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Report: #285179

Complaint Review: Area Circulation - Virginia Beach Virginia

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  • Reported By: Chicago Illinois
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  • Area Circulation 5656 Shell Rd. Virginia Beach, Virginia U.S.A.

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I was contacted by this company because I had entered a sweepstakes with my Visa card. They called me in February of 2007 and told me about this great offer they wanted to make me. I could get a 3 year subscription to five different magazines and a weekly magazine for FREE, all I had to do was pay them the shipping and handling charges for a five year subscription to a weekly magazine of my choice.

I first agreed to give them my info before they told me I would have to pay the shipping and handling for the weekly magazine, so when they told me I would be paying $75.00 a month for 12 months, I told them I was no longer interested and that I would not be able to pay, but they would not give up. They transferred me to their "supervisors" repeatedly and I ended up giving in to an offer of 12 monthly payment of $37.50 (mostly so I could get off the phone).

They told me that they would be paying the magazine publisher and asked that I honor my agreement to make the payments. They never mentioned that I would not be able to break this contract, under any circumstances. I agreed and they said that my magazines should arrive within 6-8 weeks.

In the following two months I received a few magazines sparatically but I had not received any bills, and then in April I moved. I sent in my change of adress with my payment of $112.50, which was past due because it was the first invoice I received just before I moved.

I waited for the change of address to take effect which was supposed to be another 6-8 weeks. In June I started recieving calls from the "loss prevention" people saying that my account was past due and that I needed to pay immediately or I my case would be sent to the collection agents. I did not actually speak to anyone until July, as I work 9-5 and they usually called around 10:30 am and left a message to call them back by 2:30 pm.

When I did speak to someone I told them that I had not received any magazines in almost three months and he told me that they had not recieved my change of address, which is odd since they recieved my payment just fine. At this point I told him that I really didn't want the service anymore and asked him to cancel my account. He told me that that was not a possibility, as I had entered a verbal agreement with the company on the phone the day I set up my service.

After I argued heatedly with him that I refuse to pay for something that I am not recieving, he finally gave up trying to make me pay anything on that very day. He entered my change of address in the system and told me that he would put my payments on hold for the 6-8 weeks it was supposed to take until the change of address took effect.

Within three weeks I was receiving calls again. They left me messages telling me to contact them between 10:30 am and 2:30 pm, which was really not a possibility for me, as I was working. The next time I spoke to someone was in September and it had only been 5 weeks since I had filed my change of address. They told me that I would have to wait 1-3 more weeks before the magazines would come and I said that I would not be making any payments until then.

Now it is November (almost December!!) and I still have not recieved any magazines. A few days ago I was eating dinner with a friend who is an attorney when they called. She answered and said that she was my attorney and would be handling the case. They got all flustered and transferred us a couple of times. They said that we would need to fax them a letter authorizing her to represent me before they could speak with her on the issue (interesting that a verbal agreement on the phone is enough to have debt collectors calling me 4 times a day, but not enough to authorize my attorney to talk to them).

Today I got a message saying that this is the last day for me to take care of this or my account will be sent to the next level of collections. I called them back, because I had a moment at work to do so. I spoke with a "loss prevetion" agent about my case, but she was really no help. She kept telling me she understood my frustration, etc., but she wasn't going to let me not pay.

I argued with her for 20 minutes and she told me that the magazines are actually sent out by the publisher, so maybe they have the wrong address. She verified my new address, which was correct in her system and told me she would send a service request to the publisher and that it could take up to a month for the magazines to arrive at my house, at which point it will have been 8 months since I recieved any magazines. She told me that she was going to transfer me to a supervisor because she didn't want to end the call unless I was 100% satisfied (yeah, right!), but I was disconnected during the transfer (which has happened many times before with these people).

I don't know what's going to happen, but I recommend that you stay away from Area Circulation, Inc. and their enticing offers. IT'S A SCAM!!!

Md0112
Chicago, Illinois
U.S.A.

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 11/16/2007 11:50 AM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/area-circulation/virginia-beach-virginia-23455/area-circulation-aci-rip-off-scam-these-people-will-take-your-money-for-nothing-virgini-285179. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content

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#5 UPDATE EX-employee responds

Ex employee with the real scoop

AUTHOR: Cheritol28 - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Sunday, October 12, 2008

Call them and make a lawyer threat and they have to cancel your service. At that point I would request a full refund. Don't let them tell you anything else about doing a service inquiry or anything that they may offer. You want a full refund by credit card.

