As I was coming home from the grocery store, a guy approached me asking if I had voted in the NCAA tournament yet. I saw he had a small notebook with money poking out of it so I just waited for him to charm his way to my front door to tell me whatever he was peddling.

Magazines. My boyfriend came out and we looked at the lists and decided on two subscriptions; Thomas Greenwald said they were 80% normal sales price so I figured two subscriptions shouldn't be that bad.

A lot of corny one liners and what Thomas thought was witty banter later, he showed me my total of $88. I politely signed the check, signed the receipt and went inside to look up this company name.

I immediately decided to do a stop-payment on the check and when my bank called me the next day to verify they informed me that they had also got another stop payment check for the same company from the same day.

Legally are they doing anything wrong? Probably not in most cases. Slightly deceptive, a little pushy, and who knows if these 20-somethings are gaining points for a trip or merely commission money...

Just a small warning though: If you DO pay for these subscriptions, be prepared to wait 6 months. Consider it a 'surprise' in the mail after you have forgotten about spending too much money on a Cosmo. or Blender magazine half a year before.