Great American Readers If you enjoy receiving letters full of misspelled words threatening to demolish your credit rating, this is your company! Bloomington, Minnesota

My experience with "Great" American Readers was much the same as everyone else who's filed a complaint here, so I won't repeat the other reports. However (since I haven't seen it mentioned in the other reports), I should point out that this company will sell its customers' payment information to other companies without those customers' knowledge or consent; I was very surprised to see that, thanks to these thieves, I had joined some weird service offering discounts at a few select country clubs, at a cool $25 a month. In other words, if you've dealt with these people, be prepared for unexpected charges on your credit card.

Aside from that, the only advice I can offer is that if you're unfortunate or (in my case) just plain dumb enough to become involved with GAR, the best course of action is to contact your credit card provider immediately and dispute the charge (and any related charges), and be sure tell your provider not to accept any other charges from GAR. If you cut off their ill-gotten payments, GAR will respond with amusingly illiterate letters and phone calls threatening to demolish your credit rating; but just stick to your guns, and eventually they'll go away. Hopefully.

Finally, I've also filed complaints about GAR with the Federal Trade Commission and the Better Business Bureau, and I encourage everyone with just cause to do the same. Perhaps this particular den of thieves can be shut down for good.