Area Cirulation, Magazine Clearinghouse scam. Use deceptive practices to lure you, then bill you for magazines you never recieve and ruin your credit. Virginia BEACH Virginia

I used to work for a company called F S I in Tucson, AZ. I was a telemarketer doing selling that exact same story, except, we actually did send our magazines and watches.

I will let you in on a little trade secret that even I wasn't supposed to find out, but I was very persistent in finding out about all of the shady details. They got your phone number from a credit card company and/or your bank, believe it or not! They would purchase something called lead sheets from other companies that would have multiple names, phone numbers, and addresses(a lot of the numbers actually happened to be cell phone numbers.) They can get this information from a variety of different places. They are purchased from credit card companies that sold their clients' information. The set of leads that I was working from were retrieved from people that had bought things off of TV infomercials with their credit cards, they figure that since you bought one thing you would be more inclined to buy the magazines, kind of like an impulse buy at the supermarket, some people do it some don't. It also shows that you give out your credit card information, and have no problem buying things with your credit card over the phone.

It's very shady, but there is some good news, you can opt out of your banks, and financial institutions from selling your personal information. I know this from reading those little pamphlets that come with your credit card bills. My boss also told me that the "sweepstakes" is a bit of a scam as well, while there is somebody that wins something at somepoint, there are a lot of charges that come with it. She told me that even Publishers Clearinghouse was a scam and that they were in hot water with the FTC and BBB.

Also, I think the main culpret behind it all is Hearst Publications! Unfortunately. Please, don't ever be mad at the telemarketer, yes the are liars, but a good chunk of the time, they honestly don't know that they are lying. I used to hear a lot of "why don't you get a real job" Well, I hate to tell you this, but that is a real job. With real pay. And if you have 3 small children and no high school diploma, you don't have many options. Would you rather get paid $5.25/hr in a hot, sweaty, greasy kitchen flipping burgers, or sit in an air conditioned office at your own desk. Merely making telephone calls that are mostly sorry, I'm not interested. Making at least $12.00/hr plus big huge bonuses we would get ten bucks cash for every yes I will join call, sometimes taking home $100 a day! In short I was able to support my family off of the $400-$600 a week. Sure, I was not happy that I was bothering people at home, bugging them, and trying to persuade them to buy something they didn't need. And there were many nights when I wanted to cry because there were some unbelievably rude people that would say the most hurtful harrassing things to me, I was instructed just to hang up, but that didn't erase the mean things that were said, and also, for some reason we were not unlisted, it would show up on your caller ID and some people had the nerve to call right back. I never answered my line of course, cause I knew it couldn't be good.

And by the way, we were encouraged to sell to people on fixed incomes because they were more apt to buy a subscription because they were usually sitting at home all day. I did not agree with that rule or stick to it, I refused to. That is why they ask you what your monthly income is in their "SWEEPSTAKES SURVEY" and when they ask "when you shop, what do you use more, your credit, debit, check, or cash?" they are making sure that you will use your credit card to buy a subscription. If you don't have a bank card or account, they will say "that's all of the questions I have for you, you've been entered into the sweepstakes, good luck to you"

If you ever get another one of those calls again, politely say "please take me off of your list", and they will usually scratch your name off of the list because they figure calling you would just be a waste of time, cause you would never buy anything, and that you would just be more of a hassel and waste of time to call back just to be told NO.

I would be more than happy to answer any questions that anyone may have. There are a lot of tricks to this trade. I will do my best to help uncover these deceptive companies. If they were just upfront and honest, they might be surprised as to how many people would buy there products and services.I just want to ask that nobody be rude to a telemarketer, they are just doing their job. That is if they are not snotty to you to begin with, cause there are always gonna be some of those! Just be polite and don't hurt anybodies feelings, because all I wanted to do was make some good quick money to provide nicely for my babies, don't hate me.