Predators

My sister has suffered a mental health decline over the past few years, and recently I did kind of an intervention for her. Cleaned up her home, organized her bills, took care of some stuff she hasn't.

She has subscribed to somewhere around 35 magazines, some of them twice. I'm still not sure. Some of the subscription don't expire for 7 years. She has lots of other similar financial issues, but this one is really annoying me. Not her, I don't think she can help it.

She gets calls from these damn predatory magazine salespersons, and just agrees. She tells me she doesn't understand what they're telling her, so she goes along. She has been preyed on by several subscription services; Publisher's Cleaning House, American Reader Service, and more that I'm discovering as I go through her papers.

I've called the magazines and a few will cancel, but most say they can't cancel because they were paid by the subscription service. They will suspend delivery. We called the services, and they say that they have a contract and won't cancel delivery, and won't ask for a refund. In other words, sis is stuck with unwanted magazines for years. She's 55 and has a subscription to Stuff (young men's magazine), for example. The services just suggest that she donate the magazines to a shelter.

I called the credit card company and closed the account. They said, okay, account closed, but if the mag service charges the account again the CC company will pay the bill and debit sis's account. In other words, we can't stop her from getting billed, even though the mags have stopped delivery. Our only recourse is to dispute each charge with the CC company.

As you can imagine, each of these phone calls takes time. I spent 34 minutes on the phone with the CC company; about 20 with one subscription service, unsuccessfully.

The mags probably love the subscription services, which is why the mags won't cancel. The subscription services just prey on the disabled. Last month, one service charged sis's credit card almost $1,200.00 for magazines, and afterward called her to get her to extend the subscriptions. 7 years isn't enough, I guess. That's just one service, in one month.

Stay tuned; more to follow.