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As part of my ongoing effort to bring you interesting and informative personal-finance information, I subscribe to several magazines, including Smart Money. Smart Money isn’t my favorite money magazine, but it has some useful articles.
In 2005, I paid $20 to subscribe to Smart Money for two years. In 2007, I paid $20 to subscribe for another two years. Today I received my latest issue, which included this wrap-around “cover” announcing that “as part of our Continuous Service program, your subscription will be automatically renewed unless you tell us to stop”:
This is annoying, but it’s an annoyance I can live with. Some periodicals (especially newspapers) automatically renew subscriptions. For a variety of reasons, people are more likely to accept the state in which they are required to do nothing. If the default is “the subscription will expire if you do nothing”, people will generally let the subscription expire. But if the default is “your subscription will automatically continue if you do nothing”, people will generally let the subscription renew.
Dumb money
As I say, this is annoying, but I can deal with it. What made me cranky, however, was this bit at the bottom of the renewal notice:
Smart Money wants to automatically renew my subscription for one year at $20. But I was previously paying $20 for a two-year subscription. They want to use this automatic renewal to double my rate. This is bullshit.
I did some research to see if subscription rates have increased since 2007. They have not. At the official Smart Money subscription page, I found the following deals:
- One year for $12
- Two years for $18
Apparently my reward for being a “preferred subscriber” is that I will pay more for one year of the magazine than new subscribers pay for two years. That sounds like dumb money to me. It gets worse. Using Google, I found an even better deal, also from the official page:
- One year for $11
- Two years for $18
- Three years for $24
And Amazon has an even better price: 24 issues for just $14!
Out of the frying pan
Armed with this info, I prepared to unleash my righteous indignation on a customer service rep. I dialed the phone number on the wraparound cover. But I couldn’t reach customer service — only an automated answering system, which offered two choices:
- Stay in the “continuous service” program and renew the subscription.
- Be removed from the “continuous service” program and cancel the subscription.
I didn’t want either one. I wanted option three: give me back my lower rate. I gave up and tried the web.
Smart Money actually has a website that purports to let you manage your account. Fine. I clicked on the link to renew my subscription and saw this:
This clearly says: “Fill in the form below to access your subscription account.” I understood this to mean: “When you enter your information, you will be able to perform various actions on your account.” But no. That’s not what it really means. I entered my account number and was greeted with this screen:
That’s it. A blank page with the command: “renew your subscription”. Can any of you tell me what this means? Checking a different page on the site revealed that by entering my account number, I had actually agreed to renew the subscription.
I hate crap like this. I hate it when businesses treat me like a commodity. Usually when these things happen, a business loses me as a customer forever. (No joke.) But I can’t just pretend Smart Money doesn’t exist; it’s an important part of the financial media. Argh!
Free magazines!
How much does this bother me? So much that I’ve spent an hour processing images and writing this post. So much that I cancelled my subscription — and then re-subscribed for two years for $14 through Amazon. And so much that I’m going to give away free subscriptions to GRS readers — for Smart Money’s competitors.
Six commenters on this article (chosen at random) will receive a one-year subscription to the personal-finance magazine of their choice from those reviewed in these two articles:
The only caveat is that if you win, you cannot choose Smart Money. To qualify, all you have to do is share your own tale of financial frustration in the discussion on this post. (Contest ends at 12:01 am Tuesday morning.)
This article is about Books, Odds and Ends, Real-Life Saturday, 21st March 2009 (by J.D. Roth)
March 21st, 2009 at 5:09 am
This happens all the time. Almost with anything that you are subscribed to, the company will have more interest in gaining NEW customers than it has in keeping the existing ones. When I tried to replace my water-logged cell phone with my mobile provider, my “loyal customer for 4 years” allowed my to purchase a replacement phone for $150. But if I signed on as a new customer, I received the SAME phone for free. And both carried a 2-year agreement? The customer service agent could not answer my question why the company she was representing was going to reward a “loyal 4-year customer” who paid every one of his bills on time by charging $150 for the phone whereas a new customer with no billing history would receive the phone for free. She transferred me to a supervisor. What’s funny, is that when I said that I would leave and going to another company, because the mobile phone business is set up to acquire new customers rather than keep existing ones, the supervisor said that I would be giving up my loyal customer status - I laughed at his argument because the only thing that my loyal customer status got me was the chance to pay $150 MORE than a brand new customer. Some loyalty I explained. I eventually received the phone for $19.
