LifeSlices: “And here’s the fun part”
One of the beauties of moving into a house is you’re fair game for telemarketers of every stripe. In the last two weeks, I’ve had calls from insurance companies, security systems, plumbers, maintenance people and lawn care services. I can understand these types of people searching government databases of new home owners, but the most insidious calls have come from magazine “sweepstakes” telemarketers.
I got a call from a nice woman representing “Family Readers” who offered me free, 60-month subscriptions to three magazines such as Gentleman’s Quarterly, if I would buy a subscription for another magazine. Plus, I was automatically entered in a sweepstakes for trips, cars and other luxury items. Yippee! I decided to play along, so I selected TV Guide as the purchase subscription,
The subscription fee was $3.31 a week, a little high for TV Guide, but I accepted the deal. After all, I’d be getting all those free magazines, right?
She then handed me over to a supervisor to “verify the transaction.” This gal went through everything. She also asked for friends that I would recommend for such a deal. I said, “No, thank you.” She then asked about family members. I said, “No, thank you.” When we got through everything on her list, she then got to the fine print.
I would pay this $3.31 a week over the first 20 months of the deal. That’s $43.03 a month, or $860.60 over 20 months. Then she actually said to me, “And here’s the fun part. After that, you continue receiving your magazines ABSOLUTELY FREE!” The fun part? Yeah, right.
I scolded her, and she hung up.
I immediately went to the “Do Not Call” website and registered my new number.
Now if I could just find a good electrician…
August 19th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
$3.31 a week would be $43.03 per quarter (or approximately $14.35 per month), so around $287 for the entire 20 months. That’s probably still not worth it, but that’s beside the point.
August 19th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Erwin,
Your math’s a little off. $3.31 a WEEK times 52 weeks = $172.15 a year times 5 years = $860.60 total for 60 months, compressed to 20 months = $286.67 a month. That’s basically a car payment for a single magazine subscription.
Terry
August 19th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
look on the bright side- she could have been selling cameras.
best of luck on the new place!
August 20th, 2007 at 8:19 am
Oh! I see what you mean now. They get their 5 year subscription’s worth in just over 1.5 year and don’t care if by then you’re no longer interested in the magazines and would rather cancel it than add more clutter to your coffee table. Sneaky is the first thing that comes to mind and far too kind.
August 20th, 2007 at 8:25 am
Don’t feel bad, Erwin. I was totally confused, too, until I went back and re-read the 60 months thing.