally bound to the magazines themselves and that they have paid for them in full, now they require you to pay them back.
I have made numerous calls to this agency, often times getting into shouting matches, and all they have done is lower my monthly payment. They have not even sent me any of the mags in the first place and it's been 3 months! All they do is take money.
Michael
Bloomsbury, New Jersey
U.S.A.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Burt With Area Circulation
Virginia Beach,Virginia,
U.S.A.
Response to Michael
#2UPDATE Employee
Wed, November 14, 2007
Michael,
I'm the Director of IT at Area Circulation, and because we are about to increase our web presence, I've been doing some research.
I've discovered a few web complaints, so I've taken it upon myself to try to resolve any problems I find in my efforts.
I believe I have the correct record in front of me, which you can verify by my telling you of a change of magazines on the 17th of last month.
Looking over the notes, I see you have taken advantage of the ability to swap magazines a number of times, which may play into the time problem if you haven't yet received your magazines.
As much as we dislike a fact of life in our business, it takes 8-12 weeks for magazines to arrive from initial order. Add to that changing magazines, and you can end up with further delays as each change starts up another 8-12 week wait.
Since you started with us officially in August, you would have normally received all of your magazines by at the latest, the first part of November (today is Nov 14).
But on 10-9, you made a lot of changes to your choices, which put you back into the 8-12 week waiting period, pushing that 'latest' date back to as far as January 9th.
Had you not made any changes, all of your magazines would have arrived by now.
It's rare, but happens, that people change magazines before receiving their first issue. I wish the magazine industry could move as fast as we do. I am not aware yet as to why it takes so long. We give them the order immediately.
Your other issue was the payment amount, so let me explain the math on paper so everyone understands. It's pretty simple, but confusing unless you can read it perhaps.
Our main sale is for 5 magazines per week, for 5 years, for what turns out to be a total of $3.64 per week. Obviously that's less than $1 per magazine, and far cheaper than you can get them even by direct subscription.
Obviously that's a fantastic deal. I couldn't believe it when I started working here about 5 months ago.
If you do the math (we explain this over the phone, but I think on paper it's a lot easier to see), the total for the 5 years comes to near $900, or $180 per year.
We go out on a limb with our customers, and pay for the magazines up front in our deal with the mag companies. We trust you to live up to our agreement of course, just as you trusted us to live up to our end of the bargain.
When you called and explained the financial stress of paying the 5 years off in 1 year (The total for 5 years divided by 12 equals the $74 you mentioned), we lowered your monthly payments out, despite the fact that it puts us off too finance you out longer. We lose money there.
I'm sorry about the inconvenience, and I really do understand how frustrating it is to pay for something you haven't yet received. But in order to get the incredible savings, most people suffer through it, and in 2 or 3 months are very happy when their 5 magazines start showing up (some mags you chose I'm sure you understand are actually monthly issues, which was probably obvious to you. I would list them but we don't give out specific information like that).
We want you to be happy, because quite frankly we don't make money on your initial purchase. We count on the fact that we can make you so happy the first time around, that you renew your service with us, and get things like free airline tickets to London, or some exotic location we offer.
Basically Michael, to get you this deal, we entered into an agreement that cost us money up front, and we financed you ahead of time. In order to exist we have to make money, and because renewing you is valuable to us, we pay a very large amount up front to get you this deal. If you cancel, we are out a very large amount of money that puts us into the red financially.
It is the way business works, agreeing with others on what we will do together, and then trusting the other person to follow through. I can't think of anything more valuable than being a man of your word. Credit rating is such an important thing in that respect, because it says to the world, "This man is trustworthy, you can enter into deals with him".
My hope is now that you know more details about the time it's taken for your magazines to get there, and see that we've bent over to keep you happy by lowering your payments at a loss to ourselves, that you will continue on with your payments and become a happy customer that would recommend us to others.
I hope this helps, Michael. Feel free to contact me at an e-mail address I set up for this sort of thing, accountant@areacirculation.net.
I'm swamped with all of the changes we are making to improve our company, so please understand if I don't respond immediately. I pay great attention to e-mail, and usually I get through the vast swamp once a day.
Thank you,
Burt Bellows
Area Circulation
Director of IT