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#4 UPDATE Employee

Area Circulation Employee Response

AUTHOR: Burt With Area Circulation - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Monday, November 19, 2007

Write to me at accountant@areacirculation.net

I will look up your info, listen to the voice recordings, and in the end, make you happy.

It's a long story, but written out below if you want to know why I am looking on the web to help people.

We've had some feedback from people I've met this way that has helped us revamp our processes, scripts, and billing.

Magazines take 8-12 weeks, not 6-8, so some of the things you say surprise me quite a bit. But I'll be glad to look up your account if you can contact me and let me help you.

We don't want unhappy people, we don't make money on initial sales, but only with happy people who renew. That means we hate making people unhappy.

Write to me and be a part of the solution please.

Thank you, and please read below for more of an explanation of why I'm doing this.





Hello, I'm Burt Bellows, and I'm the Director of IT from Area Circulation.

My story is very simple in that while researching information to increase our web presence, I discovered some complaints that surprised me.

Our customer service department runs from a strict script like most telemarketing companies, because we have to make sure the govt. regulations aren't broken. How these complaints can occur is now an ongoing investigation in our company.

Some of the complaints I've read seemed very legitimate, but when reviewing the person's file, I have found things like, 'no contact with customer, they just stopped paying', or 'we cut payments by 75%', and things that didn't jive with the complaint. I'd like to find out the whole story and just fix it.

It seems most of these things can be fixed simply by communicating, so that's what we would like to offer.

I'm sorry this is a generic note, but after replying to 6 personally, I realized my IT network managing isn't getting the focus it deserves and requires, so I am making a generic request for contact via a special e-mail account I've set up.

accountant@areacirculation.net is the place to write to, and I will give you my personal attention. So far I've been able to fix everything in one day, but we are making huge changes in our infrastructure that require my attention, and are trying to expand our web presence. So please understand my time is limited, but I WILL get to everyone eventually.

If you don't mind, to help me keep track of e-mails, please put 'complaint' in the subject line so I can do searches and make sure I've gotten to everyone.

We handle hundreds of thousands of customers, and our goal is 100% satisfaction. But there is human error, or misunderstandings in that kind of volume, and apparently not everyone is getting the time and attention they should have.

So please let me fill in that gap and see what I can do to help you. One young man wrote to me yesterday, and I fixed him up in 5 minutes. We simply didn't have his cancellation form on record, and he was in the wrong queue. I can only assume it was our mistake, so I fixed it and canceled his account. He is quite happy and after hearing the deal we make in the e-mail, said he would consider doing this once he could afford it.

For those who were confused or did not understand how we work let me explain.

Our main 'deal' is awesome, but only if you can afford it! We don't want you to buy something you can't afford.

We offer 5 magazines per week, for 5 years, at a rate equal to $3.64 a week. At less than a dollar per mag for weekly mags (some are monthly, etc.), many people find this unbeatable. People Magazine, for instance, is $2 a week even for a direct subscription.

If you do the math, our deal is $900, compared to 5 magazines at $2, which would come to $2600. That's nearly triple our price.

Because we pay the magazine companies and our affiliates up front, we lose a lot of money when a customer 'buys' and then refuses to pay.

We literally don't make money on the initial sales. We try desperately to just break even.

The place we make money is where in renewing a HAPPY Customer, that wants to get in on things like the free tickets to London, Paris, etc., and wants to get an even better deal on magazines.

So for us to create complaining unhappy customers, makes no sense at all. We couldn't possibly make money. We would never have lasted 20 years.

But let me finish the math and describe where the greatest complaint seems to come in.

First, it takes 8-12 weeks to get the magazine's first delivery. We dislike that timeframe, but can't do anything about it. Many customers don't like paying a bill and seeing no results. They become worried they were scammed, cancel, and we lose money.

Secondly, we spend a great deal of effort explaining the math, but it doesn't always get past the simple $3.64 a week price.

That is the cost if you divide it up by week, but we can't get this super deal from the magazines and our affiliates without paying up front. So we invest a huge amount of money, trusting our customers to likewise fulfill their part of the bargain, paying off what we invested, within one year.

Since most people don't have $900 they want to put out initially for 5 years, we tell everyone that the cost is $74 per month for one year, and when we hear them agree to the deal, we transfer them to a verification department that tries to make this as clear as possible, by asking the person to repeat back to us the cost per month and other details such as the 8-12 week waiting period.

