Many of us in the Hagerstown and Frederick areas are beginning to notice starting in 2021 The Herald-Mail Media began duplicate charging for one month's time. In my case, I was duplicate billed for my subscription two times in September and then bi-weekly in December of 2021. When I finally got to speak to an actual person, as I was getting the run around through customer service emails, I yet got more of the run-around. I was told over and over again that the duplicate charges were for something called Premium Edition which is $9 extra per month, however, I advised them I never signed up for anything called that, I never authorized them to take anything out of my bank account extra, I had only ever agreed to a one-time monthly charge. I still to this day don't know what premium edition is because I never received anything different or extra in my newspaper. This company told another friend of mine that it is for something called Prime Edition, they told her what that is was extra duplicate coupons and sales ads in her Sunday paper and never got any of that either, lucky if we actually get our inserts where we live because they are missing 75% of the time. Then I saw an angry post by yet someone else complaining, on a social media platform that the extra charges are for a special magazine that none of us have ever seen. Herein lies the problem, none of us received any communication about any increases for anything in our newspaper subscriptions, none of us agreed or authorized any additional payments to this company since they never sent their entire customer database anything about these supposed increases none of us had informed consent or even a choice to subscribe or not. Without authorization and informed consent, this company is stealing money for people. So far, I have filed and had open claims with The Better Business Bureau, Consumer Protection Agency under The Attorney General's Office and I was at my bank to submit disputed charges. They need to be held accountable for stealing people's money. Without authorization from the person, they have no right to ANY of the monies they received from people's bank accounts without their express written and/or verbal confirmation, hence this makes it theft because they had neither. I urge all of you to start checking your bank account for any and all duplicate Herald-Mail Charges, they will show up as ACH DEBIT GCI NEWSPRS-OH and if you too are noticing additional duplicate bank charges for your normal newspaper subscription then you too are being stolen from and I urge each one of you to start filing complaints with BBB, CPA and go to your bank and request a dispute for chargeback like I and everyone else is doing. This companies customer service representatives are giving three different stories to people on what all these duplicate charges are for, so either someone is stealing and pocketing the monies stolen from everyone, or they are stealing just because they think they don't have to be held accountable. I for one am forcing them to become accountable and I won't stop until I get every last stinking dime back that they stole from me. read more
