Mailing magazine subscription to someone else
sam...@2400baud.net
A friend of mine stupidly sent like 20 magazine subscription cards to
a cousin she doesn't get along with, and not until her cousin started
blaming another family member did she confess to what she had done.
The cousin is now talking about calling the post master to file a
complaint which I assume would fall under Mail Fraud, but I wanted to
see if someone knew of similar cases or instances of this happening so
she knows what to expect in case this does escalate to something
major.
Thanks --
sam
Matt Carter
to a disliked cousin. The friend later confessed this to the cousin.
Sam asks what could happen to the friend.]
Here:
http://snurl.com/igs8z
is an article about an attorney, Theresa McConnville, who supposedly
received over 50,000 prank magazines in 13 years. The perpetrator was
apparently a disgruntled client. The perpetrator was caught,
prosecuted for harassment, and deported.
The article goes on to explain that Colorado recently passed a law to
address this problem, since a number of Colorado legislators were
themselves falling victim to prank magazine subscriptions. However,
from what I can tell, the law that they passed is C.R.S. 6-6-103(2):
http://snurl.com/igt2c
which does nothing to punish the perpetrator who creates the fake
subscription, but rather makes the magazine publisher responsible for
canceling the fake subscription upon request (or else be subject to a
fine of up to $250).
IMHO, that particular law is unnecessary (and thus useless). Magazine
publishers, in my (unfortunately extensive) experience, are more than
happy to cancel fake subscriptions, since it costs them money to send
magazine issues to people who don't want them.
Several months ago, I fell victim to this same prank. Between
December 2008 and February 2009, I received issues of (and bills for)
34 different magazine titles, none of which I had ordered. Some days,
my mailbox got so full of magazines that the mail carrier couldn't
deliver my mail. Every few days, I'd spend an hour or so contacting
the customer service departments of the various magazines explaining
that it was a prank and requesting that they cancel my subscription
and stop sending me bills.
I reported the problem to my local police and to the US Postal
Inspector, but they didn't do much of anything (and I don't really
blame them, since there wasn't much evidence).
I asked the publishers to send me the subscription cards that created
the subscriptions. Several of them complied. Unfortunately, the
perpetrator had used a printer to print my name and address on address
labels and stuck them on numerous subscription cards, so I couldn't do
a handwriting analysis. I could tell from postmarks that the cards
were mailed from Boston.
I don't know for sure who was behind the prank subscriptions in my
case. However, the only people who don't like me (who also happen to
know my address) are a company called "Worldwide Travel" based in
Deerfield Beach, FL, and Global Services, Inc. based in Overland Park,
KS, both of whom I recently sued for allegedly fraudulent sales
practices. (I had won my fraud case against Global Services in
December, 2007, and I had a trial against Worldwide coming up in
March, 2009.)
What could the perpetrator be charged with?
My local police told me that the facts fit an "identity theft"
charge. I tend to disagree, since the supposed identity thief
received no benefit, which is a required element of the identity theft
laws of my state (VA).
A brief scan through my state's criminal laws indicated to me that the
forging statute might be applicable:
http://snurl.com/igvay
But, I could easily be wrong.
Laws against harassment might also be applicable, but again, I don't
know for sure.
I'd be interested in hearing from the legal experts on this newsgroup:
What civil or criminal causes of action might a prank magazine
subscription perpetrator be subject to?
As for Sam's friend, instead of trying to guess how deep the doo-doo
that she is in is, why not try to formulate a plan to get out? I
would start by sincerely and humbly apologizing to the cousin,
promising to work with the publishers to undo the subscriptions,
taking her out to dinner, offering to wash her car, scrub her toilets,
tubs and floors, and reiterating what a foolish, childish, irrational
thing the whole idea was in the first place. I think that apologies
would work a whole lot better than doing nothing and hoping the cousin
doesn't want to take legal action.
Good luck, and please keep me posted. I'm curious.
Mike Jacobs
> A friend of mine stupidly sent like 20 magazine subscription cards to
> a cousin she doesn't get along with,
I don't understand what OP means by saying, this friend "sent ...
cards" _to_ this cousin. I assume he is talking about the
subscription sign-up cards that are inserted in most magazines these
days, either stapled into the binding, or just blown in so they fall
out like leaves whenever you pick up the magazine. Stuffing a bunch
of those blank cards in an envelope and sending them to the cousin
would not be any big deal IMO - it just makes her add them to _her_
recycling bin, instead of friend's.
However, I feel that OP's puzzling choice of words is more likely a
euphemism for much more serious conduct, and that something is missing
from the blow-by-blow description of just what it was that this
"friend" actually did.
> and not until her cousin started
> blaming another family member did she confess to what she had done.
Since merely sending a pack of those CARDS _to_ that cousin en masse
doesn't sound like enough of a prank to cause the cousin any trouble
at all, let alone to lead to major intra-family blame-and-confession
scenarios, I'm going to assume OP meant the friend sent the magazine
subscription cards BACK TO THE MAGAZINE with the cousin's name and
address filled in as the "subscriber." Is that what happened? And
then, cousin started receiving 20 magazines every month that she
didn't want? Were they all the same? Or, at least, different
periodicals? Along with the magazines, of course, cousin would be
receiving BILLS from the magazine publishers asking cousin to pay for
them. Even with low-priced popular monthly magazines, 20
subscriptions runs into HUNDREDS of dollars worth of goods that were
fraudulently ordered by your "friend". If these mags are fancy, low-
circulation glossies, or weeklies, the amount of money potentially at
stake is even more because the cost per subscription is more.