March 21st, 2009 at 5:12 am
My tale of financial frustration:
A Time Warner cable salesman was going door to door in my neighborhood. When he came to my house he wanted me to upgrade my plan. I used Time Warner Cable for cable and internet services and was paying $110 for both. He claimed that by adding their phone service I would lower my total bill to $100 a month. I questioned him over and over saying it didn’t seem right that I could add another service and lower my bill. But he guaranteed me it was true and put it in writing so I signed up.
A month later I receive my first bill and it’s for $142. I immediately call Time Warner and tell the lady I enrolled in a package that costs $100 a month, not $142 a month. She says no way that is possible they would never offer me a deal like that. I say would you like me to fax you the paper work? She says no, theres just now way I got that deal and that the deal I have is their best offer and a great one.
So I ask for a supervisor and he pretty much says the same thing. I should be happy with the $142 I’m paying because it’s a great deal. At this point I’m screaming at the guy, but he still refuses to budge.
So the next day I go to their offices and tell them I want to cancel everything. She asks why and I explain the situation and this time am able to show her the guys paper work. She makes a few calls and gets me the rate I signed up for and knocks $10 off for my inconvienance. Why couldn’t they do that from the start? Because they suck.
I hate Time Warner. I have nothing but problems with them. Unfortunately they basically have a monopoloy in my area.
March 21st, 2009 at 5:27 am
Here’s my most recent tale of financial frustration, written as an “open letter” to AT&T:
Dear Valued AT&T High Speed Internet Service Equipment Processing Center:
I am formally begging you, for the love of God, to stop to the onslaught of declined rebate notices in my mailbox. Wouldn’t you agree you’ve made your point, now that I can repeat verbatim the five reasons why my rebate for the purchase of high-speed internet equipment was declined? (Not that I initiated this rebate in the first place—it was you who tracked me down with the offer. But that’s beside the point.)
Apparently also beside the point is the fact that not one of the five reasons actually applies to me. Now don’t get me wrong. You had already convinced me that resistance was futile with the first notice. Sure, I would have preferred to receive a check, but does anyone honestly think they have a better than 50/50 chance of receiving rebates to which they are entitled these days? I’ll give you credit for at least trying to justify this petty bait-and-switch scheme by turning the blame on your customers.
Your second and third rejection notices, while annoying, didn’t concern me unduly. Mailing errors happen. Notices four and five even elicited a chuckle. Rolled eyes and derisive snorts ensued after notices six and seven. Over the past several months, however, I have become increasingly disturbed and perplexed by the apparently vindictive recurrence of this cockroach-like mailing.
So please, forget I ever asked. Purge my rebate request from your database. Shred my correctly completed, dated, and signed request form. Incinerate my original proof of purchase. I’ve learned my lesson. For the good of rainforests everywhere, won’t you end the madness?
Signed,
Valued (and Broken) AT&T Customer
P.S. I must point out that the day you reach 54 postcards sent (which appears inexorable, unless a miracle occurs and this humble request is heeded), you will have spent more money on postage informing me of my denied rebate than the actual rebate was worth. Now how does that feel?
March 21st, 2009 at 5:35 am
This week I received a $200 tax refund and like all government checks, it was deposited directly to my checking account.
My bank’s system seemed to think it was a paycheck. Since I automatically withdraw $200 per paycheck for my retirement savings, the computer automatically slapped the entire refund into my retirement savings, when I was planning to put it in my emergency fund.
I called the bank to complain and learned that a computer error — made in just a microsecond — would take a human five business days to fix.
I’m still trying to figure out if the computer is dumber or smarter than the human working on correcting the mistake!
