I was once a former employee of Heartland Inc. I worked there for two years. This is a company that continues to stay in business due to the thriving on a business of fraud. This company contacts who are receiving or who have received magazines within the last five years. The goal for this company is to lead you in believing that they are calling from "with the publishers" who are sending out your magazine. This is not your actual publishing company that you have a contract with. Heartland is leading you to believe that they are giving you a better offer on renewing your current magazine subscription. What they do not tell you is, you are signing up for yet another magazine subscription on top of the pre-existing subscription you already have with the original publisher. The difficult part in getting our money back is that the conversations are recorded. In the initial "renewal process" of your magazine order, they are recording the conversation leading you to believe you are simply getting a lower price on your existing magazine subscription. They are not telling you that you will get duplicates from what you are already getting. The recorded converstaion is a script in which these "representatives" are reading to the unfortunate ones to get the scam of a phone call, is worded just right to avoid any major detection of a fraudulent transaction. With the unfortuante buyer giving the approval for the transaction, it is hard to be refunded. My suggestion, never buy anything over the phone. Never renew anything over the phone. Always check to make sure companies are reputable before giving your banking information.
Signed,
Ex-Employee of Heartland, Inc. that was badly mistreated

I worked at heartland inc. for two years. I have witnessed a lot of things they did to their customers/potential customers and employees. I recently got fired from there and as a result of that had to go through a certain process to exercise my rights. I have a facebook profile and have made a group for people who have been effected by them. Please feel free to send me a member request. Just go to www.facebook.com and make a profile if you don't have one already. After that search for the GROUP: People Who Have Been Effected By Heartland Inc. Then send me a member request. This group page is made so people can openly discuss how they have been effected by them wether you were a former employee, existing employee, someone who they have called constantly, or someone who they've hurt financially. If you know anyone else who has been effected by them, PLEASE feel free to let them know about this. Hopefully this will help educate people about what they do and maybe get this out in the open more. Thank you!

I received a call from Heartland and I agreed to a subscription. But not in the amount that they tried to debit my account for. I received another call from them wanting to collect this money from my account and I told them I did not agree to $119. The manwas very rude, belittled me, and when i asked to hear the tape he would only play it if I agreed to pay this amount and I said no I will not agree to anything. I dont know much about things but i do know there is ways they can alter the tape and that is why I wouldnt agree. I remember the initial conversation and I DID NOT agree to pay $119. So, after this very UNPROFFESSIONAL conversation with this man I asked for a number and someone who I could speak to that is higher than him and he rudely replied I am not going to give you any information because you won't agree to pay this amount. Well, no shit!!! Obviously I am not going to agree to an amount I never agrred to in the first place!!! I am a 25 year old single mom of two and I have all I can to make it by so I wouldn't be so stupid to agree to a high amount like that!! And what set me off even more with the second phone call is the man tried to tell me that I GAVE them all me info and I didnt, the first man spokewith asked me to verify my info and he said it all!! I DID NOT give any of my info, I VERIFIED it!!! Two totally different things!!! So I was so pissed and frustrated I just hung up on him. I decided to look them up online and low and behold this was the first site I was brought to. Like all the others my complaint is similar. They stated a different amount than what was ATTEMPTED to be debited from my account, told me I agreed to this high amount, threatened me with credit reporting agencies, very rude and belittled me. I normally dont subscribe to anything so this is new to me and if I was never brought to this site I would probably be really screwed!!! Now, that I now more than what I started out with, I will be changing my account # and my phone #!!! These people are ruthless, heartless and they will NOT get my money. My heart goes out to the ones whom have lost money over this. I was fortunate not to and like I said earlier, I can't afford that much money so I dont have that kind of money in my account but there are times I do and living pay check to pay check I would really be hurting. I will be looking further into this and report to BBB as I have read in other complaints, this is not fair and not right!!! I look forward to the day that this so called "company" is brought down!!!

November 23, 2009

Heartland Inc. continues to plauge us concerning unsolicited magazine subscriptions. They threaten to withdraw funds from our local bank or Visa card for undesired subscription continuation.

We are also on the Federal do not call list but their operators completely disregard this law. They also coerce threaten and badger us into verifying social security numbers and bank account and threaten delinquent account collection for unauthorized billing.

George F. Roberts

I was told on the phone I had to renew the magazines, the rest of the contract I had agreed on. The gentleman had the list of the 4 magazines my husband gets & he had my credit card number. I just had to verify the experation date. He said it would be billed 3 payments of $59.85. When I got the letter in the mail it said I would be billed $59.85 over 18 months, for a total value of $1197.00. I called right away & it was a recording & I left a message.I called twice on Monday, twice on Tues. & finally on Wed I got a call from Heartland. The guy was really rude, laughed at me!! He gave me his name as Ashton.He said I could not cancel & I said I was told on the phone I had 10 days to cancel so is that a lie ? He just laughed & said that I would be hearing from the company & that I would pay it one way or another!! That it would be turned over to a collection company. The letter said I have 10 days to cancel by mail & so I sent a cerrified letter so I'm hoping it will work & get canceled!! This place should be stopped they are stealing from people!!