Traverse City Record-Eagle

Marta Hepler Drahos

Related Photos

  • Drahos

    CSS5B.jpg
November 29, 2010

Marta Hepler Drahos: Be careful purchasing

By MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS mdrahos@record-eagle.com

When a catalog for plus sizes made its way to my mailbox a few years ago I was surprised and more than a little indignant. Sure, I was overweight, but not off the charts — yet.

I threw the catalog away, but not before flipping through the pages and spotting a pair of shoes I had to have. I ordered them, clicking off the checked box that said, "Send me information about new arrivals and special sales," and figured that would be the end of it.

Instead more and more catalogs began to arrive, with names like "Woman Within" and "Just My Size," as the original catalog sold its mailing list to other companies. Within weeks it became a flood I couldn't stem. Eventually I stopped trying, though I cringed at the thought of our small town's postal employees, with whom we socialized regularly, handling my mail.

So when the colon "cleanse" diet pills came in the mail a few weeks ago, I wasn't even surprised. I figured they were a product sample from yet another company hoping to profit from my pork, and set the bottle aside to dispose of later.

But first I peeked at the list of "all natural" ingredients with unpronounceable names — garcinia cambogia extract, chromium polyniconate, gymnema sylvestre extract, cascara sagrada powder? — and the company's tempting claims. Just two pills a day would purify and detoxify my body, help me lose weight quickly and naturally, increase my energy and help me burn excess fat, and promote health and longevity.

When more pills arrived shortly after, my husband's suspicion kicked into high gear. He searched the company listed on the bottle, only to find an address for a P.O. box. Then he called our bank and discovered that the pills — almost $100 worth — had been charged to my debit card.

Turns out I'd been signed up for a "membership" to the tune of $89 a month.

It's not the first time this has happened. Years earlier someone charged hundreds of dollars in CDs — music decidedly not to my taste — to a record store in New York. Only an astute delivery man, suspicious of the sudden number of packages for the same address, stopped the theft.

Now, because we have fraud protection, the charge will come off our account and the bank will monitor the account's activity. But I'm not resting easy.

Neither is my husband, who has contacted the U.S. Post Office since mail fraud is a federal offense.

It won't be hard to prove, either. Because even with all those diet pills, I haven't shed a single pound.

Reach staff writer Marta Hepler Drahos at mdrahos@record-eagle.com.

Text Only