News

False Advertising

Dear member

Unfortunately at the present moment there is a person ringing ACA members and suggesting that you have either:

a. agreed to advertise with their magazine/journal, which goes under several names, for example Police Union,

b. or you that should advertise in their magazine or journal which is actually fictitious.

They will either suggest you have already agreed through a conversation earlier in the year or tell you they are sending you a proof of your already agreed upon ad to demonstrate you have pre-agreed to advertise with them. They actually get all your information off the web, which is why any so-called proof they may send does look real, yet you will not have authorised this. They will try to pressure you into agreeing to pay for the advert, again claiming you committed to it in an earlier conversation in the year. They may even say the proof they send by fax shows you committed.

If you pay by credit card they will just continually take money out of your account on a monthly basis and the only way you can stop this is by cancelling your card and being reissued a new card. Another method they will use is to call around and pick up a cash payment. In all these circumstances the journal or magazine will not exist or they will make up a poor copy to show you but it will not be distributed beyond the copies used to show advertisers. You can tell these journals are fakes because they do not have an editor, they are not registered and the articles are obviously just copied and pasted. They will also rarely identify the author and the journals are poorly designed with low quality.

They will always use a magazine or journal name that sounds community minded such as Police Union, Caring for Kids, Cancer Council etc, all these names appear to be based on a legitimate organisation; however they are not. If you ask the caller to give you a contact number to verify the journal or magazine they will either try to talk you around it or fob you off. If you do get a number it will either be a mobile or it will not actually take you to a legitimate organisation. Most legitimate magazines or journals do not cold call and can be easily verified. If in any doubt just do not commit, if you have trouble saying ‘no’, just hang up, these people can be very convincing and even threatening.

All these are cons to separate you from your money. Do not pay or agree to any advertising that you have not initiated personally (magazine and journals do not ring 6 months after a phone call), even if the caller claims you have and you have just forgotten. Do not get taken advantage of simply because the name of the journal/magazine seems legitimate. Once these people have you hooked they are very hard to get rid of and they are very hard to catch because they do not operate from a legitimate base.

Please pass this on to any ACA members or other counsellors, as these people are doing the rounds now and most probably will ring any counsellor who is on the web. If you have given some-one like this your credit card details and are in doubt, cancel your card and get a new one re-issued.

ACA does not authorise or approve of magazines or journals cold calling, nor does it support this type of advertising.

Regards

Philip

Philip Armstrong

CEO (ACA)

1300 784 333