Over the last decade, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in the economics of magazine renewal policy.
It started with the sending of renewal notices about five to six months after subscriptions start. Of course, with our busy lives today, we don’t always take time to check our expiration dates and renew way too early, giving the magazine companies extra cash.
Not only that, but they sometimes don’t acknowledge that you have renewed your subscriptions at all. I’ve had to send proof of cashed checks to get my renewal enforced. Unfortunately, one or two companies still didn’t acknowledge even that, so I dropped them.
That is bad business practice, but since Wall Street’s fiasco giving us our present economic situation, I’ve come to believe it’s more of a standard practice.
It has been reinforced by a new tactic of automatic renewal. This goes like so: You get a renewal notice with a small-print line which states that you are automatically renewed unless you cancel your subscription. You just cannot stop it by not renewing; you must take the time and effort to send them a notice of cancellation in writing. Of course, they may not get it, so the game goes on.
I’d like to know when this automatic renewal policy came into being. To me, it’s just another loss of control over my life decisions. How about yours?
Stephen Fallon
Stanley
