Listen you stupid magazines - I'm not happy one single bit with your latest ploys to prolong subscriptions. We get so many magazines I can't even keep track. I'm much more of a magazine reader than a book reader these days. If I get sufficiently pissed off at some of them though, I'll end that in a hurry. A slew of renewal forms just came through the house and I noticed three trends.
One - I almost ripped one up that my wife no longer wants to receive but on closer inspection, it had written on it: "You will be automatically renewed and billed unless you return this card marked DO Not Continue". That's some bullshit right there. It's OK for auto insurance to do that and the like. It's NOT ok for magazines to do it. It's just not. Why? Because for years we've been trained to get a renewal card and decide what we want to do. It's standard operating procedure for subscribing to a magazine for a certain length of time. I'm sure the economy caused this, but big business is slimy so maybe it was coming regardless.
Two - I already paid for another year of one of my favorite magazines. Another mailing came and my wife even said "Oh, I thought you paid that one". I did. It was another offer to add another year on for a reduced rate, but it was made out to look like my normal renewal card. The slimy bastages are looking for people who have so many subscriptions they can't keep track of what they already paid - so when they get this, they just check the box and pay another year ontop of what they're already getting. I swear the text explaining that I was in good standing for the next year and this was for 12 issues ontop of that was very hard to find and very misleading even to someone like me. Imagine the old goats getting this! They might not even live another two years!
Three - I'm 6 months into a 1 year subscription and I'm being told to renew or risk interuption of service. I'm not going to miss my mailed medications. I'm not going to lapse my auto insurance. I might miss a month of a magazine that just jumbles their article names and keeps cranking out the same old shit month after month. Yeah, I'm not going to renew you period, Pilgrim. I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for it though so they don't trick me into sending them money.
Magazine marketers have become carnival barkers. Word!
3 comments:
I'm with you. Good-bye "Cat Fancy", "Birds and Blooms", and "The American Philatelist"!
Problem is, what do I do when my nieces and nephews come back next year with their school fund raisers again?
piss off, yo
Whatever you do, don't let that subscription to Voluptuous XL expire. Them's the real deal in there.
But you can cancel the Gent subscription. They've gone from "Home of the D-Cups" to "Home of the Silicone Holocaust."
I've always thought it would encourage me to be more supportive of the education system if the nieces and nephews could offer this type of periodical literature in the school fundraisers.
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