"Have you had any reports of unscrupulous marketing from Eli Journals or New Hill Services?" a reader recently wrote me. "I was gone over the holidays, and returned to find THREE invoices for 'Inside Adobe Indesign' in my mailbox from them. The invoices, for $97, were dated 11/21, 12/6, and 12/20, each one more insistent than the previous one that I pay up for the 'newsletters that you ordered.' I looked around through the mail and my neatly organized wall of two dozen magazines and journals, and saw no copies of 'Inside Adobe Indesign' there. I also searched through my e-mail archive, and came up blank."

Although the reader does in fact use the Adobe InDesign program, he was certain he had never ordered the Eli Journals publication. "So I called the 800 number on the invoices. It was after 5 PM EST, and the voice jail asked me to press '2' if I had received a notice. When I did so, the message said, 'The notice you received is probably an offer to continue from a sample issue you received in the mail.' So I very carefully re-read the invoices, and nowhere do they mention anything about 'trial' or 'sample' issues. They say 'INVOICE' in big letters at the top and that the payment for my 'recent subscription order' is over 40 days past due."

A few days later, a copy of Inside Adobe InDesign did show up in the reader's mail. It also said nothing about being a trial or sample issue. "So they send me multiple invoices for a magazine I never asked for, and then start sending me the journal. Is that even legal? Call me cynical, but I think they purposely targeted the holiday season, knowing busy professionals would be coming back after a week or two off to desks piled high with mail, and would be less likely to carefully scrutinize these fake invoices."

One thing I was wondering about was how Eli Journals/New Hill Services had acquired the reader's name and address as a likely prospect for a publication about InDesign. Could Adobe have sold it to them from registration information? The reader doesn't think so. "We immigrated to Canada last May, and all my software registrations are with my old address in the U.S. I get relatively little junk mail here. (In Canada, you can actually REFUSE junk mail, unlike the US, where it is considered a constitutionally protected form of speech.) I suspect they got my name and address from the website for my business, which has one page that mentions that I use InDesign."

The reader's not quite sure what to do about the invoices, but he's definitely not going to pay them. "I'm tempted to just ignore these things, and let them keep spending postage, but what comes next -- will they report me to some credit agency, or turn me over to a bill collector? Luckily, I'm in a different country, and neither of those are likely to do them any good, nor me any harm. And how many busy professionals simply give the invoice to their secretary or office manager to pay? I wish I could do business like that -- not really. One thing is certain: neither I, nor anyone I have any influence over will ever buy anything from Eli Journals or New Hill Services."

Have you been the target of a marketing scam that we should all know about? Call the Gripe Line at 1 888 875-7916 or write me at Foster@gripe2ed.com and make your voice heard.