Anybody had a fraudulent mag subscription?

Just received another phone call from a collection company who is collecting money on an unsolicited magazine subscription that got our information (including acct info and means to access the acct) from the bank we went through.

PSA - 1st off - there is an opt-out or sharing of your personal information with many mainstream banks - specifically through US Bank Corp. They will share your personal information to the extent of giving your acct number and means of drawing through it to various companies that will pay.

The magazine subscription that was refused then charged to our acct and challenged by SWMBO was through a company called US Magazine Provider. The collection company that they deal with is LBA (Luebke Baker and Associates out of Peoria, IL.) DO NOT talk with them and call your bank if you are contacted by them. It is 3 years after USMP called offering a subscription package that was refused and we started receiving calls from LBA again recently.

The last call was 10-15 min ago and we will be contacting a lawyer for advice - I just wanted to warn anybody about this and also ask a question.

Have any of you dealt with something similar or exactly like this before and did you get result? WWWWW&H - it isn't much, a couple of hundred, but the easy option is paying for this out of the brewing fund.

Sorry about the long post and hopefully we can get this taken care of without a credit blemish (although I know it will cost more then just paying the da*n thing.)

What got charged? A bank account or credit. Or are they just saying you owe them money.

FYI -

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/130/RipOff0130687.htm

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/114/ripoff0114510.htm

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/scam_alerts/cms.html

I had this happen once and filed better business complaints against everyone involved, including the magazine publisher, and the magazine publisher put an end to it. I can't remember the companies involved though. You should also contact your state Attorney General's office and the AG's office in the state of these companies by letter or email (like the BBB, many AG's offices allow you to file a complaint online.)

Once you tell them that you don't recognize the debt and would like to use the courts to mediate, they cannot contact you directly again. If they do, three times, you can file a harassment complaint. As a civil suit you can claim damages. Don't get a lawyer or anything like that; just file yourself. They need to pay a lawyer each time you file a document, incorrectly or not. Just keep filing. This is the method they use. They want to wear you down emotionally and financially. Treat it like a sport. Have some fun. Be really, really expensive for them. Incompetence is your friend. Try not to actually get to court until you cost them so bloody much that it's silly. I usually go for at least 10x the claimed debt. Never actually got that far before they caved.

newell456 said:

I had this happen once and filed better business complaints against everyone involved, including the magazine publisher, and the magazine publisher put an end to it. I can't remember the companies involved though. You should also contact your state Attorney General's office and the AG's office in the state of these companies by letter or email (like the BBB, many AG's offices allow you to file a complaint online.)

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's a good first step. They contact the business directly to look for resolution. If the business responds negatively, or not at all, they get a black mark. That right there is worth the subscription fee. Be creative. Do they have an association of some kind? Send a letter to them too.

Yes - Contact the Federal Trade Commission, Better Business Bureau, States attorney.

If necessary get a new bank/credit card.

DON"T PAY A PENNY. A little blip on a credit report is nothing. Especially if you show a track record of paying your bills. You can also do your own credit check. See if anything is on there. Odds are they can't do it and are phishing for quick cash.


If you have a twisted sense of humor, mess with those f'n bastards...

Be sincere and give them fake credit cards numbers.

If it was a guy; (Be serious)

• I 'd say " I don't have time to talk to you. I didn't mean to kill her.... She was just pissing me the f--- Off. Call me later I gotta go hide the body... click
• Pretend you are going to commit suicide... make him talk you down
• Keep asking if he can transfer you to some hot sexy beotch.

If its a girl;

• Ask her what she is wearing. Say shes got a sexy voice.....
• Ask does she like it doggy style.
• Ask have you ever pierced your nipples?
• Tell her you are jerking off right now, so don't stop talking...

Make them pay for bothering you....

Schlenkerla said:

Yes - Contact the Federal Trade Commission, Better Business Bureau, States attorney.

If necessary get a new bank/credit card.


If you have a twisted sense of humor, mess with those f'n bastards...

Be sincere and give them fake credit cards numbers.

If it was a guy; (Be serious)

• I 'd say " I don't have time to talk to you. I didn't mean to kill her.... She was just pissing me the f--- Off. Call me later I gotta go hide the body... click
• Pretend you are going to commit suicide... make him talk you down
• Keep asking if he can transfer you to some hot sexy beotch.

If its a girl;

• Ask her what she is wearing. Say shes got a sexy voice.....
• Ask does she like it doggy style.
• Ask have you ever pierced your nipples?

