Kevin C.

I got a postcard reading "we have a reward in your name" with number to call and claim number. Note: the phone number on the postcard was not the same as the corporate number on the website, but rather *******282.

My experience on the phone was horrendous. They ask for credit card info for a "one time processing fee." Then telemarketer sends you to a recording to get your confirmation number -- but the recording is a sales pitch for a trial membership with another discount card that will start billing you if you don't cancel, and it asks you to say "OK" to get your confirmation for the original "reward." Then instead of giving you the confirmation number, it sends you to the orginal marketer who says "This is the end -- listen to this recording for your confirmation no," and then sends you to ANOTHER recorded pitch that requires you to say OK. Lather, rinse, repeat -- endless sales pitches that require an OK, without ever getting a confirmation number.

And if you refuse to OK it, the marketer will say it's too late to cancel the original reward and you will keep getting a monthly bill unless you say OK. So they're basically extorting you to keep signing up for more and more stuff. When I said this to the marketer -- "You keep saying this is the end, and telling me to listen for my confirmation number, but all I get is more sales pitches demanding I say OK and no confirmation number" -- she finally sighed and gave me some really specious-sounding confirmation number, about 20 zeros followed by 20 at the end, in a very sullen monotone and actually let me hang up.

After I hung up I checked consumer fraud websites -- including this one -- and found lots of complaints that when you call to cancel these "trial memberships," they're either impossible to actually contact or they keep getting monthly credit card bills anyway.

So I called back the original number and gave them the claim number, and said I wanted to cancel everything I'd signed up for (HealthFlexAdvantage and MagazineAdvantage). The guy said I was cancelled, but his response was suspiciously fast and I feared he was lying. So I called the number and gave my claim # a third time and requested confirmation I had been cancelled, and told him about the fraudulent stuff I'd found online. The marketer confirmed I was cancelled, but got testy and said my phone number was blocked and not to call back.

Now I'm waiting for my credit card bill to see whether they're still billing me, in case I have to report the charge as fraudulent.

I also intend to file a report with BBB and the Florida attorney general, as well as showing the postcard to the Post Office and reporting the company it's from in hopes they can aat least get their bulk mail permit revoked, if not prosecuted for mail fraud.

These people should be shut down.