I can backup Cathy’s comments from a disinterested perspective. I’m a lawyer in Philadelphia who does some consumer class action. A few years back, we got an inquiry from a colleague who had been paying these solicitations that looked like renewals or invoices for various magazines, and realized that he was already paid several years in advance. We looked into and found that this has become a real problem for the magazine biz.
For many years, magazine publishers would take subscription orders from middlemen, called clearinghouses. You may have heard of Publishers Clearinghouse, the most famous, or a school fund-raiser, or door to door kids trying to win a prize, etc. etc. Like any wholesale arrangement, the middleman makes his money on the spread, and for magazines, it represents circulation growth without marketing costs.
But these mail order abuses by shady operators have created a big problem, such that some mags won’t accept clearinghouse orders anymore, and print notices in their mags to warn about them. In the case we looked at, after investigating we found that the clearinghouse operator was not associated with the magazines, and like other sharp operators, would be very hard to track down and collect money from. Also, it looked like there wasn’t anything clearly illegal that they were doing. The mailing did not misrepresent itself as a renewal, or state that it came from the magazine. It looked like a renewal invoice, but it did not actually say it was a renewal, it said it was an offer to subscribe. These guys are experts at working right up to the edge of what the law permits.
As to the mailing lists, we also found that these guys don’t need to get subscriber lists. They can troll off various sources of lists and, say, if they get a list of people interested in modelling, just blanket them. All they need is 2% or 3% response.
I had thought I was under the radar. WRONG!!! Got my Notice of renewal/New order from La Habra in today’s mail. When I called the customer service number, the recording wasted no time telling me, “This is not a bill.”
An added joker. The notice was for Model Railroader, but they got my name from a Carstens’ mailing list. (Different middle initial.)
I guess it’s nice to know that the unscrupulous selling of your name and address to other, not so reputable sources is not just limited to Model Railroader…or NOT.
Got one yesterday. Went in the shredder with all of the Visa and Discover notices I get from banks I’ve never heard of. [:-^]
I’m sure they’ll keep sending them. And I’m POSITIVE that I’ll keep shredding them. What the heck–I can use the confetti to start my fireplace this winter. [:P]
"I am Dr. Adewole Aremu- a director with the Union Bank of Nigeria in Lagos - and I wish to speak to you most urgently about a matter regarding the sum of $39,000,000 US Dollars… "
Oh, yah. Had to really think about passing THAT one up, LOL! [(-D] With all of the ones I’ve gotten by e-mail and snail mail, I’ve come to the conclusion that Nigeria must be the wealthiest country in the world. And they all want ME to take care of their money. [:P] Just imagine!
As confirmation I had a friend in the clearinghouse business who said that some of these so called mailing lists that we all think came from Kalmbach/Carstens could very easily been generated off of phonebooks and such.
??? You mean I’m not going to get my $10,000 from Nigeria? Then why did they need my account number?
I know some times they get the information from us. I have recieved in the past many notices over the years to renew my Car Craft magazine through various companies. I have recieved my renewal every time for 30 years now. I am not saying every one of these offers you recieve is legit but I believe most at least send your renewel to the magazine and enough money to pay the cost.
Sometimes they get the information from us by fishing. I have recieved phone calls in the past asking me if I was recieving my magazines ok (the cast). I responded “yes” (the nibble, they now know I subscride to at least one magazine). They ask, “would you like to renew?” and tell me the great multi year offer and give you some low per issue cost. I respond “sure” (the bite). They come back with “great, which ones would you like to renew”, I say “Car Craft” (the hook is set). They say “any others?” Answer yes or no depending on whether you have more or not. Then of course they need your info. Even though you are under the impression they should already have it, you fire it off to them. You’ve been reeled in. And THAT list, my friends, definately gets sold. I asked once about needing the info because they should already have it, you know, mailing address, WHAT MAGAZINE for crying out loud, to which she responded, they were not affiliated with any magazine and that they were a company that can offer savings on subscriptions because they call people and try to get them to renew when some may not if left on their own…etc,etc,etc, sounded reasonable. Sometimes it’s a race among clearinghouses to get your business, I’ve recieved several offers in one year and have had the magazine payed up, yes they followed through every one of them, for 10 years at one time.
PBA sends me things like that all the time. Earlier this week I got two the same day, one for MR and one for some magazine on swimming or something. I think your name gets out from subscribing to different things, I subscribe to train mags and to some sports mags so I get some of both, often ones I never subscribed to. For sports, I get Sporting News bills about every other month. I think my wife sent one in for RMC (assuming I wanted it paid) which turned out to be bogus, unfortunately I ended up having to drop RMC for money reasons so it kinda hurt getting burned.
Maybe not by legal definition, but it is morally offensive and annoying to many of us, and it is invasive of privacy. Not all of us can afford to live on large estates or gated elite communities. The modern world literally runs on information and many brokers do not care how it is obtained.
Got one today from Magazine Billing Network, PO Box 61001, Reno, NV 89506. In red letters states Notice of Renewal / New Order.
I responded to one of these for another magazine I get and ended up with two copies for a couple of months - fortunately it was only $9.95. I hadn’t been paying close attention and thought it was the normal renewal. Now I make sure I’m renewing with the magazine directly and dump all the other “offers”.