Several months ago, I filled out a subscription card for Scientific American. Well, I got the first issue and the bill, and promptly ignored both. They suspended my subscription for non-payment and started sending bills. I also ignored these, not out of malice but because I was moving and I misplaced these letters.
Yesterday I get a “final chance” letter from them explaining that if I don’t fork over $24 by August, they’ll give my account to a collection agency. WTF? I wouldn’t have a problem if they had actually been sending me issues and I had continued not to pay. But I have only received ONE issue.
Question: How can they collect my $24 when they haven’t given me their part of the bargain?
Also: I thought that after not hearing from me, they would just write off the ONE issue as a loss and assume I didn’t want their crappy magazine. In fact, I remember that happening with another magazine I had a change of heart about. Why are Scientific American such sticklers?
And finally, can my delinquency affect my credit? They only have my old address and obviously, no SSN.
Thank you.
Credit Bureuas do not usually record collections of less than 50 bucks - if one is one your file for less than 50 bucks and you dispute it, it will most likely be removed w/out question.
Additionally, most magazine companies don’t do business with collection companies that report to bureaus/national credit reporting agencies(NCRAs)…
And NCRAs don’t usually accept these cheesey collections.
Most scoring models ignore collections of less than 50 bucks as well, just in case one happens to be on there.
Did you call customer service and try to hear their side of the story? I gotta level with you, your version sounds a bit odd – you didn’t return the invoice with the word “cancel” on it, which is the way these deals usually work. I’m also wondering whether they didn’t send the other issues, or whether they sent them and they got lost in the mail. More details please.
Don’t piss them off. They’ll go back in time and kill your mother before you were born.
They have powers…
Note: I probably should have saved my 5000th post for something more significant, but during the crash my total was altered, so it’s meaningless anyway.
To reinforce: while it is easy to ignore, calling and being proactive will actually cause much LESS grief. Call and deal with them. Ignoring anything, even if you feel you are right, always hurts you and reduces the validity of your story and story credibilty. This instance is minor, but best to learn on a minor one.
I called them and paid up, but I think they were bluffing. I SHOULD have tried to cancel it after the first issue, so it’s my own fault. However, I still think they are jerks for acting like I owe them money for something I haven’t yet received (I don’t think they were lost in the mail because IIRC they suspended the subscription before I moved).
At least I can ignore the renew letters with impunity…
Have you checked a copy of your credit report lately? They may have ruined your credit already. Many companies submit negative reports as soon as you are deliquent.
Agreed.
Um, magazine subscriptions, like rent and other things are paid in advance. If you sign up for a subscription they bill you right away and you owe it from the moment you signed up. There may be a jerk in this story but I can’t see how it would be the magazine people.
I had a similar flap with SciAm, and as I was smoothing it out I asked them what was to be done about back issues since my subscription had been held up for three months.
(In my case, it was because I gave them an obviously false name in order to confirm the suspicious influx of junk mail I received the last time I had subscribed with them. Sure enough, soon my mailbox was full of crap offers addressed to one “Scipio Africanus.”)
I kid you not, in less than a week three back issues, without all those cardboard ad inserts, came in the mail all nice and wrapped in plastic. They really want you to read their magazine.
Right, but if I stop paying my landlord, and he throws me out, he can’t collect the rent for the entire year in advance.
Plus, I signed a lease agreement with my landlord, as opposed to filling out my address on a postcard.
I still think trying to squeeze $24 out of someone with a collection agency for a single issue of a magazine qualifies as “jerky”.
Not my subs. I regularly get offers of 1 free issue, or 6 free ones for weekly pubs. They all say, “write cancel on the bill if you are not satisfied, and you owe nothing.” If the mag looks like anything at all I would like to read at least once, I always bite, and almost always cancel when the bill comes. I don’t get no satisfaction. 
Sometimes I get a new, identical offer in the mail so quickly that I can get all the issues of the mag, one at a time, without paying, for the price of a single, 1st-class stamp. Is this cheating? Maybe. If they don’t like it, they can take me off their mailing lists. Otherwise, it’s a valid offer and I followed their instructions exactly. Caveat seller.
IANAL, etc. By filling out and returning the subscription card you entered into, guess what, a legally binding contract. SciAm, offered you 12 issues of the magazine in exchange for $24 and you accepted the offer. Offer, consideration to both parties, acceptance. Contract!
I’d have to check my notes from a long ago business law class for the exact terminology, but one of the remedies that a party to a contract has is recovery of the full value of the contract. I agree that it’s really not worth anyone’s time to pursue a $24 account but they are certainly within their legal rights to do so.
Next time don’t fill out the subscription card or take the three seconds it takes to write CANCEL on the invoice and return it.
Actually, you would owe the entire years’ rent if you were evicted for breaking or failing to live up to lease terms. If you are evicted, you still continue to owe rent for the duration of the lease until a new tenant is found to replace you.
On the other hand, since leases are generally unilateral contracts (ie. you don’t get to negotiate them), if you take a landlord to court over one you will usually win.
Some people will just justify anything and find a way to blame others. Look, this is how it works:
1- You signed an agreement which was that they would send you one issue and you agreed to pay $24 for the rest of the year’s subscription OR cancel the subscription at that point. You did not cancel so you owe them $24 and they owe you a years subscription WHEN you pay.
Oh, I see it now. So it is OK to not pay yours debts as long as you do not do it out of malice :rolleyes:
I don’;t know what’s so difficult to understand: you pay first and they send you the magazines. That’s what you agreed to. If you sign a lease and then decide not to move in you still owe the rent. You agreed to pay for the magazine subscription. You did not do it. You are in default.
First of all, I am honored you used your 10,000th post (and 10,002nd) for this admittedly dumb thread. Second of all, I admit I was wrong. I told them I would pay but I didn’t.
But I was (am?) unaware that filling out my address on a postcard constitutes a binding legal contract.
Since this is a GQ thread, I would like to know if this is accurate.
I also assumed that standard practice at magazine subscription departments is to ignore the deadbeats. I would also like to know if this is standard practice.
I don’t see how writing “please cancel” is substantially different from just not responding. I can see how it is MORALLY different, but not practically.
I am in the wrong but this is GQ.
Don’t judge me; that’s for a vengeful God to do.
Of course there was a contract. They send you magazines every month in exchange for $24. Was there any question in your mind that that was the deal? A contract is just an agreement that is legally enforceable. Whether they might allow you to cancel is another question, but you never even tried that route. You signed up for a one-year subscription, not a month-to-month subscription. Think about it: It wouldn’t make much sense for them to offer to mail magazines to your house at a discounted rate unless you committed to buying a year’s worth, would it?