Wholesaler Scam

I am usually a fairly forgiving person unless a company makes me really angry. Then I will boycott. Case in point was with Readers' Digest. I read this magazine while growing up and subscribed for years as an adult. Its short articles were sometimes all the reading I had time for while working and raising three children. About eight years ago I was trying hard to stick to a strict budget because of the cost of sending my two oldest daughters to college so when the renewal notice came in I just set it aside. I thought I might let the subscription lapse that year. I continued to receive the magazine over the next few months but didn't think anything about it. Who keeps track of when their subscription will expire anyway? Then one day I received a collection notice stating I hadn't paid for my subscription. I was furious. I called Readers' Digest and was informed that because I had been a long-time customer they had renewed automatically and I supposedly now owed for the magazines I had received for the past three months. This was part of their customer service program. Well, anyone who knows me can tell you this didn't sit well with me. I refused their kind gesture, thank you, got my account credited and a letter from them stating my account was placed for collection in error. I also cancelled my subscription permanently and told them to take me off their mailing and call lists, that if I ever got so much as a sweepstakes notice I would be talking to an attorney. For seven years I got nothing from them. Then my husband got a subscription as a gift from his mother. We now have this magazine in our house again, taunting me as it sits on the shelf in the bathroom, but I refuse to pick it up and read it. He says I am just stubborn but I say it is the principle of the matter.

I am about to do battle with another company. This time it is Sam's Club. For anyone not familiar with it, it is a wholesale company to which we pay an annual membership fee for the privilege of shopping there. My husband loves to shop there, especially for groceries, and uses his Sams' card to charge most purchases. We bought his fairly expensive eyeglasses there back in July and they had a special deal where interest and payments could be deferred for six months. That was fine with me. I let this balance sit on the account until November and then paid it in full. Or so I thought. A portion of my payment was applied to purchases that had been made after the statement date but before the payment date, therefore leaving a balance still on the eyeglasses. I had not even been billed for these purchases yet. In my opinion, Sams' has breached their credit contract. Because we shop there frequently each month I could potentially not ever pay off this deferred balance and have interest applied. This infuriates me to no end. I have now banned my husband from using his Sams' card until the payments catch up to the current charges. I am considering taking this to an attorney to see about a class-action lawsuit for credit fraud. I am sure there are many unsuspecting people out there who have probably paid interest that they didn't owe because of this payment allocation method. In the meantime, I am shredding my Sams' card and will probably never step foot in the store again. I can hold a grudge for a long time when I am taken advantage of. I work right down the street from Costco, another wholesaler, so I may check them out instead. Anyone else out there with a Sams' card beware. You could be getting screwed too!