The Return of the Fake Bill

We recently received the correspondence below at my house. My wife and I have subscribed to National Geographic as long as we've been married - over 25 years; so when received the letter below, we assumed it was a reminder notice from National Geographic Magazine.

"Notice of Continuation" in big bold letters. What else were we to believe? Well, if you look at the bottom, in smaller, thinner red print, you can see "This is an offer from an independent agent, not a bill."

On the back, they repeat that "The offer that you received is just an offer and not a bill or invoice and you are under no obligation to either buy or renew at this time or any time in the future."

The letter is from the Atlantic Publishers Group, LLC, from the beautiful Atlantic town of Niwot, Colorado.

There is nothing wrong with independent magazine publishers soliciting you to buy magazines. Publishers' Clearinghouse has been doing this for years, promising everyone that they "might have already won" millions of dollars.  As questionable as those prize solicitations might be, Publishers' Clearinghouse doesn't pretend to be the actual publisher or try to mislead subscribers that that is who they are.  They also don't insinuate that you actually owe money on an outstanding bill.

As it turns out the Republican National Committee has crossed that line and is sending out fake bills thatare even more deceptive than the magazine bill above.

According to Rachel Maddow of MSNBC.com, The Republican National Committee, under the signature of, and presumably under the authorization of Republican National Chairman, Reince Priebus, has been sending out letters "PAST DUE" and "NOTICE OF DELINQUENCY". These letters are not just going out to donors and persons who have pledged money.

I can tell you that there are millions of adult elderly people out there who have diminished vision and/or diminished capacity who will pay anything that kind of looks like a bill, and that's why these scams succeed again and again. Some elderly people don't remember what they ordered, and they figure they must have ordered something and forgotten about it. In other cases, the children of these elderly people know that mom or dad spends days at home ordering stuff and they don't want mom or dad's credit to go down the tubes.

if you receive a deceptive fake bill, even if you aren't taken in by it, I urge you to report it to the Federal Trade commission at www.ftc.gov.