unsolicited magazine charges
Complaint
Paul J. Sauve
Country: United States
we are receiving multiple magazines that we never ordered and are being billed monthly against our checking account for magazines that we never ordered and did not authorize payment for
Comments
Some of them have been caught trading consumer bank account information, then using it to make deceptive telemarketing calls trying to get some recording they can fraudulently claim is an "authorization" so they can start charging.
Your experience is consistent with this type of criminal fraudulent telemarketing operation.
You have fraudulent charges to your bank account. Immediately contact your bank to report the charges as fraudulent, and have your bank close the account or block the card number to prevent additional fraudulent charges. Follow up with a written fraud affidavit sent to your bank's dispute address or fraud department.
Your bank can reverse disputed charges if you dispute within 60 days of the statement date of the statement showing the disputed charges, under FRB Reg. E. This is the safest way to get unauthorized charges refunded, as you cannot trust a dishonest merchant to refund what they set out to take.
As this involves using the U.S. Mail for fraudulent purposes (sending the unordered magazines, as part of the scheme to make fraudulent charges), contact the U.S. Postal Inspector to file a mail fraud complaint.
Also, since this involves illegally obtaining bank account numbers then used to make fraudulent charges, contact the Secret Service to report the bank account thefts. File a local police theft report as well, and get a copy. This can be useful if some shady debt collector shows up later, and trashes your credit, as you can use police fraud reports to get false credit information removed.
File a complaint with FTC as well.
Notify each magazine publisher by mail, mailed certified, that the subscription is fraudulent, that you did not authorize the subscription or the charges, and that you have filed mail fraud complaints on the incident.
Keep copies of all police reports, complaints, and communications.
Based on how these scams are usually run, it is likely that there will be an attempt to extort additional payments from you by calls claiming to be a "debt collector". If you receive such calls, file FTC and state Attorney General complaints. Usually these scams go away if they know you are in contact with your state Attorney General.
"American Leisure" is probably just being used as a prop in this fraud charade. With fraudulent subscription scams, any "plausible" magazine, (really, any cheap consumer magazine), can be used as a prop.
Please post any names or phone numbers used to contact you, or the manner in which the charges are shown on your statements, as that are easier to track to similar complaints from other consumers.