For the past couple of months I have received calls every few days from some company calling themselves “Readers Services.” They claim they represent the magazines I subscribe. Nope. I subscribe to one wood working magazine. I call this publisher and they say this company is a scam to sign up people for magazine subscriptions. Indeed the callers try to say I must complete some sort of question and answers and provide billing details in order not to be charged $1200.00.
Every time I say not to call me anymore they say okay. Then they call again. On the call last night at 9:30 PM (that woke my 2 year old) I tried to obtain their real company name and address. When I demanded the address the caller hung up. Amazing as for every other call no matter what I said they would not hang up.
This morning I ran some searchers. They indeed seem to be some scam soliciting for magazines. They go under the name of Readers Services, National Magazine Exchange, Special Data Processing Corp, Agora Marketing Solutions and other names. They appear to be out of Clearwater Florida.
They seem to get your contact information from the wealth of online giveaways and sweepstakes. Darn – I never should have asked for that Eucerin coupon or something similar.
Seems like the next step is to write letters to a whole bunch of folks such as the FTC, MA and Fl state attorney generals and others.
And here is the site for the scammers – http://www.unitedreaders.com/ or http://www.nrscontest.com/. Seems from most references to be the first of these two sites. Yet, they seem to be interconnected when reading the various complaints.
Here are some links to various folks with the same issue:
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/magazine-readers-service-c131550.htmlhttp://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/215/RipOff0215710.htm
http://www.ripoffreport.com/searchresults.asp?submit22=Search+All+The+Latest+Rip-Off+Reports+Now%21&q1=ALL&q2=&q3=&q4=&q5=national+magazine+exchange&q6=&q7=&searchtype=0
http://www.travelingsalescrews.info/magazine%20scams%20and%20rip%20offs.html
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/national-magazine-exchange-c113621.html
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/national-magazine-exchange-c8287.html
http://enemiesblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/magazine-slamming.html
http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=12788
http://ago.mo.gov/newsreleases/2007/020107.htm
http://jlassen.livejournal.com/203934.html
http://www.dmnews.com/Missouri-AG-files-27-more-legal-actions-from-Senior-Sting/article/94331/
http://thefishingguy.blogspot.com/2008/04/strike-it-rich-vi-sweepstakes.html
http://lifeisjfk.blogspot.com/2008/03/nme-prize-disbursement-21-m-dollars.html
http://subtleparticle.com/Word/?p=481
#1 by CJ on December 21, 2011 - 9:41 pm
i just got the same call saying i subscribed, so i call Suntrust to cancel my card. Lucky for me, I didn’t even have money in my card yet and messed up on the expiration date lol. Problem solved
#2 by Diane Bauer on December 27, 2011 - 4:03 pm
Yeh, they got me. They call saying that there has been some problems with deliveries in my area. Because I do get some magazines, I unfortunately fell for it, to the point of even “verifying” my credit card information (i.e. giving it to them).
Had to change my debit card number.
I’m trying to find an address for them so that I can officially write to them and tell them to cancel and that I feel I was coerced, etc.
#3 by Roger Frossard on December 30, 2011 - 2:45 pm
This people identiffying themselves as READERS SERVICE keeping calling me from different numbers everytime asking how they are doing with the magazine delivery services. I keep telling them that they are a fraud and they don’t care. Someone has to get this people. I have already reported them many times to DO NOT CALL LIST.
i have wrtitten to many of the magazines subscribed and they claim they can not do anything because the subscription comes from another company. Can any one help me on letting me know how we can stop this people stopping from continue with fraud?
Sincerely,
R, Frossard
#4 by Linda Sardilli on January 2, 2012 - 9:52 pm
I have been receiving these magazines that I did NOT order for the last 6 months. There is no phone # or address on the magazines so that I can send them back or notify the company that this is happening. When they call me, I tell them I didn’t order them and they say they have my voice on tape. I say no you don’t because I never ordered them. I asked them for there name and address and all they sais was Readers Service but would not give me their address. They just hung up! This kind of fraud is very frustrating and infuriating. I don’t know who to turn to in this matter.
#5 by amber on January 5, 2012 - 1:15 pm
i have been getting calls from them for the past week. i have asked to be taken off the call list and they say that they will, and the same night i will recieve not one, but two more calls at least. and they call late!! just a few minutes ago, Matt, from ‘readers services’ called me. when i said, very poliet..that i have asked to be removed from your call list, he cursed at me and hung the phone up. wow. that is what caused me to look this info up. we really need to get this so called company to stop.
#6 by cheryl kaucher on January 15, 2012 - 1:08 pm
well it looks like ive been sucked into this scam for a while i call to have it deactivated or stop being sent to me and they still want me to pay an outrageous amount of money to cancel my membership… what to do!
#7 by Acorn74 on January 23, 2012 - 4:57 pm
I also had a bad experience with these people very recently (16 Jan 2012). I won’t post the full story here – it is similar to others posted above. If you want to know the particulars of my story, just Google my name and Readers Services. Anyway, I am not sure that my saga has yet ended but FYI, I filed complaints with FTC/Do Not Call, BBB, Attorney General for that state (FL in my case), and I think also the FBI. I got a call back from the a woman with this company indicating that they received a complaint and they wanted to speak with me to resolve it. The voicemail message she left went silent for the space of 2 digits when she left her phone number. So I couldn’t return their call and therefore don’t know what their story would have been. I did however find that the charge had been removed from my credit card.
So, people, file complaints. Apparently sometimes it works.
#8 by Acorn74 on January 23, 2012 - 5:02 pm
I meant, 30-60 minutes total to submit a report to all of these sites … not 30-60 minutes per complaint filed.