wjm@lcuxc.UUCP (B. Mitchell) (12/30/84)
Last night, I encountered one of the more "interesting" sales pitches of 1984. I received a phone call from a group calling themselves the "central magazine credit bureau." After quickly remembering that I had cancelled checks to prove payment for all my magazine subscriptions, I asked the woman why they were calling. She said that, given that I was such a good customer and paid my bills promptly, they wanted to send me a "gift". When I asked what the "gift" was, they said subscriptions to 6 magazines that they would select for me. I asked "what's the catch?" She said, "there isn't any, all you have to do is pay postage and shipping charges." After asking a few more questions, I found out that the "postage and shipping" came to $1.96 per week or about $100 per year. Now, she mentioned the names of the six magazines they were going to send me (none of which I'm interested in) and I know you can subscribe to all of them for about $70 per year ($10 each for five and $20 for the sixth). Before I could ask what the other $30 was for, she hung up on me, somewhat unhappy that I wasn't overjoyed by my "gift" and wouldn't accept it. I was unable to find out who is behind this outfit, or which magazine puublisher gave them my name. All I can do is warn you folks on the Usenet about them and remind you that "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." Caveat Emptor, Bill Mitchell (ihnp4!lcuxc!wjm)