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Last year I responded to a fake news broadcast that was giving away a free book called AfterShock, which claimed that the authors had predicted the financial crash and bubble of 2008. All I had to do was pay shipping costs of $4 or so.

These aren't financial analysts, they are white collar crooks, thieves, and liars.

It was too good to be true. I fell for what marketing people call a "Till Forbid" scam.  In a Till Forbid scheme, the company has your permission to withdraw funds from your bank or credit card until you specifically forbid it. Usually, they make it very hard to cancel, which is NewsMax's specialty.

Apparently, I had also signed up for three subscriptions to costly publications such as the Gold Stock Advisor, The Franklin Prosperity Report, and the Financial Intelligence Report.  The fees for these reports were several hundred dollars and I was faced to pay overdraft charges totalling more than $245. I paid for the subscriptions rather than deal with the hassles, but I called NewsMax and told them to cancel all of my subscriptions and wrote "cancel" on the notices that NewsMax sent me. Newsmax did not honor my requests to cancel the NewsMax Financial Intelligence Report, the NewsMax Gold Stock Advisor, and the NewsMax Financial Intelligence Report.

These charges appeared on my bank statement as follows:

NMX*Gold Stock Advisor
NMX*Finance Intel Rpt
NMX*FRANKLN

Today I spent 34 minutes calling the NewsMax Customer Service hotline at 800-485-4350 and got a message that my wait time on hold was estimated at 34 minutes. I used this time productively by calling my bank's fraud department and cancelling the transactions. At this time, a dispute notification has been sent to Visa who will take it up with NewsMax. After 34 minutes, I was disconnected from the call.

I've called NewsMax back, and have been on hold another 20 minutes. I'm using that time productively, too, by reporting the NewsMax ripoff to Ripoff Report. 

Watch Out.