Magazine I Don't Want — And The Bill For It — Invade My Mailbox

Jay thinks his home and garden are just fine, thank you very much, and has no desire to make either better. And yet Better Homes and Gardens popped up in his mailbox as well as a $6 invoice for an annual subscription. He can’t find a way to stop the unwanted magazine, writing:

This will be my my first attempt to point out a seemingly blatant opportunism and deceptive assault on my pocket book and this concerns an incident involving a magazine subscription, received through the mail today, completely unsolicited but with an accompanying bill of charges. This one was sent from/by “Better Homes And Gardens” and the charge was for $5.99, for a year subscription. The due date is early August. The extremely underhanded thing about this is there is a website at BHG.com – however you cannot respond properly to address the bill. There is no phone number and customer service is only accessible to subscribers. The only option to respond is to cancel physically via a franked (thank goodness for small favors) envelop that one has to physically drop in the mail at a serious waste of energy and time

What will be the effect of this if BHG does not receive the cancellation action before the due date? What about all the elderly or forgetful citizens who may not put serious enough attention to this? This is totally unconscionable and bordering criminal.

We have at least received one similar bill in the past, from “Country Living” but at least a phone number was provided which we promptly took action to cancel. Nevertheless, the deception was just as offensive and devious. It is time that these obnoxious practices be well publicized and some law be enacted to prevent these predators from furthering their greed.

Perhaps Jay is the victim of an enemy who signed him up for a magazine with one of those postcards that give you a “bill me later” option.

Any advice to get Jay out of his jam?

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