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Wired Strongarms Subscribers?
yali writes "Wired has apparently been sinking to some rather low tactics with ex-subscribers. Namely, siccing a collections agency on them. If you let your subscription run out, you might get one of these. Nerds beware." From the article: "First came the usual letters warning McMillan, 36, that his subscription was up and that he wouldn't get any more copies of Wired unless he ponied up some cash. Then Wired's correspondence took a different turn. In May, McMillan received a letter from North Shore Agency, a leading debt-collection firm. The letter, headed 'Please Respond,' said he owed $12 for his Wired subscription."
If the letter is regarding legit debt, like an overdue credit card bill, then they can continue to send you letters and/or call you, within certain limits.
If you reply in writing that you don't believe that the debt is legit, as in they say you owe them for a mag subscription, but you never signed up for such, they have to stop pending further investigation. Usually, it ends here.
Know your rights, and don't be afraid to push back. Even if a collection agency is after you for legit debt, there are limits to what they are allowed to do.
This Wired thing, on the other hand, is bogus. It's just a "renew, please!" letter written to said vaguely legally threatening.
Tom
"Collection agencies have absolutely NO teeth at all, they only thing they can do is send you scary looking letter and perhaps a few threatening phone calls...."
Well, most of them pack a little more punch than that. However, you have to realize that there is a difference between a $12 debt and a $12,000 debt.
After having to deal with the idiots at Paypal in one of these cases, here are a few things that I've learned. I feel it's kind of important to note that I'm not an expert, I didn't go to school for any of this, and your results may vary. I'm just giving you information straight from the gift-horse, if you will. Also, this should only be used for small debts. If you're not aware that there is a difference between $200 and $20,000, then you're probably in this situation for a reason.
1. When the debt collection agency calls you or send you a letter, the most important thing is to keep your cool. Don't freak out.
2. If they call you by phone, absolutely under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you continue speaking over the phone. Basically, if they call you, they should identify themselves, and then next words out of your mouth should be, "I only wish to communicate via postal mail." Say nothing else. Do not admit you have debt. Do not admit that you don't have a debt. Don't deny anything, don't even tell them your name. Just say, "I only wish to communicate via postal mail", wait for a response, and hang up--if they try and push, just keep repeating that line. If the continue calling you after that, you can then take them to small claims court.
3. Eventually, you will get a letter from them asking you to cough up the money. You'll probably have XX amount of days to reply to the letter that they send you. Do NOT just throw away the letter and pretend these people will go away. If you don't reply, then they can start pulling out their big guns (e.g. listing wonderful stuff on your credit report, etc). Basically, you have two roads you can take at this point. You can either choose to pay, or you can try your luck at bullshitting out of your debt. If you did nothing wrong, or if the debt is for, say, less than $1,000, use the latter. If your in some pretty hefty debt, I can't really tell you what to do in that case. Anyways, if you choose route number two, send a written letter along these lines (set it up as a business letter, I know you know how to!):
"To Whom It May Concern:
I have received your collection letter regarding the $[DOLLAR_AMOUNT] that you claim I owe. This is my response to that claim.
I am formally disputing the validity of this debt in its entirety. Please forward me complete copies of all documentation that you and [COMPANY] have to verify this debt. You have 30 days from the date of this letter to send me complete copies of all documentation, otherwise I will consider this debt to be completely invalid and all further collection efforts must cease immediately.
Sincerely,
[NAME_HERE]"
When you send your letter in response to the debt collection letter you receive, be sure to make a copy of it. Also send the letter registered with return receipt requested. Take the letter to the post office, and get the letter registration receipt postmarked, save the receipt from the post office, and save the return receipt when you get it. KEEP EVERYTHING. If you do end up going to court, then you can use all this documentation against them.
Once they receive the letter, they then have 30 days to send you all the documentation that proves you owe the money. In this letter, do NOT include any information, statements other than what I said, what happened, what you have done, or anything else. KEEP IT SIMPLE. Actually, I'd suggest just copying and pasting that letter.
If after 45 days you havn't gotten a response, your debt is gone. There is nothing further that they can do to force you to pay the money, including listing the debt on your credit report, etc. By not responding they have said (accord
Actually, there are ways to deal with this. While I don't want to go into details here, and IANAL, most of my clients are, and one of them (who is also a close friend) has told me how to handle collections like this.
Basically, respond in writing and dispute the debt. Tell them not to contact you and to contact your lawyer. ALL collection agencies don't worry about letters like this (btw, send it return receipt requested). Just wait and they will contact you again. When they do, file suit in local court. They will literally end up owing you $1000 for a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. If you want details look it up. (I'm not making this up, and it is true!)
If they report on your credit report that you owe the money and you don't, that's a violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and if you can prove damages (like "I had perfect credit, and lost out on this chance because of one bad report"), you can collect a heck of a lot more.
Actually you will have a hard time getting banks to take ANY third party checks these days. In the normal course of my business I would routinely take third party checks endorsed to me as payment. I would also issue Western Union and Comchek money transfer checks. We also cashed employee paroll checks for our own employees at no cost. My main bank refused to honor any third party checks because of their interpretation of the Patriot Act clause requiring banks to identify the payee on checks. The bank even refused to take in deposit third party payroll checks drawn from the SAME account! We actually pulled our business from this bank and tried three others before we found a bank which would do what we needed.
Hey, I read the fine print, and Wired signed me up for automatic renewal anyways, without ever consulting me or sending me any addendum to the subscriber agreement (there was nothing about it in the original materials I received when I first started subscribing, and nothing new thereafter).
Needless to say, I was quite pissed off when I started receiving notices telling me my credit card was about to be automatically charged "for my convenience" to renew my subscription. I have a feeling this guy probably was a victim of the same tactics. I probably should report Wired to my state consumer protection authority... this seems like some pretty shady behavior.
Notably, I never had any problems with Wired until they were acquired by Conde Nast... from there the quality of both customer service and the magazine itself went downhill fast.
Being fed up with the rapidly declining quality of their publication and their strongarm tactics, rather than renew, I called their surprisingly hassle-free customer service line and canceled my subscription. I used to love Wired, but lately they just suck.