Make them pay for bothering you....

Click to expand...

Sorry, Schlenk, I disagree with you here. All you're doing is messing with the poor schmuck on the phone. You need to hit them in the wallet. That will get management's attention. They're the ones who set policy and pay the lawyers.

Some of those people are pretty obnoxious. The people who used to have my home phone number were deadbeats. The a$$holes they owe keep calling us, going on 5 years, are rude as hell too. It starts to annoy me to no end.

I know what you mean. I only say this to blow off steam.

I saw something on 20/20 where they are downright mean people lying and making false threats. If you truely don't owe them they have no right to be that way.

They hit our bank account directly. We disputed it with the bank and they stopped the charges and reimbursed the account. We have changed accounts and addresses since this has happened. We never received a single magazine from this. We are on tape with the original company. This fraud goes beyond the shady collection agency. I do like the idea of complaing directly to the publishing company.

I hope to find a lawyer friend to put his name on a couple of documents pro bono. I will give him some homebrew...

I partly wanted to let people know that this happens without your cooperation - like I said the BANK gave them access to the account initially.

Thanks for the suggestion and help guys - I will keep you posted.

Thanks for the heads up on this. I'm amazed they can draw funds w/o your approval.

NWernBrewer said:

I hope to find a lawyer friend to put his name on a couple of documents pro bono. I will give him some homebrew...

Click to expand...

There's some of that creativity I spoke of! Have him refer to you as his 'colleague'. He could make some mention of a referral in order to preserve professional discretion or something like that. Bull****, but not a lie.

Forgot to add that whenever you get an unwanted collection call ask for their mailing address, so you can send a letter to tell them to stop calling you. Under the fair debt collections act, a debt collection agency has to stop calling you if they receive such a letter. Put it in memo form with the account info, your name, and number in the "re" line, and put this in the body.

"I am writing to demand that you and your agents or asignees immediately cease and desist all collection calls at the above referenced number, and any calls to any number regarding the above referenced account or alleged debt, or any debt regarding the person or persons listed above. Please contact me by mail in the future, pursuant to the requirements of the Fair Debt Collections Act. I would also appreciate a letter verifying that you have received this letter an intend to comply with the Fair Debt Collections Act."

I'm a lawyer, and I have a form letter for this, but that's the nuts and bolts of the top of my head. Some people put in all the penalties for violation. I never do because a collection agency knows what they are already. In may experience, they do send a verification letter because they want a record of when they responded, in case someone complains about being called a day or two after you sent them the letter (they need some time to process these things.) But my letterhead makes it clear they are dealing with an attorney, so that could have an affect. To be honest, I don't know the penalties for violation because it never comes up. If they get a letter like this from me, the calls stop. (There is a loophole where the creditor as opposed to the debt collection agency can call you because the statute deals with debt collection agencies. You need to notify the creditor as well that no debt collection agencies can contact you, because when the agency gets this letter, they send it back to the creditor, who sometimes reassigns it to another collector.)

If you dispute the debt as well, put that in the letter. Here is a good example of a debt dispute letter, but add some specifics about why you are disputing it.

http://www.fair-debt-collection.com/Disputing_Collections/initial-dispute-letter.html

Newell - thank you - that is exactly the kind of info I was looking for.

You guys - these responses help give me the resolve to continue the fight and see it through. I would rather spend more money than they are trying to collect on prinicple.

One thing to keep in mind, people, is that my bank gave them the info that allowed them to attack me. If I gave it to them I would still be p!ssed, but we didn't. Our bank gave the original company the ammunition they needed to charge us. For a while, before I got really assertive and did my homework on the company they wouldn't even give us their contact info, they would just hang up and call again the next day. This was going on for months initially and we thought that it had been resolved with a shred of dignity well over a year ago

For them to give us any info on the company they are collecting for so we can dispute, we have to write in to them. They also put failure to resolve in their report during the time it takes for them to receive and reply to this letter. That is just shady practice to me.

BTW - I had a situ. where I was disputing a medical charge that mhy insurance refused to cover AFTER I had cleared it with their rep. That comapny held all action while we cleared it up. The insurance company ultimately won - but, they had the decancy to wait a couple of weeks where they left us alone until all info was on the table.

Haven't had this problem, but a couple decades back, Home Despot piled a bunch of late fees on a closed account, then handed it over to a collection agency. Pack rat that I am, I had the documentation showing the account had been closed with a zero balance. I also knew a lawyer who had been through exactly the same thing with HD & she was still pissed.