Free Magazine Scam (Playstation Magazine)

[vanionBB]

I signed up for a free 1 year PSM subscription for my brother and it has been about 8 months now. I have recieved subscription notices from them over the past few months and proceeded to shred them but now I got somthing interesting, and I wanted to give you guys a heads up.

I got a letter says from collections, but I think its a scam for me to sign up for another year of PSM. It says;

NSA (North Shore Agency, Inc)
A National Collection Agency
751 Summa Ave, Westbury NY 1590

(lots of barcodes and infos... Also says "Amount Due $24.00 Term:24 issues" <-- Looks fishy to me

Early Warning Notice...

Dear "my name"

Our client, Playstation, requires that we send you this notice to verify that payment has not been recieved as of this letter date.

Its purpose is:

1. To verify that payment has not been recieved by this letter date for the subscription you ordered from our client.

2. To give you the opportunity to resolve this matter before it goes any further.

Mail your check for $24.00, payable to North Shore Agency, along with the coupon below.

THIS IS AN ATTEMPT TO COLLECT A DEBT AND ANY INFORMAITON OBTAINED WILL BE USED FOR THAT PURPOSE.

-----

COUPON THINGER...

Anyway, I think this is a scam to get me to sign up for 24 months more of this magazine, which I am not going to do. If anyone else gets somthing like this, or if you think I am mistaken in my assumption that this is a scam, let me know please so I dont screw myself over

Sorry for the long post.

 

[andyat11]

I see well dont ever send a check to them i dont personally send checks because they might sneek in a few extra numbers
thats just my 2 cents

 

[VirtualLarry]

A lot of those "free subscriptions", if you give them billing information to sign up, have some clause in the fine print, "If you do not cancel after your first year, you will be automatically billed for each subsequent subscription year", or something to that effect. If you never replied back to those notices to explicitly cancel, then that may be why they are billing you. Next time make sure to read all of the fine print. It's kind of like one of those "record and tape club" deals.

 

[WA261]

I get those from PCgammer all of the time.

 

[PagannagaP]

I doubt Playstation Magazine are gonna pay the collection agency to hound you for $24.

I get a bunch of free magazines and they always send me shiat about subscribing and billing notices. Although I have to say, I've never had any purporting to be from a collection agency. Maybe the marketing guys are stooping to a new low or the place where you got the free sub through, is selling you're info to anybody with cash.

 

[bentwookie]

that's why my cat gets all the free mags..he must have all kinds of bad credit

 

[LanceM]

I had an odd experience with PSM before.

I signed up for a free year when they first started up. Tried to cancel after the year was up, but they kept sending more. Tried to cancel again, but they sent even more. BUT... they never, ever sent me a bill. Not once.

Basically ended up getting 2 years and 9 months of PSM for free, despite my best efforts to tell them I didn't want any more of them.

This topic just reminded me of it, that's all.

Nowadays if you're not sure of something, go to the magazine's customer service web site (they should all have at LEAST a phone number) and settle it that way. Most of them reply by e-mail within 24 hours.

 

[Averox]

Originally posted by: bentwookie
that's why my cat gets all the free mags..he must have all kinds of bad credit

Same deal for my friend

My imaginary half gets all the free subs.

 

[weepul]

hehe. my alter ego gets my free subscriptions too! but the funny thing is, credit card companies are offering him $100,000 credit limits when they're only offering me a couple K.

//krunk (^_^x)

 

[psxjunky]

vanionBB: I have received similar mails from NSA before on behalf on 2-3 magazines. All I needed to do was call NSA **AND** the original magazine customer service number (both numbers should be on the mail) and explain to them that this is rubbish, and in all cases they went ahead and closed my account (as if I had one in the first place :roll: ) and stopped bothering me.

 

[Vidda]

Ooh, free scam? Where? Where? I want one!

 

[ReiAyanami]

I doubt Playstation Magazine are gonna pay the collection agency to hound you for $24.

more likely its the other way around. PSM sells the "debts" to a collection agency at a severe discount and so collection agency gets a whole bunch of names and addresses.