I got scammed, but I learned something.

Last night, two talkative teenage boys knocked on my door, selling magazine subscriptions. They said they were home schooled, as one had a broken arm, proceeded to show me his sling, which he wasn't wearing, and said he couldn't go to public school since he was on Vicadin (I thought that kind of strange). They said they were doing this as part of a public speaking class, and that the ones who sell the most will win a trip to London... and the sob story goes on.

I didn't want any magazines, so he said I could donate a sub to the local Children's hospital (Does my face just scream liberal at these people? Why can't I be a heartless bastard?), so I said yes to Disney Adventure or something like that for the local Children's Hospital. He said it was $48!!!! :wtf:
He then explains that it's for 3 years. I was like whatever, I need to get back to my Randi Podcast.

So Today, I was telling a co-worker about it, and he said "That's a scam. I saw something on TV about that last year." So I did a little surfing, and was shocked at what I found. I stopped payment on my check, and went to ACI's website to cancel my order. Lo and behold, you can't cancel online. I have 3 days, not 30 days, but 1,2,3 days (including saturday) to cancel your order, by mail or fax, with no address or fax number listed on the site. Luckily, there's the address in Cambridge MD (yeah! 2 days to get from Colorado to Maryland :eyes: ) on the reciept. My bank advised me to stop payment on the check, as some victims have been known to have $348 or $748 withdrawn from their checks. That's ATLANTIC CIRCULATION INC. Rememeber them! There are complaints of not receiving magazines, not receiving refunds, or getting refund checks that bounced. But That's not the bad part!

This is an industry that preys, abuses, intimidates, and has a history of neglect on the teens who are employed by them. They travel in packs across state lines, some under the age of 18, sleep 15 to a motel room (the two boys who came to my door were pretty ripe, like a 3 day no bath funk) Some deaths occur, and Atlantic takes no responsibility for the incidents, using the excuse that they were employed by "independant contractors".

Here's an old article on this. read it since it talks about a car rollover carrying 15 kids in a Suburban, made for 8 people, with bald tires, registered to Atlantic and no insurance...
http://www.durangoherald.com/asp-bin/article_generation.asp?article_path=/news/03/news030615_1.htm

In addition, the father, Phil Ellenbecker, said there have been numerous rapes, beatings and abandonments of workers. Reports of abominable living conditions abound, he said, including crowded motel rooms with no privacy, food being withheld for poor sales performance and intimidation.

"Traveling youth crews" is ranked among the worst five jobs for teens, based on injuries and deaths, by the National Consumers League, a 104-year-old organization that represents interests of consumers and workers.

A New York-based watchdog group – Parent Watch – is mounting a nationwide campaign to call attention to what it alleges are deceptive campaigns to recruit young people to work in an unregulated and dangerous industry.

"The crime rate inside crews has skyrocketed," said Earlene Williams, the director of Parent Watch. Williams tracks the operation of the door-to-door industry and documents its labor abuses. "There are many innocent kids caught up in this."

Here's some info on the magazine sales scams from the FTC...

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/tmarkg/magzn.htm

And sent us papers stating that we were overdue on something. It was from 'the bank'.

And we got three identical papers.

My Mom and Dad were freaking out, but I knew it was a scam. :eyes:

Sorry about your money...