We record this, and I was very surprised to find that some customers called back saying they never agreed to it. We go at incredible lengths to make sure to repeat and even have our customers repeat it, that by far most people simply accept the deal and the only time we hear from them is when they want to change from one magazine to another (which is a FANTASTIC plus in working with us, you can change any time you like to any other magazine).

One other point to consider is that the credit card companies would not have kept us as customers if we didn't meet STRINGENT policies. True rip off companies lose their credit business within a year, usually less.

Feel free to write, I'm here and listening.

I am honored to work at Area Circulation, and I come from a background that does not stand for dishonesty or corruption.

Mistakes are made when you deal in hundreds of thousands of people. To those people that slipped through the cracks, we are sorry, and we are seeking to make things right.

We want you to be happy so you recommend us to your friends.

I am working on this, and will eventually answer, fix, and resolve every case. Reply back to me and you will get helped.

We risk a lot for our customers to get them a fantastic deal on magazines. Please understand we have no motivation whatsoever to rip you off. We simply don't make money until you are happy!

And we lose horribly when you are unhappy... so if you do the math you see why I am trying to fix all complaints, even though my main job here is IT in nature.

Burt Bellows
Area Circulation
Director of IT

Respond to this report!
What's this?

#3 UPDATE Employee

Area Circulation Employee Response

AUTHOR: Burt With Area Circulation - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Monday, November 19, 2007

Write to me at accountant@areacirculation.net

I will look up your info, listen to the voice recordings, and in the end, make you happy.

It's a long story, but written out below if you want to know why I am looking on the web to help people.

We've had some feedback from people I've met this way that has helped us revamp our processes, scripts, and billing.

Magazines take 8-12 weeks, not 6-8, so some of the things you say surprise me quite a bit. But I'll be glad to look up your account if you can contact me and let me help you.

We don't want unhappy people, we don't make money on initial sales, but only with happy people who renew. That means we hate making people unhappy.

Write to me and be a part of the solution please.

Thank you, and please read below for more of an explanation of why I'm doing this.





Hello, I'm Burt Bellows, and I'm the Director of IT from Area Circulation.

My story is very simple in that while researching information to increase our web presence, I discovered some complaints that surprised me.

Our customer service department runs from a strict script like most telemarketing companies, because we have to make sure the govt. regulations aren't broken. How these complaints can occur is now an ongoing investigation in our company.

Some of the complaints I've read seemed very legitimate, but when reviewing the person's file, I have found things like, 'no contact with customer, they just stopped paying', or 'we cut payments by 75%', and things that didn't jive with the complaint. I'd like to find out the whole story and just fix it.

It seems most of these things can be fixed simply by communicating, so that's what we would like to offer.

I'm sorry this is a generic note, but after replying to 6 personally, I realized my IT network managing isn't getting the focus it deserves and requires, so I am making a generic request for contact via a special e-mail account I've set up.

accountant@areacirculation.net is the place to write to, and I will give you my personal attention. So far I've been able to fix everything in one day, but we are making huge changes in our infrastructure that require my attention, and are trying to expand our web presence. So please understand my time is limited, but I WILL get to everyone eventually.

If you don't mind, to help me keep track of e-mails, please put 'complaint' in the subject line so I can do searches and make sure I've gotten to everyone.

We handle hundreds of thousands of customers, and our goal is 100% satisfaction. But there is human error, or misunderstandings in that kind of volume, and apparently not everyone is getting the time and attention they should have.

So please let me fill in that gap and see what I can do to help you. One young man wrote to me yesterday, and I fixed him up in 5 minutes. We simply didn't have his cancellation form on record, and he was in the wrong queue. I can only assume it was our mistake, so I fixed it and canceled his account. He is quite happy and after hearing the deal we make in the e-mail, said he would consider doing this once he could afford it.

For those who were confused or did not understand how we work let me explain.

Our main 'deal' is awesome, but only if you can afford it! We don't want you to buy something you can't afford.

We offer 5 magazines per week, for 5 years, at a rate equal to $3.64 a week. At less than a dollar per mag for weekly mags (some are monthly, etc.), many people find this unbeatable. People Magazine, for instance, is $2 a week even for a direct subscription.

If you do the math, our deal is $900, compared to 5 magazines at $2, which would come to $2600. That's nearly triple our price.

Because we pay the magazine companies and our affiliates up front, we lose a lot of money when a customer 'buys' and then refuses to pay.

We literally don't make money on the initial sales. We try desperately to just break even.

The place we make money is where in renewing a HAPPY Customer, that wants to get in on things like the free tickets to London, Paris, etc., and wants to get an even better deal on magazines.

