Complaint Review: Highlights Magazine - Elmsford New York

I received the same letter.  I do not believe this is done in good faith.  I think this is related to some sort of magazine/puzzle sent to me in the mail, which went straight to recycle, and was not welcomed into my house.  Now they sent this notice from RMCB Collection Agency, Retrieval Masters Creditors Bureau, Inc. with phantom fees to be collected. I never "purchased mechandise", which by the way, it is not specified on the letter.  I would like to know what mechandise I "purchased" as I never sent them an order to mail me something.

The authorities need to be informed of this company's business 'practice' and bring those responsible to justice.  I wonder how many millions they are pocketing nationwide with this scam.

P.S. I submitted a question regarding this on their website, but once I wrote a long message it (of course) gave me an error message which did not got through.  It reads: "An error occurred while processing your request. We apologize for any inconvenience."

I just received a collectiono letter in the mail for Highlights magazine stating that I owed for a magazine subscription that I never ordered nor received. I came online and found this website stating that it happened to someone else. I also read their rebuttal which made me laugh stating they do not do that practice since the same is happening to me. My mother had someone who came to the house selling subscription to this mag. He wanted half in cash and the rest on a check. Never received the magazine. I told her she was ripped off and should have been suspicious from the start when he needed cash. Beware of this company. I am calling them today. I will not pay. It is a scam. I was going to call, pay and to tell them never to send anything in my name again. But after reading this I will not be paying.

I was sent this customer's complaint by the magazine's editor, who received it via Facebook yesterday. Below is some of the reply I sent her, although I've redacted the parts that specifically address her account transactions in order to protect her privacy. If she would like to share that part of the response here as well, she can post an update. We sent a full reply a few hours after our editor promised we would look into it. I hope the original poster will contact me directly if she still has questions. 

This is included below, but I want to say clearly and up front that we absolutely do not engage in the marketing practice this customer suspects. More information about our policies is included in the response below.

Hillary Bates

Manager, Communications

Highlights for Children

We do not process any orders unless we receive a request. However, it is often difficult to determine whether orders are legitimate. As a result, we process all orders we receive in good faith. If we are informed that an order was not legitimate, it is our practice to immediately cancel the order and remove all charges. It is never our intention to force a customer to pay for something that they did not authorize. 

RMCB is a third-party collection agency; we do not own them, but do contract with them for some billing efforts. We refer accounts to RMCB only after our own internal billing efforts have failed to receive a response.

I want to say clearly that we do not engage in the marketing practice you outlined. It is, in fact, counter to all of our policies. One of the things I am most proud of about working for Highlights is that this company has a long history of trying to do the right thing for our customers. We are members of multiple Trade Associations, the Council of Better Business Bureaus, and the Central Ohio Better Business Bureau. The company has been working very hard to ensure that our record with the Better Business Bureau has remained untarnished (with no unresolved complaints) since the 1940s.