How to Avoid Magazine Subscription Scams

How these scams work

California Attorney General Rob Bonta says magazine scammers contact consumers in different ways:

• Mail. A subscription offer sent by mail may resemble a renewal notice or bill, use words such as “publisher” or billing” or “service,” and appear to be from a magazine company. “But if you look at the fine print, they are actually selling you a new subscription, usually for two or three times the cost.”
• Door-to-door sales. People with compelling stories, such as needing money for college, sell high-priced subscriptions this way and “oftentimes you will not get what you paid for.”
• Telemarketing calls. Callers pretending to be from magazine companies deceive consumers into paying for expensive multiyear packages. They say that you’ve won a big prize and are entitled to “bonus” magazines or a lower payment, but you have to provide personal and financial information and participate in a tape-recorded order “verification.” But the scammers will change the recording or the offer’s terms and when you don’t get what’s promised, they will use the recordings to force you to pay.

If you do subscribe through a fraudulent seller, you could find yourself charged more for a subscription than the publisher’s going rate, Greisman at the FTC cautions. “Fly-by-night” operators take your money and you never receive magazines, Greisman adds. Or you may receive the periodicals, but be billed for things you never asked for or wanted — identity-theft protection, for example, or a roadside-assistance plan.

The smart way to subscribe

If you want to subscribe to a magazine, contact the publisher directly or subscribe through the magazine’s website, says Greisman, who offers two key tips to avoid losing money to criminals:

• Ignore the hard sell. “Don’t take the call, don’t look at the email, text — whatever medium you may be contacted by,” she says.
• Use a credit card if you do decide to subscribe. Then you’ll be able to refute the charges later if necessary.

If you have been defrauded, report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. Importantly, alert the magazine, too, since publishers “care about this,” Greisman says. “It is in their interests not to have their customers ripped off, and not to have themselves impersonated.”