So for us to create complaining unhappy customers, makes no sense at all. We couldn't possibly make money. We would never have lasted 20 years.

But let me finish the math and describe where the greatest complaint seems to come in.

First, it takes 8-12 weeks to get the magazine's first delivery. We dislike that timeframe, but can't do anything about it. Many customers don't like paying a bill and seeing no results. They become worried they were scammed, cancel, and we lose money.

Secondly, we spend a great deal of effort explaining the math, but it doesn't always get past the simple $3.64 a week price.

That is the cost if you divide it up by week, but we can't get this super deal from the magazines and our affiliates without paying up front. So we invest a huge amount of money, trusting our customers to likewise fulfill their part of the bargain, paying off what we invested, within one year.

Since most people don't have $900 they want to put out initially for 5 years, we tell everyone that the cost is $74 per month for one year, and when we hear them agree to the deal, we transfer them to a verification department that tries to make this as clear as possible, by asking the person to repeat back to us the cost per month and other details such as the 8-12 week waiting period.

We record this, and I was very surprised to find that some customers called back saying they never agreed to it. We go at incredible lengths to make sure to repeat and even have our customers repeat it, that by far most people simply accept the deal and the only time we hear from them is when they want to change from one magazine to another (which is a FANTASTIC plus in working with us, you can change any time you like to any other magazine).

One other point to consider is that the credit card companies would not have kept us as customers if we didn't meet STRINGENT policies. True rip off companies lose their credit business within a year, usually less.

Feel free to write, I'm here and listening.

I am honored to work at Area Circulation, and I come from a background that does not stand for dishonesty or corruption.

Mistakes are made when you deal in hundreds of thousands of people. To those people that slipped through the cracks, we are sorry, and we are seeking to make things right.

We want you to be happy so you recommend us to your friends.

I am working on this, and will eventually answer, fix, and resolve every case. Reply back to me and you will get helped.

We risk a lot for our customers to get them a fantastic deal on magazines. Please understand we have no motivation whatsoever to rip you off. We simply don't make money until you are happy!

And we lose horribly when you are unhappy... so if you do the math you see why I am trying to fix all complaints, even though my main job here is IT in nature.

Burt Bellows
Area Circulation
Director of IT

Respond to this report!
What's this?

#2 UPDATE Employee

Area Circulation Employee Response

AUTHOR: Burt With Area Circulation - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Monday, November 19, 2007

Write to me at accountant@areacirculation.net

I will look up your info, listen to the voice recordings, and in the end, make you happy.

It's a long story, but written out below if you want to know why I am looking on the web to help people.

We've had some feedback from people I've met this way that has helped us revamp our processes, scripts, and billing.

Magazines take 8-12 weeks, not 6-8, so some of the things you say surprise me quite a bit. But I'll be glad to look up your account if you can contact me and let me help you.

We don't want unhappy people, we don't make money on initial sales, but only with happy people who renew. That means we hate making people unhappy.

Write to me and be a part of the solution please.

Thank you, and please read below for more of an explanation of why I'm doing this.





Hello, I'm Burt Bellows, and I'm the Director of IT from Area Circulation.

My story is very simple in that while researching information to increase our web presence, I discovered some complaints that surprised me.

Our customer service department runs from a strict script like most telemarketing companies, because we have to make sure the govt. regulations aren't broken. How these complaints can occur is now an ongoing investigation in our company.

Some of the complaints I've read seemed very legitimate, but when reviewing the person's file, I have found things like, 'no contact with customer, they just stopped paying', or 'we cut payments by 75%', and things that didn't jive with the complaint. I'd like to find out the whole story and just fix it.

It seems most of these things can be fixed simply by communicating, so that's what we would like to offer.

I'm sorry this is a generic note, but after replying to 6 personally, I realized my IT network managing isn't getting the focus it deserves and requires, so I am making a generic request for contact via a special e-mail account I've set up.

accountant@areacirculation.net is the place to write to, and I will give you my personal attention. So far I've been able to fix everything in one day, but we are making huge changes in our infrastructure that require my attention, and are trying to expand our web presence. So please understand my time is limited, but I WILL get to everyone eventually.

If you don't mind, to help me keep track of e-mails, please put 'complaint' in the subject line so I can do searches and make sure I've gotten to everyone.

We handle hundreds of thousands of customers, and our goal is 100% satisfaction. But there is human error, or misunderstandings in that kind of volume, and apparently not everyone is getting the time and attention they should have.

