OK, last week I didn't know anything about National Readers Service. After dealing with these people on my daughter's behalf, that's certainly no longer the case. At this point, National Readers Service has verbally agreed to close her account with no balance, no bills in the future, any additional magazines received after this cancellation are her gift at no charge, and her payment to date will be refunded. Whether or not that agreement is honored, we will see over time.

The Scam:
Unknown to me, my 19 year old was scammed by National Readers Service in June 2009. She bought a pre-paid, essentially cover price, 5 magazine/ 5 year subscription for $68.83 per month for 19 months to be withdrawn automatically from her bank account through her check card number. She also agreed to preview two other offers, United Benefit Advantage and ID Sentinel Alert programs (address Naperville, IL), and was offered a $100 gas card. This ended up being a registration card from International Rebates, LLC (address Tallevast, FL) through United Benefits Services (address Virginia Beach VA) for $10 per month mail-in gas rebate program.

When she tried to cancel the magazine subscription, National Readers Service refused to honor an understood 7-day cancellation period. She was offered a “settlement” of 30% of the total $1229 remaining on the account to cancel or a reduced payment plan of $39.93 for 31 months as her only options. She took the reduced payment plan. When the member packets for the 2 preview offers arrived, she realized there was a one-time, non-refundable $19.99 charge plus $19.99 per month charge for each program with a 30 day cancellation period. She called, and they both agreed to cancel by phone with no difficulty. Whether or not those agreements are honored, we will see over time as well. We have no intention of registering for the gas rebates. But if “not registering” isn’t enough of a message we could end up having to deal with them too.

I hope our "experiences" with this company can be helpful to someone else. Suggestions for ways to deal with these people are on my blog at http://theNRSscam.blogspot.com/