March 21st, 2009 at 5:46 am
Geez, this must be an annoying new practice magazines are doing!! I also subscribe to SM but haven’t had to renew it yet. I did have the same experience as yours, though with Country Living, a nice home mag I’ve gotten for a few years. Same as you, they automatically renewed at a much higher rate. I searched endlessly for a way to contact them (e-mail, phone) but ended up only being able to return the bill with an ad for 12 issues for $10, not the $20 they wanted to charge. They sent me back a letter stating I could only renew at $20. I cancelled!!! Haven’t renewed it yet, don’t know if I will.
March 21st, 2009 at 5:52 am
I’m going through one right now. Check this out: Six months ago my bank hits me with a $5 account fee. I call and ask why as the description is vague: net service fee.
They said it was for too many ETFs. All right, I bought that, I had done several that month. So I reorganized my accounts to do just one a month.
For two months after, no fee. Thought I was good to go. Then suddenly at month 4, fee again!
I called and asked why since it’s only one ETF a month. They said then it was for low balance. Flustered, I asked which was it, balance or ETFs? They said balance. I said are you sure. They said yes.
Month 5, kept the balance in the account where they said to keep it. Did two ETFs as apparently this wasn’t the problem. Got hit with the fee AGAIN. And this time it blamed on, guess what, doing more than one ETF.
Month 6, higher balance, only one ETF this month. I wonder what’s going to happen!
March 21st, 2009 at 5:52 am
That is terrible. Its great that you took the time to write this article and bring this up to make people aware. You know that here a thousands of people out there that just don’t pay attention and fall into this trap.
March 21st, 2009 at 5:53 am
That’s crazy, J.D., but not unlike my experience with Everyday Food Magazine that I have subscribe to since its inception. The difference is that I get e-mails from the company telling me I can get the magazine for $10 per year, but when I click the link it takes me to my account, where “loyal” subscribers pay nearly double for a one year renewal. Reminds me of an old joke my father used to tell where the punchline began, “Such a deal I have for you . . .”
I eventually reached a customer service rep (a real live person based in America!) who finally gave me a slightly better deal since I was renewing gifts as well.
Thanks, American Ingenuity in Marketing. Way to tick off your most loyal customers.
March 21st, 2009 at 5:54 am
JD - You can send me a subscription to Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. I actually read all of these at the local library but as long as you are giving one away, I would like to have it.
March 21st, 2009 at 5:55 am
I hate this also. Though I have never caught it with a magazine subscription before. Comcast is the bane of my existence, giving intro rates and then jacking them up by over 300%. Why yes, I love to pay $60+ for something that for the past 6months I have only had to pay $20 for. Thank you so much Comcast. Oh, and when your service goes down and I can’t get on the internet for a week, don’t bother to credit me that would be detrimental to your profits.
March 21st, 2009 at 6:03 am
For subscription services I use a credit card with “ShopSafe”.
This allows me to set the charge amount and how many months the card can be billed.
This eliminates the auto-subscription problem for me.
March 21st, 2009 at 6:04 am
Heh, alright, I’ll give it a go and I think I have a pretty good ‘lesson’ story. Back in December I was offered a long term IT contract job in a different city and the job market being what it is I moved and took the job. About a month and a half in I found it was not as long term as I thought and in fact was only a 6 month contract, I was rather upset I was lied to but I need the job so I just took the hit and kept working. Three weeks ago they cut my pay, something I didn’t know considering I singed a contract, and this last week Monday myself and another guy were given our two weeks notice, another think I was not aware of considering I signed a contract. Anyway, this being my last week of employment there I am spending the weekend looking for jobs and looking into how to file for unemployment if I need it as I have never done it before.
So, financial frustration, pay cut and job loss…I guess I learned something new with this experience and am wiser for it.
March 21st, 2009 at 6:06 am
Wow this is lame. And as you mentioned, Smart Money is not exactly the best PF mag out there. I used to subcribe to Entertainment Weekly. One time they called and tried to sell me a big book about movies. I was not interested. The Rep got nasty with me. I cancelled EW that day.
March 21st, 2009 at 6:07 am
I can agree with the article from a similar experience. I was out of the country for a few months and during that time, my local cable company introduced some new TV channels.
Part of the promotion was that everyone would get these channels but you had to cancel before the first month preview ended or would pay an additional $15/mth for this package.
