Where I live in Ontario, Canada, this method of billing is called "negative billing" and is against the law. Unless you actually go through the effort of notifying them of your wish to cancel, the companies will automatically assume you need to be billed and send out their invoices. You should never need to say 'no', but just 'yes' in order for you to be treated as a consenting consumer.

Be sure you read all notices very carefully. I've received bills for renewals of magazines that I don't even get! These arrive in plain envelopes with no return address. A legitimate renewal notice should have a return address showing the magazine name or some sort of advertisement on the outside of the envelope.



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I don't ever subscribe to print stuff anymore. Mostly advertising, mosty time-wasters. And just that much more dust-gathering 'stuff' in my life to manage.

I'd rather waste my time on here.

I'm about to sign up to see my credit report shortly. It's free for the first one, and after that they try to make me pay a monthly fee after I've seen it, so I always make sure to contact them and tell them I won't be paying them. So many people don't realize you have to follow up with them so you don't have to pay. Otherwise it's automatic because you have to give them a credit card before you can see the free one.

And this is me stepping off my soapbox now. :D

Yep, it was the online version I had trouble with, America's Test Kitchen, I think. I love their articles and recipes, but couldn't believe they had tried to charge my card without notifying me.

Thank you!

When we had snow here in SC we got a phone call. The guy wanted us to renew Reminisce. I told him NO. He continued to tell me about this big deal for the year plus six FREE ones. After telling me all that he said he would sign me up for a year. I then asked What is it going to cost? I already knew no matter how good a deal it was not going to be renewed. He told me it was only $33. My reply to that was "If I had $33 I would be sitting in a doctors office right now and spending it on medicine." My head was clogged from sinus. Then I repeated NO we were not going to renew it. Later that week we got a renewal for one of them for $10. We still are not going to renew it. After reading this whole blog on here, I know we will never get anything in mail again.
Another time we got a call from the police org. the man told me that they had not received our donation yet and he called to remind me. I was furious. I know we never offer to donate to anything over the phone. It was legit but he did it in a very strong tactic way. I called BBB on them as first of all I was not sure if it was legit.
Always someone out there to rip us off.
I realize these people need jobs but enough is enough

Hey, since they give you a toll free phone number to call, I'd call & give them an earful!

Intimidation seems to be the new way of doing things. Do you suppose it's because these young kids don't "get it" unless they're yelled at? so everyone is assumed to be that way?

Call 'em and have some fun on their nickel!

Another tactic which I came across has me absolutely amazed.It is of a slightly different nature, being a computer program that I purchased from a company. During the course of the year, another company bought out that company and sent me notice that I couldn't use the program any more as I had to rent the right to use it from them on a yearly basis. When I stated that I thought I should have the right to use it as I purchased it legitimately, they rendered it unusable from their end. Nothing I can do about it according to consumer affairs over here, because it is an American company.What I did do was not use any of the products I had purchased from the new owners previous to this happening and I deal entirely with different companies.

so sorry you had trouble with a U.S. company. maybe you could still report them to the Better Business Bureau. some times it helps. glad you worked around them.

Easy way around this, is get together with a couple of friends and we each pick up 1 mag. OFF the rack (at store), and then we share it. Most of the time I only want 1 or maybe 2 things out of a mag. and it is the same with my friends. So because we have 4 people in our group I only pick up 3 mag. a year and I can skip all the bull from these companys. We also do the same when it comes to classes