Door To Door Magazine Sales, Scam?
Tonite we got hit up by a sales rep from Direct Subscription Services, or DSS Inc. The individual was able to talk us into purchasing a subscription from him at what seemed an inflated price but at the time appeared to be only slightly over retail. After he left I checked the online price for a subscription, $26 less than what I was charged. Boy am I a sucker sometimes. Anyway I looked into the company DSS Inc, which is owned/operated by All-star Promotions based out of Texas. Well All-Star has had 49 BBB complaints in the last 36 months so I have issued a stop order to my check and I am sending the cancellation in tomorrow via Fax. Apparently if you do not cancel your order within 3 days before midnight in writing All Star et al will pursue you with a debt collection agency. Just a warning, don’t buy magazines from door to door sales without checking the current price. I don’t mind helping someone out if I am not getting Royally Screwed in the process. For magazine subscriptions look for free signups online. Hopefully this is the last time I have to discuss this.
More Info on Door to Door Magazine Sales:
http://www.travelingsalescrews.info/
Josh Smith is a blogger, database manager and adjunct professor of business and technology. 
Some of the comments on here are outright ignorant. But hey, i guess thats what makes the world go round. I work for will at ace and have for 3 years. i have also worked with other mag companies. I’m with ace for a reason. You there that says you have been in the biz 17 years, If you had you would know will and certainly would know how and where to reach him. Your a liar who is just such a loser that THIS is all you have to do………. and the other one that said ” mag companies are only required to clear 70% of the sales ” YOOOUUUUU are a thief!!!!!!!!!!! Where did u learn such an ignorant thing???? are you really saying that you think you can take a customers money and toss 30% of these customers orders in the trash???? HEY LADYJANE, its people like THAT who are giving the business a bad rap!!!!!! But i notice u didn’t mention that…… hum, maybe because thats how you do it to… what happend??? one of the thief’s will fired for thinking they could keep 30% of the sales come to your b.s. crew complaining about my boss putting them out of here???? But when the weak a** leaves ur group talking smack about you and ur group its different???? Get a life!!!! My boss has been in this business more than 20 years and is a loyal, kind, caring man and the people who work with him love him… its like anything else.. when a person gets caught doing something bad, they get fired and they go elsewhere spreading lies. then of-course people like you continue to spread them. and last, for the person who found a paper who also clearly works at a hotel……. i was on that crew of the date of your post. ( wink) “he and that lady ” ARE NOT Will Ferrell……. those are the Gm’s that your speaking of…. and BOTH the gm and Mr. Ferrell drive black escalades ( like i said, spreading b.s. ) you people should be ashamed. especially you hotel lady…. you see something which your not familiar with and start making assumptions??? no ma’am, what i wouldn’t want my kids doing is cleaning rooms in a hotel!!!!! LOSER!!!!! GET A BUNCH !!!!!
well you see robert said it nicely. you people are obviously STUPID. I have worked for Will and am currently taking a break. I have made some of the best friends and had some of the most fun times ever in my life while working for him. At ACE your part of a family and treated with respect, unless you do something to harm another or steal then you are sent home!! the BS about slave labor is just ridiculous. Will has never treated me like anything less than a daughter and would go out of his way to help me which he has already. This company teaches work ethic to people who dont have any. It changed my life for the better.
There are crews that are out there to scam you so why not dog them all over the net instead of ACE? half the comments about Will and his company are probably just from managers that cant even keep up! Not from a “scammed customer”
oh and the trip is real, i’ve been on it, TWICE.
I live in VA. I just had a woman come to my door with the points/magazine thing. She said if she won she would win a trip to the moon..that’s when I said bullshit and shut the door in her face. Funniest one I’ve heard yet. I get these people several times a year.
I had a DSS salesman come by yesterday. I was feeling soft, so i heard him out. I was dumb enough to let him in my house because it was freezing outside. When I told him I couldn’t afford the subscription, he got really pushy with me. He started carrying on about how I could just cancel my subscription within 3 days and he would still get his trip points so he could go to Mexico. He was definitely great at the emotional blackmail thing and really made me feel like sh**. I ordered it out of guilt. The second he left I noticed on my customer receipt in bold orange letters “I UNDERSTAND THAT IF THE ORDER IS CANCELED FOR ANY REASON THAT THE SOLICITOR WILL NOT RECEIVE ANY CONTEST OR TRIP POINTS”. In light of that, I’m pretty uneasy about what his motive was to push me into buying it yet encouraging me to cancel it. I also had no opportunity to see the receipt until after the sale was complete and he was gone. The receipt had the legal information on it, on which he FORGED both my initials and my signature. This is important for others to know. The part he forged my initials on states in short :
“In the unlikely event that your check is returned for any reason (that would include if you place a stop payment order on your check) we will debit you checking account electronically for the amount of the check PLUS the fee of $30″.
On top of bold-faced lying to me about the cancellation policy, to top it off, if I did decide to keep the subscription I would probably never get it anyway. For my address he wrote down a completely illegible jumble of 2 different addresses, like he started to fill out the form for someone else and they changed their mind, and then just used the same form for me without even bothering to at least scribble out the old info. The city listed was the wrong city and the zip code was impossible to read. I have filled a formal complaint with the company and plan to file complaints with the BBB.