Being away, I did not find out until my monthly bill was in its 4th month. It took a lot of calls to the “no-customer-service” department at which point I finally just cancelled my entire service out of frustration and went with another company.
Never understood their reverse billing strategy from a business standpoint as many people did leave this cable company also.
March 21st, 2009 at 6:10 am
My husband and I recently subscribed to a marriage magazine that we had been previously enjoying online. The online version didn’t have all the articles and we were reading it enough that we felt we should support it. Two issues into our subscription the editorial was a teary eyed farewell to the print version of the magazine. They asked us to continue reading on-line and replaced the balance of our subscription with their women’s magazine. We didn’t want the women’s magazine. That’s why we didn’t subscribe to it in the first place. Why would a company who knew they were pulling a magazine out of print still accept subscriptions that they had no intention of honouring? If they were backed into the corner with this, why were subscribers not given the option of receiving their money back OR having the remainder of their subscription filled with one of their 14 other magazines. Pre-selecting the women’s magazine as our replacement makes a bold statement regarding their perceived readership and perhaps why they went out of business in the first place. We had also given a subscription to another couple as a wedding present. It’s just frankly embarrassing to have that gift turn into something else. It’s like we gave them a toaster and two months later it spontaneously turned into a potted plant. Still maybe useful, but not what we had in mind.
March 21st, 2009 at 6:17 am
Must be a trend! I just got a letter yesterday from Kiplinger’s to let me know that if I do nothing, my subscription to Kiplinger’s Personal Finance will auto renew at the “discounted price” of $19.95 for 12 issues. Their current offer on the web site is $12 for 12 issues (and possibly cheaper elsewhere).
I looked back through my receipts and I paid $12 for 12 issues the past two years and there has never been an auto-renew letter. I put the letter aside out of disgust figuring I would cancel over the weekend and resubscribe after it stops showing up in the mail.
I can see why they do it - it makes them money, but treating repeat customers like idiots doesn’t earn them anymore respect than they are showing us.
March 21st, 2009 at 6:24 am
I like to take advantage of free trials of magazines, rather than shelling out several bucks at the newsstand or committing to a year’s subscription. This is a good deal for me, except that the bills and dunning letters start pouring in long before the “free” issue ever arrives. “By now, you’ve surely enjoyed our fine magazine at our expense, you freeloading deadbeat. Now, do the right thing and pay up, loser.” The Atlantic was the most recent culprit.
Even if I had been favorably inclined toward the magazine, by the time it arrives I’m annoyed and peevish.
March 21st, 2009 at 6:24 am
I called up American Express the other day to pay off my bill. It’s phone system tells you how much you owe, so I paid that off. Two weeks later I get a bill for about four dollars, which supposedly constitutes accrued interest during the month. If I call up to pay off the bill, I don’t expect to be hit with some residual interest after the fact.
My friend went to Baltimore over the weekend. I went with her. Apparently she lost or had her Key bank card stolen. Somebody rung up a few hundred dollars worth of stuff on the card in a Whole Foods. This put her balance in the red buy about twenty dollars. She discovered that day she lost the card, and canceled it over the Internet. When she got back home to Michigan, she was surprised to learn that somebody had emptied her account and Key Bank has charging her $60 a day in late fees. The Bank expected her to blindly pay this without providing her any accounting of fraudulent charges that were made. Worst, they called her up cussing at her days after this happened to pay. She eventually cleared the matter up at the local branch and didn’t have to pay anything. However, she canceled the account with a very bitter taste in her mouth for the Bank.
Finally, I am a bankruptcy attorney. One of the stupidest things I see credit card companies do is raise the interest rates of customers who 1) are in good standing, but have fallen behind on payments to other merchants, or 2) raise the interest rates for being late (that is what a late penalty is for). These things more then anything else force many folks into bankruptcy, causing the companies a complete loss to people who otherwise probably would have paid off the debt if given time.
March 21st, 2009 at 6:27 am
Great post, JD. I’m with you on “Usually when these things happen, a business loses me as a customer forever. (No joke.)” The Internet seems to be exacerbating this trend, as do endless voicemail prompts on “customer service” phone lines. The more I’m treated like a numerical entity instead of a person, the less I am inclined to participate at all. Which might not be a bad thing!
