Complaint Review: North Shore Agency

After we received the dunning notice from North Shore Agency last October for a subscription to Prevention Magazine which neither of us ever ordered, I filed a complaint with the New York Attorney General's office, Bureau of Consumer Frauds. They followed up and I am pleased to report that NSA and Prevention Magazine agreed to leave us alone.

NSA advised the AG's office in early February that they had "suspended our collection efforts pending further review of this matter." Separately, Prevention informed the AG's office a couple of weeks later that they had "cancelled [sic] the subscription," and that the "bill for $11.88 has been cancelled as of Nov. 5, 2008."

I didn't actually need the NY AG's office help in this. I wrote independently (via certified mail) to both NSA and Prevention's publisher, Rodale, demanding that they produce and send to me a copy of any "contract" they possessed verifying our obligation to them, per the U.S. Fair Debt Collections Act. Needless to say, they couldn't produce bupkus and they backed off. At the same time, I hoped that a formal complaint to the appropriate authorities might give them a bit of a chill, though unless the AG office goes after them in a big way, I sort of doubt it will.

Steve
Aptos, California
U.S.A.