I received a call from ARC (A Reader's Choice) in spring 2010 with this offer, $30-some for several full magazine subscriptions. I placed an order with my credit card, but received no magazines for several months. This one-time charge wasn't so as my account was charged at least one more time. I couldn't contact ARC because the phone number had been changed/disconnected.
I tried to cancel this "service" but instead canceled my card and got a new one to avoid further charges. In summer, 2011 I moved from that residence in Missoula, MT to several other locations and never heard anything from ARC.
This week in spring 2013, I started getting calls from a (304) 212 2272 phone number. The first several were with no one on the line. On May 6, I spoke to a person for several minutes who informed me that I still owed ARC money, upwards of $180 because I hadn't been paying, charges still on file since December 2010. I told them no way, I already paid and received nothing. She threatened to put me into collections.
The woman said that it was because I'd moved, though I lived at the original address for more than a year between making this order and my eventual move. She also said the company had been trying to contact me, though they obvisouly have my phone number – which has not changed – and hadn’t contacted me in the last two years.
She said for $35, they would no longer be in collections. I said that's fine, I just don't want to have to deal with this forever and I'd write a check. She was hesitant to give me a physical address and said she would like a card number and also asked which magazines I'd like to receive. She then said this would be $35 per month for the next 24 months, and I was on the hook for more than $800 worth of charges and canceling wasn't an option.
Also, when I was asking questions to try and verify what this company was, she was very vague and couldn’t give me the company’s website address. She told me to google “A Reader’s Choice” and that would take me there, which seems very odd for a supervisor to not have that kind of basic info handy. I ended up at awards.about.com which she assured me was the right landing spot, though she couldn’t even tell me what was on this site. She also seemed to know that I’d need a physical address and that she was to avoid giving me one at all costs. She also would not give me her name, again even though she claimed to be the supervisor.