So please let me fill in that gap and see what I can do to help you. One young man wrote to me yesterday, and I fixed him up in 5 minutes. We simply didn't have his cancellation form on record, and he was in the wrong queue. I can only assume it was our mistake, so I fixed it and canceled his account. He is quite happy and after hearing the deal we make in the e-mail, said he would consider doing this once he could afford it.

For those who were confused or did not understand how we work let me explain.

Our main 'deal' is awesome, but only if you can afford it! We don't want you to buy something you can't afford.

We offer 5 magazines per week, for 5 years, at a rate equal to $3.64 a week. At less than a dollar per mag for weekly mags (some are monthly, etc.), many people find this unbeatable. People Magazine, for instance, is $2 a week even for a direct subscription.

If you do the math, our deal is $900, compared to 5 magazines at $2, which would come to $2600. That's nearly triple our price.

Because we pay the magazine companies and our affiliates up front, we lose a lot of money when a customer 'buys' and then refuses to pay.

We literally don't make money on the initial sales. We try desperately to just break even.

The place we make money is where in renewing a HAPPY Customer, that wants to get in on things like the free tickets to London, Paris, etc., and wants to get an even better deal on magazines.

So for us to create complaining unhappy customers, makes no sense at all. We couldn't possibly make money. We would never have lasted 20 years.

But let me finish the math and describe where the greatest complaint seems to come in.

First, it takes 8-12 weeks to get the magazine's first delivery. We dislike that timeframe, but can't do anything about it. Many customers don't like paying a bill and seeing no results. They become worried they were scammed, cancel, and we lose money.

Secondly, we spend a great deal of effort explaining the math, but it doesn't always get past the simple $3.64 a week price.

That is the cost if you divide it up by week, but we can't get this super deal from the magazines and our affiliates without paying up front. So we invest a huge amount of money, trusting our customers to likewise fulfill their part of the bargain, paying off what we invested, within one year.

Since most people don't have $900 they want to put out initially for 5 years, we tell everyone that the cost is $74 per month for one year, and when we hear them agree to the deal, we transfer them to a verification department that tries to make this as clear as possible, by asking the person to repeat back to us the cost per month and other details such as the 8-12 week waiting period.

We record this, and I was very surprised to find that some customers called back saying they never agreed to it. We go at incredible lengths to make sure to repeat and even have our customers repeat it, that by far most people simply accept the deal and the only time we hear from them is when they want to change from one magazine to another (which is a FANTASTIC plus in working with us, you can change any time you like to any other magazine).

One other point to consider is that the credit card companies would not have kept us as customers if we didn't meet STRINGENT policies. True rip off companies lose their credit business within a year, usually less.

Feel free to write, I'm here and listening.

I am honored to work at Area Circulation, and I come from a background that does not stand for dishonesty or corruption.

Mistakes are made when you deal in hundreds of thousands of people. To those people that slipped through the cracks, we are sorry, and we are seeking to make things right.

We want you to be happy so you recommend us to your friends.

I am working on this, and will eventually answer, fix, and resolve every case. Reply back to me and you will get helped.

We risk a lot for our customers to get them a fantastic deal on magazines. Please understand we have no motivation whatsoever to rip you off. We simply don't make money until you are happy!

And we lose horribly when you are unhappy... so if you do the math you see why I am trying to fix all complaints, even though my main job here is IT in nature.

Burt Bellows
Area Circulation
Director of IT

Respond to this report!
What's this?

#1 UPDATE Employee

Area Circulation Employee Response

AUTHOR: Burt With Area Circulation - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Monday, November 19, 2007

Write to me at accountant@areacirculation.net

I will look up your info, listen to the voice recordings, and in the end, make you happy.

It's a long story, but written out below if you want to know why I am looking on the web to help people.

We've had some feedback from people I've met this way that has helped us revamp our processes, scripts, and billing.

Magazines take 8-12 weeks, not 6-8, so some of the things you say surprise me quite a bit. But I'll be glad to look up your account if you can contact me and let me help you.

We don't want unhappy people, we don't make money on initial sales, but only with happy people who renew. That means we hate making people unhappy.

Write to me and be a part of the solution please.

Thank you, and please read below for more of an explanation of why I'm doing this.





Hello, I'm Burt Bellows, and I'm the Director of IT from Area Circulation.

My story is very simple in that while researching information to increase our web presence, I discovered some complaints that surprised me.

Our customer service department runs from a strict script like most telemarketing companies, because we have to make sure the govt. regulations aren't broken. How these complaints can occur is now an ongoing investigation in our company.

