Tips to avoid the newspaper and magazine subscription scam

Believe it or not, there are still a lot of people who subscribe to the good, old-fashioned newspaper. In fact, there are so many who still subscribe that the scammers have taken notice. Meet the fake newspaper renewal notification as a way to rip people off. Not sure how a newspaper or magazine subscription could turn into a lucrative scam? Read on.

You receive a subscription renewal notice in the mail from a company with a name you don’t recognize. Let’s call that company Readers Payment Service, since that’s one of the many known aliases for this scam.

The mailed notice advises you that your subscription is ready for renewal and provides a one-year renewal rate along and a multi-year rate. If you’re not paying attention, you might miss the clues: the subscription dates don’t match your records, the amount of the renewal is higher than normal, the payment is to be sent to an address that might be out of state. Maybe there are even typos in the renewal notice.

In a subscription-renewal scam, the senders of that notification are hoping you won’t notice any of these elements. They’re counting on the fact that most subscription renewals are handled well in advance. This means the scammer is hoping you’ll mail a check or money order right away so he can cash in and move on before you even know you’ve been taken.

These payment services go by many names, anything from Billing Services of America to National Magazine Services to United Publishers Services with many others in between. The bottom line is that you simply cannot memorize the full list, but you can protect yourself by asking four simple questions.

• Has your renewal rate gone up unexpectedly?
• Is the renewal notice from the same company you subscribed with?
• Has the renewal address changed?
• Do the renewal dates and other information match your subscription exactly?

If you think you’re being scammed, contact the newspaper or magazine directly. Do not use the contact information on the notice, since that will simply get you more bad information.