March 21st, 2009 at 6:28 am
I belonged to a gym that decided to raise rates, but they were not just going up in price every September there would be an additional equipment fee. All they would say is that the equipment fee was going to be the same as the monthly fee or slightly higher. I have feeling that meant always higher.
I should thank them I have found some great hiking/ snowshoeing trails nearby. I never have a reaction to chemicals when I take a swim in the lake.
March 21st, 2009 at 6:30 am
That’s ridiculous JD, and I’m glad you canceled the subscription and renewed through your usual method. Personally I only subscribe to a few magazines, and I ignore ever single email/snail mail they send me, even if it means that my subscription at some point gets canceled. If I really enjoy the magazine I will go onto Amazon.com to re-subscribe (best prices around). Letting the subscription fail forces me to evaluate whether I really need/want the various magazines.
March 21st, 2009 at 6:31 am
These phone menus that go nowhere frustrate all of us. The situation worsens when you’re in a time critical mode trying to find out coverage for an emergency medical procedure, and no matter what menu item you choose, you can’t make contact with a live person.
Another maddening item are voice commands that don’t work.
March 21st, 2009 at 6:37 am
Consumer Reports automatically renewed my online subscription one year. I didn’t know about it until I received an email after the fact. I was a bit upset but went ahead and took the second year subscription (no I didn’t complain). I ended up keeping an eye on it and canceled right before the end of the second year. I’ve since received ‘we want you back’ emails. I suppose I should let them know that of all consumer magazines, I’m surprised that they would take part in this practice.
March 21st, 2009 at 6:37 am
Arggh — I hate this stuff too. Call me old fashioned but I always thought that companies who really wanted to do well in the long run had to work to keep their customers happy, not try and slip things by them, especially in this economic environment. In fact I just finished fighting with my credit card company who had decided to raise my interest rate despite my sterling history with them — ridiculous! I honestly think that if companies were up front about things, and treated their customers more respectfully and earned their trust, they’d probably do a lot better. But alas, that doesn’t seem to be the case these days. Anyway, thanks for writing this up and putting it out there. Hopefully that will teach them not to try and pull stuff like this!
March 21st, 2009 at 6:37 am
I stopped reading Money magazine for a different reason - all the families they profiled as having these big money problems always made over $150k a year. Now, I realize there are some people out there like that, but how about some variety! It got old reading every month how Dick & Jane can’t make it on their 6-figure incomes.
I get all my info off the web now - it’s cheaper and I don’t have a bunch of old magazines sitting around. How green of me!
March 21st, 2009 at 6:41 am
I cancelled my subscription to Smart Money last year. I never saw the “Smart” in it. It dealt a lot with funds investing (which I don’t do) and it featured high end items like articles on Cadillacs, very expensive watches, and overpriced vacations. Some people may find these items as money savers, but I knew this magazine just didn’t appeal to me and what I wanted from life.
March 21st, 2009 at 6:41 am
J.D.,
Nice move you’re making with this give-away. I hope you’ve also forwarded this post to Smart Money!
I agree with your assessment of this magazine … I received a subscription as a gift, but found nothing of interest to me in the issues. Like you said, the magazine’s focus seems to be geared towards high income individuals who want to spend and be seen.
My tale of financial frustration deals with DirecTV. The reception of some channels on ONE of our two TVs was severely degraded. Calling “customer service” I learned I’d need to pay a $20 service fee for a repair person to come out. I asked to speak to a supervisor (wanting to ask for a no fee visit), only to be told the fee would be $80!!
I ended the call, and called several days later, and this time was told it would be $35!!!
My husband and I had been throwing around the idea of getting rid of our TV service anyway, and this was the impetus we needed. We cancelled our service and have been saving $69.78 every month since last July!!
March 21st, 2009 at 6:41 am
Well, I don’t want the magazines. But what a creative way to go about things. I hope this has effect.
My latest similar experience was a month trial of audible. I was expecting to cancel before the month was up, but poor tech support and a “stuff you, just pay up” approach made quite sure of it. Also that I won’t be trying them again in the next several years.
