Recently I received a telephone call from "U.S. Collections" informing me that I owed something like $900 in subscription fees, penalties, and collection fees to United Readers Services. I had had this scam tried on me several years ago and I was ready for it.

I asked the caller what magazines I had ordered (he couldn't tell me--privacy rules--but it was "the U.S. package), and thereafter he also couldn't tell me when I had ordered them, how much the original subscriptions were, and why, if I owed this money, I had not been contacted before this. He had no good answers to any of these questions. He also could not give me a return number at which he could be reached. They had discontinued that service, the caller said, because of all the abusive calls they were receiving. I bet!

I invited the caller to speak with my attorney; he declined, but threatened again (as he had several times already) to ruin my credit record by reporting my delinquent account to the online credit services. I told him to go ahead--knock yourself out--ruin my credit all you want, except you won't be able to do it, because you know, sir, just as well as I do, that this is a scam, and I will have no part of it. Then I hung up on him. I believe he tried to call again the next day--all of their calls come up as "unknown name, unknown number"--but when I didn't answer he let it ring only two or three times and then disconnected.

I urge any persons who receive calls like this one NOT to panic and NOT to gives these snakes a credit card number, no how much they bully and threaten you. I would add that I erred in being much too polite. I think an invitation to go to hell would be an excellent response to these people--for starters.