John Clare

Reader's Digest customer service takes the cake.

John Clare recently received an invoice from Reader's Digest demanding payment for its "Bird Watching in New Zealand" pack. The company threatened John that if he didn't pay up immediately, its Debt Recovery Department would "take action".

John says he's fed up. He's been phoning and writing to the company for months trying to cancel various publications – there's the bird watching pack plus three other magazines. The company has stopped two of the publications but invoices for the others – totalling over $100 – keep coming.

According to the Reader's Digest website, if you don't want a product, all you have to do is "drop us a line". But that hasn't worked for John. He says Reader's Digest hasn't bothered to reply to any of the letters he's written in the last three months.

Frustrated, John contacted our consumer advice service for help. When we got in touch with Reader's Digest, it said it would clear the accounts. The company said it didn't have any record of John's letters and therefore couldn't act on them.

This isn't the first time we've written about problems with Reader's Digest. Our consumer adviser Paul Doocey says we regularly get complaints from members who say the company has continued to send material after they've phoned or written to cancel. Reader's Digest corporate affairs manager Fiona Hamann told us the company "doesn't send unsolicited goods". Paul says that's not what are members tell us.

What are your rights?

Unsolicited goods are covered by the Unsolicited Goods and Services Act. But this Act is more than 30 years old and needs updating.

If you receive unsolicited goods and don't want them, the Act gives you two options. "You can write to the company and give them 30 days to pick up the item, after which time, if nothing has happened, you can keep it. Or you can do nothing. With this option, the item is yours after three months", says Paul.

The government has recently announced plans to amend the law. We want to see things simplified to state that recipients of unsolicited goods aren't liable for them in any way. Companies that demand payment for unsolicited goods should also face stiffer penalties. Current penalties are a miserable $1000.

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