When you subscribe to a magazine and a subscription renewal form arrives in the mail, you pay the invoice and keep the magazines coming, right? No, not quite: at least, not if your address and subscription information have fallen into the hands of a company called Subscription Billing Service, which customers say collects money without bothering to mention that they have no relationship to the magazine publisher.

Wait, what? How is that even a thing that happens? When CBS Sacramento’s Kurtis Ming investigated the complaint of a local viewer who had this problem, he learned that the scam is surprisingly common. A Better Business Bureau representative explained that the company operates under dozens of different names, none of which have any actual relationship to the publishers.

How can you prevent yourself from falling for a similar scheme? Renew using invoices that you’re sure come directly from the magazine, or even using the publication’s website. If an invoice arrives with a price that you can’t resist, take note of the mailing address and call the magazine’s customer service number to make sure that it’s from the real company that handles their subscription billing. (Call the number printed in the magazine, not a number on the invoice that you receive.)

Call Kurtis: I Paid To Renew A Magazine, Where Is It? [CBS Sacramento]

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