Some of the complaints I've read seemed very legitimate, but when reviewing the person's file, I have found things like, 'no contact with customer, they just stopped paying', or 'we cut payments by 75%', and things that didn't jive with the complaint. I'd like to find out the whole story and just fix it.

It seems most of these things can be fixed simply by communicating, so that's what we would like to offer.

I'm sorry this is a generic note, but after replying to 6 personally, I realized my IT network managing isn't getting the focus it deserves and requires, so I am making a generic request for contact via a special e-mail account I've set up.

accountant@areacirculation.net is the place to write to, and I will give you my personal attention. So far I've been able to fix everything in one day, but we are making huge changes in our infrastructure that require my attention, and are trying to expand our web presence. So please understand my time is limited, but I WILL get to everyone eventually.

If you don't mind, to help me keep track of e-mails, please put 'complaint' in the subject line so I can do searches and make sure I've gotten to everyone.

We handle hundreds of thousands of customers, and our goal is 100% satisfaction. But there is human error, or misunderstandings in that kind of volume, and apparently not everyone is getting the time and attention they should have.

So please let me fill in that gap and see what I can do to help you. One young man wrote to me yesterday, and I fixed him up in 5 minutes. We simply didn't have his cancellation form on record, and he was in the wrong queue. I can only assume it was our mistake, so I fixed it and canceled his account. He is quite happy and after hearing the deal we make in the e-mail, said he would consider doing this once he could afford it.

For those who were confused or did not understand how we work let me explain.

Our main 'deal' is awesome, but only if you can afford it! We don't want you to buy something you can't afford.

We offer 5 magazines per week, for 5 years, at a rate equal to $3.64 a week. At less than a dollar per mag for weekly mags (some are monthly, etc.), many people find this unbeatable. People Magazine, for instance, is $2 a week even for a direct subscription.

If you do the math, our deal is $900, compared to 5 magazines at $2, which would come to $2600. That's nearly triple our price.

Because we pay the magazine companies and our affiliates up front, we lose a lot of money when a customer 'buys' and then refuses to pay.

We literally don't make money on the initial sales. We try desperately to just break even.

The place we make money is where in renewing a HAPPY Customer, that wants to get in on things like the free tickets to London, Paris, etc., and wants to get an even better deal on magazines.

So for us to create complaining unhappy customers, makes no sense at all. We couldn't possibly make money. We would never have lasted 20 years.

But let me finish the math and describe where the greatest complaint seems to come in.

First, it takes 8-12 weeks to get the magazine's first delivery. We dislike that timeframe, but can't do anything about it. Many customers don't like paying a bill and seeing no results. They become worried they were scammed, cancel, and we lose money.

Secondly, we spend a great deal of effort explaining the math, but it doesn't always get past the simple $3.64 a week price.

That is the cost if you divide it up by week, but we can't get this super deal from the magazines and our affiliates without paying up front. So we invest a huge amount of money, trusting our customers to likewise fulfill their part of the bargain, paying off what we invested, within one year.

Since most people don't have $900 they want to put out initially for 5 years, we tell everyone that the cost is $74 per month for one year, and when we hear them agree to the deal, we transfer them to a verification department that tries to make this as clear as possible, by asking the person to repeat back to us the cost per month and other details such as the 8-12 week waiting period.

We record this, and I was very surprised to find that some customers called back saying they never agreed to it. We go at incredible lengths to make sure to repeat and even have our customers repeat it, that by far most people simply accept the deal and the only time we hear from them is when they want to change from one magazine to another (which is a FANTASTIC plus in working with us, you can change any time you like to any other magazine).

One other point to consider is that the credit card companies would not have kept us as customers if we didn't meet STRINGENT policies. True rip off companies lose their credit business within a year, usually less.

Feel free to write, I'm here and listening.

I am honored to work at Area Circulation, and I come from a background that does not stand for dishonesty or corruption.

Mistakes are made when you deal in hundreds of thousands of people. To those people that slipped through the cracks, we are sorry, and we are seeking to make things right.

We want you to be happy so you recommend us to your friends.

I am working on this, and will eventually answer, fix, and resolve every case. Reply back to me and you will get helped.

We risk a lot for our customers to get them a fantastic deal on magazines. Please understand we have no motivation whatsoever to rip you off. We simply don't make money until you are happy!

And we lose horribly when you are unhappy... so if you do the math you see why I am trying to fix all complaints, even though my main job here is IT in nature.

Burt Bellows
Area Circulation
Director of IT

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