> The cousin is now talking about calling the post master to file a
> complaint which I assume would fall under Mail Fraud,
That sounds like one possible avenue of remedy the cousin could
pursue, upon my assumed statement of the missing facts. Fraud
consists of making misleading or untrue statements to another, in the
expectation that they will act on those representations to their
detriment, along with actual reliance on those statements by the
person so injured. Mail fraud, of course, has the additional element
of using the U.S. Mail to perpetrate the fraud. Mailing the filled-
out subscription cards to the publishers, falsely purporting to be
doing so on behalf of the cousin, without any actual authority to do
so AND WITH NO PRESENT INTENTION OF PAYING FOR THEM is a form of
fraud, perpetrated on both the cousin and the magazine publishers.
They all stand to lose a substantial amount of money due to this not-
funny practical joke, until the publishers straighten out the
situation and stop mailing unwanted (and unpaid-for) magazines to the
cousin. And, of course, this little fraud scheme relied on the U.S.
Mails for its fulfillment, meeting the final element of a mail fraud
prosecution.
We haven't even scratched the surface yet of other possible issues,
such as discussing whether the prank included mailing the cousin
things that she would find offensive, such as ordering a subscription
to Hustler for a nun, or a Nazi magazine being sent to a Holocaust
survivor. In addition to the mail fraud, this may also constitute
sufficient facts for the tort of Intentional Infliction of Emotional
Distress, or Invasion of Privacy, or Defamation, or any number of
other possibilities, depending on all the facts.
> but I wanted to
> see if someone knew of similar cases or instances of this happening so
> she knows what to expect in case this does escalate to something
> major.
It's already something major, if my understanding is correct. Your
"friend" may have committed a serious Federal crime with potentially
grave penalties, and may also have tort liability to the cousin
allowing her to be sued for serious money damages. She needs to talk
to a criminal defense lawyer, pronto, Sam. There may be worthwhile
things she can do, now, to mitigate the damage and prevent prosecution
(and to assuage the cousin'e feelings so she doesn't follow thru on
her threats to report the matter to the Postmaster). PAYING the
publishers for all the wrongfully sent issues (and cancelling the
subscriptions as to as-yet-unsent issues), taking the TIME necessary
to sort this out herself and to get the unwanted subscriptions all
cancelled instead of leaving it all in the cousin's lap and forcing
her to handle it, would be a good start. Friend will also have to
'fess up TO THE PUBLISHERS that SHE is the one who sent in the sub
cards, NOT the cousin, so that cousin's credit rating should not be
dinged because of these shenanigans. Friend will also have to do
whatever she can to clean up cousin's credit reports if they have
ALREADY been dinged - although she certainly has no right to expect
cousin to share any credit info with her for that purpose, meaning
friend will probably have to pay a neutral third party (one bound with
a duty of confidentiality, reporting only to cousin) to do the
cousin's credit cleanup work.
Confession is only the FIRST step your friend has to take to make
things right; she ALSO has to do whatever is in her power to make
amends to all the persons she harmed, including the cousin AND the
publishers. Yes, this goes completely against the friend's apparent
original intent to commit a practical "joke" and cause untold
confusion and angst to her cousin; this reversal of fortune will
probably give cousin bragging ammo she can use for decades to come in
their intra-family battles (assuming friend doesn't do the smart thing
and try to bury the hatchet and be nice to cousin in the future
instead) but that's just part of the price friend will have to pay for
messing with cousin like this. I must say, it is IMO monumentally
STUPID for friend to have done something like this to a person who is
_already_ known to be her family enemy, especially as friend knew or
should have known she was also dragging innocent third parties (the
magazine publishers) into their family spat and causing financial harm
to those outsiders, all of which could, as it eventually did, hand
cousin the means to turn the tables and make life miserable for
friend, instead. WHAT was she thinking? Not much, apparently.
The bottom line is, coming clean and making amends on this matter
could turn into a true growth experience for your friend, and she may
emerge at the other end of the process as a chastened and much better
person, regardless of whether cousin also learns a similar lesson and
ends the family feud. One can hope, anyway.
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal
matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult your own lawyer in a
private communication.
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
Robert Bonomi
Lessee, what _all_ can happen.
1) The magazine companies can each come after your friend for payment of the
subscription ordered. (it's no crime to order a subscription for 'someone'
else, but -you- are responsible for paying for it.)
2) the cousin can file civil suit for 'harassment'
3) If the friend put the cousin's name/addr down for the 'bill to' info on
the cards, that _does_ meet the qualifications for 'mail fraud'. However
acting on it is solely the decision of the USPS. It _probably_ requires
a complaint by one of the magazine publishers, however -- *they* were
the ones actually 'defrauded'.
slide
I think only in the broadest interpretation would this be mail fraud. I
also doubt anybody would be prosecuted for such an action. The reason is
that the recipient of the magazines has a remedy which is to write
CANCEL across the bill when received. This will stop the magazines and,
AFAIK, remove any billing activity.
As to escalation, unless you wish a real family war to ensue, suggest to
the parties that you handle it w/o asking an official intervention.
Any lingering damages would be probably handled in a civil (tort)
proceeding or one to one. Personally speaking, I'd suggest an
appropriate punishment would be for the sender to pay for the 20 subs
and the recipient get 20 free magazines a month.