Skiing Magazine scam

andyzee · Oct 29, 2007

Well that's one less mag I'll be reading. My subscription expired last season, and they started sending me renewal notices. I meant to renew, but never got around to it. Now that the season is about to start I was going to renew this week. Well today I get a letter from a collection agency giving me the following "opportunities":

Opportunity... to settle this account in the amount of $10.00, before further collection activity becomes necessary.

Opportunity...to reinstate your subscription to SKIING MAGAZINE, and to receive the remaining issues in your original subscription order.

What a sleezeball operation, never again.

campgottagopee · Oct 29, 2007

Same thing happened to me---I agree, good mag to punt!!!!

FRITOLAYGUY · Oct 29, 2007

Same thing to me as well.

sledhaulingmedic · Oct 29, 2007

I read it, but only because itcomes in my favorite flavor...free. I wouldn't pay for it.

Actually, after about three years of it showing up free, I very perky young lady called one October evening (during dinner, of course (pre-"Do not call" era) and offered me a "Special discounted early renewal rate for our best customers of $XX.XX for 3 years." I politely declined, explaining that that was $XX.XX more than I paid or was willing to pay.

andyzee · Oct 29, 2007

I got that and ski mostly to just look at the pretty pics, didn't really get too much out of either. So, if they want to pull crap like that, adios.

ski_resort_observer · Oct 29, 2007

Desparate times call for desparate measures I guess. Both are owned by Time Warner, have been for sale for at least two years. Yea, it's mostly puff but does have exceptional photography and comes with a large desirable readership. I assume the price is too high as to why there has been no takers.

The snowboard mags seem to be doing better which would follow the trend of the last 5 years of increasing riders and declining skiers.

bvibert · Oct 29, 2007

I also get both Skiing and Ski for free. My wife just started getting a free, unsolicited, copy of one or the other too. Actually now that I think about it I may not get one of them anymore, but they're both pretty much the same so I have a hard time telling them apart...

severine · Oct 29, 2007

bvibert said:
I also get both Skiing and Ski for free. My wife just started getting a free, unsolicited, copy of one or the other too. Actually now that I think about it I may not get one of them anymore, but they're both pretty much the same so I have a hard time telling them apart...

Skiing 'tis the one. We're both getting free copies of it now. I'm not even sure why all the sudden I am, but I got something in the mail recently saying I would be receiving a complimentary subscription... and then within the week that followed, I received the Sept & Oct issues (while Brian's Nov issue appeared).

Not that I have time to read anything these days anyway.... But it definitely seems an unfair practice.

wa-loaf · Oct 30, 2007

andyzee said:
Well that's one less mag I'll be reading. My subscription expired last season, and they started sending me renewal notices. I meant to renew, but never got around to it. Now that the season is about to start I was going to renew this week. Well today I get a letter from a collection agency giving me the following "opportunities":

Opportunity... to settle this account in the amount of $10.00, before further collection activity becomes necessary.

Opportunity...to reinstate your subscription to SKIING MAGAZINE, and to receive the remaining issues in your original subscription order.

What a sleezeball operation, never again.

Was the wording tongue-in-cheek at all? Some marketing kid probably thinks he's a genius for coming up with that one. Hope they track the responses their mailings get, because someone should lose their job over something like that. Maybe not the kid who thought it up, but the marketing manager who approved it.

andyzee · Oct 30, 2007

wa-loaf said:
Was the wording tongue-in-cheek at all? Some marketing kid probably thinks he's a genius for coming up with that one. Hope they track the responses their mailings get, because someone should lose their job over something like that. Maybe not the kid who thought it up, but the marketing manager who approved it.

Not tongue-in-cheek at all, it seems to be deliberitly designed to make it look like you owe them money and if you do not mail it in, actions will be taken against you. Kind of strange that when I called the agency I got an automated message with options such as:

I never subscribed
I have not renewed

hammer · Oct 30, 2007

I think that whatever Skiing Magazine is trying to do is against the law...

http://www.usps.com/postalinspectors/fraud/merch.htm

Here's a few quotes from the page that IMO apply:

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]If you open the package and like what you find, you may keep it for free. In this instance, "finders-keepers" applies unconditionally.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Furthermore, it is illegal for a company that sends you unordered merchandise to follow the mailing with a bill or dunning communication.[/FONT]

thetrailboss · Oct 30, 2007

Just another reason why I am going to end my subscriptions. To be honest, I get better info from here. Ski and Skiing used to be great, individual magazines. If you look at copies from ten years ago or so, you see that they used to have a lot of great articles and some great stuff on New England. Now they are both the same...I've seen many articles appear in both mags...slightly repackaged, but the same damn thing. I've also seen the Eastern sections shrink if not disappear and the focus being on the same resorts (Stowe, MRG, etc). Just lame.

andyzee · Oct 30, 2007

hammer said:
I think that whatever Skiing Magazine is trying to do is against the law...

http://www.usps.com/postalinspectors/fraud/merch.htm

Here's a few quotes from the page that IMO apply:

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]If you open the package and like what you find, you may keep it for free. In this instance, "finders-keepers" applies unconditionally.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Furthermore, it is illegal for a company that sends you unordered merchandise to follow the mailing with a bill or dunning communication.[/FONT]

In my case, they never send me anything but invoices to renew my subscription.

wa-loaf · Oct 30, 2007

I'm always getting renewal (not openly deceptive) notices from Outside. I like Outside and want to keep getting it so in the past I would assume my subscription was running out and send in the renewal. At one point I started getting two mags at once coming addressed to me so I called and asked what was up. Turns out they somehow had two accounts for me and once we straightened everything out I was paid up for like 5 years! So now I just ignore all reminders and if the mags stop coming that's when I'll consider renewing.

hammer · Oct 30, 2007

andyzee said:
In my case, they never send me anything but invoices to renew my subscription.

Then what is the $10 they are asking for? Did you get magazines after the subscription ran out?

wa-loaf · Oct 30, 2007

hammer said:
Then what is the $10 they are asking for? Did you get magazines after the subscription ran out?

It's not a real collection letter. They're just getting really deceptive in trying to get you to renew.

andyzee · Oct 30, 2007

hammer said:
Then what is the $10 they are asking for? Did you get magazines after the subscription ran out?

Nope. as a matter of fact the last mag I recieved had a note on it saying "This is your last mag" or something to that effect.

hammer · Oct 30, 2007

wa-loaf said:
It's not a real collection letter. They're just getting really deceptive in trying to get you to renew.

OK, so toss it out...it's just junk mail, isn't it?

andyzee · Oct 30, 2007

hammer said:
OK, so toss it out...it's just junk mail, isn't it?

Yes, but a very deceptive piece of junk mail that may fool some and even in my case, forced me to waste my time calling the agency. Although I was certain this was just a scam, I didn't want to take a chance on havining a bad mark on my credit (needed to purchase ski stuff).

andyzee · Oct 30, 2007

wa-loaf said:
It's not a real collection letter. They're just getting really deceptive in trying to get you to renew.

Very deceptive:

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