Update: We know who was responsible for this and have sufficient evidence to prove it. A police report has been filed. The very nice officer informed me that this is actually quite a serious crime as it’s not only harassment at this scale, but mail fraud, which is punishable by quite a long stint in prison.
“Wow, those are all ours!” That was Bob Sauerberg, VP of Conde Nast, the magazine publications house. About 90% of the 55, that’s right, 55 magazine subscriptions coming to our house, are Conde Nast mags. The assistant to the CEO of Hearst Publications was helpful, too, and assured me of follow up. The folks at Conde Nast had their subscriptions guy call me and he’s told me that he’ll see if he can’t get in touch with Time Warner and Hearst to get my account blocked. He even offered to give me his email address so that should I ever want to see a magazine again, he could put the subscription in for me. The guy at Hawthorne Village assured me that I would NOT be getting the Thomas Kincaid Angel Nativity, thank you Jesus, and said he’d mark my account for fraud. I can mark anything that is shipped to us as “Refused” and send it right back, but he’s canceled the first figure in the “Faith Mountain” series that some clown thinks I should own.
Did you know you could get a nativity by subscription? Me neither! Once figure a month until you’ve got the whole thing, I guess. If you’re gonna get a religious set in the mail, wouldn’t Genesis be more fun? “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, so this month you’ll receive your very own to scale heaven and earth kit, no assembly required! The perfect gift or decor for your mantle, and for only 1.99 more, you can get this handy wall mounting kit! But don’t order yet…”
It’s surprisingly easy to get the VP of the company that’s getting up your nose on the phone. The good folks at Consumerist tell you how. Every single one of the customer service reps I’ve talked to has been very helpful – I was sure to tell the execs that – but customer service has been unable to Make It Stop. The post office responded to my online complaint by sending me a whopping great stack of paperwork, which annoys me because what’s the point in filing online if it’s just going to end up in paperwork?Jim McDermott’s office offered to contact the FTC, which I can do directly, and said that I should be sure to carefully document my calls so that my intent to NOT make these purchases is clear, just in case we end up in court.
I do hope that it doesn’t come to that, but I can tell you that I also hope that Bob Sauerberg, who really was quite sympathetic about the nuisance factor, sees this as critical enough to see if they can’t prosecute.
Today’s new subscription? Vegas Magazine. Coz you know how I loooooove Vegas.
[tags]magazine subscription fraud[/tags]