March 21st, 2009 at 6:43 am
I used to subscribe to a magazine that one of my professional organizations put out. It was a great magazine but cost about $100 a year so after a while I wanted to drop it. I couldn’t find a phone number to call to do it and their web page didn’t have a means for canceling it. I did enjoy the magazine so I didn’t try beyond that, after two more years the expiration date on the credit card they were charging changed, so I figured I would stop getting it, I still got it for 6-8 months after that before the magazine called me to asked for the new expiration date. I had a very hard time explaining to the caller that I didn’t want the magazine but still wanted my membership in the organization. Now, when I subscribe to things that auto renew, I use which ever credit card is going to expire first.
March 21st, 2009 at 6:47 am
My frustration came when I wanted to purchase a hybrid bike from Target. It was on sale for $199 down from $229 (about a 10% discount). Of course when I got there, they were sold out of them. The impulse shopper in me wanted to take a bike home that day so I spotted a very similar one on the rack. It’s price was $249 but not on sale. I asked the manager of the department if they could give me 10% off the bike that was in stock and she said no very quickly and walked away. I thought is was a fair trade but I guess they just did not want my money that day!
March 21st, 2009 at 6:54 am
To anyone who wins, I recommend subscribing to Portfolio, great magazine with terrific articles.
March 21st, 2009 at 6:55 am
I have not had a problem with magazines, but have had problems with my newspaper. I chose to let my newspaper subscription lapse, but did they ever stop sending me the newspaper? No! They continued to send the newspaper, that I never read and then tried to charge me an enormous amount for a service I no longer wanted. I tried to cancel the newspaper three times but they never got the hint. Now, finally I get only the Sunday paper at an extremely discounted rate.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:00 am
I have business and personal accounts with a credit union. If my personal checking account gets too low to clear a check, it automatically pulls from savings. I was told the same applied to my business accounts — until it didn’t happen. I double checked and was told they had corrected it.
Then my check to the IRS bounced in January (with about double the amount due in my savings). The IRS tried twice, and the CU never e-mailed or called but mailed notices that I received 9 days after the fact. I know this is common BANK practice, but my CU said it wasn’t the case. I waited, but IRS didn’t re-present the check. I called the IRS and was told all is fine. I waited some more, with the money now in checking (despite assurances that NOW my accounts are set to transfer). I had to pay $50 in NSF fees to the credit union (though it came from their mistake/misinformation). The IRS finally sent me a form that I had to pay via certified check (can’t blame them) — and I owe penalties for the payment now being late. I wrote a letter explaining my reasonable cause of why I should not owe penalties, so we’ll see what the verdict is. I’m hoping this won’t put me on an audit list!
Re: your frustration, sometimes you can find a way to reach a person via phone at http://www.gethuman.com. I don’t see Smart Money on there, but The Wall Street Journal is listed.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:06 am
I’m interested in the homesteading journals. I was thinking about a subscription to one of them already, so a free one would be awesome.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:07 am
This just happened yesterday…we recently refinanced with Bank of America (BoA). Our first payment is due on April 1. I went on their website to see how I can pay my mortgage online. After browsing their website for half an hour, I wasn’t able to find the way. I decided to call the customer service. This is when the disaster begins. The rep somehow hung up on me the first try (after inputing numerous information like account number, zip code, etc.) The second call, I was transferred to one department, back to same department that tranferred me, transferred back (this time I made the customer service rep walk through with me). She actually sighed audibly couple of times! hahahaha! transferred to two more departments before I got a simple question answered 45 minutes later.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:10 am
I had a somewhat similar surprise when I got my latest statement from the Chicago Tribune. I pay via automatic payment from my checking account so all I get is a notice of the impending deduction. The latest one added $8 to the subscription price, not only for the upcoming period but for the last one (already paid for), as well. I got on the phone and let the Trib know that I wasn’t going to pay a retroactive price increase. After a bit of fiddling with the telephone rep I got the charge removed, and also got a lower weekly delivery rate to boot.
I wonder how many people called to complain? In these times it makes sense to read each and every bill that comes to make sure you’re only paying for what you get.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:12 am
DH is a AAA member. I hadn’t renewed it for him last year as early as usual so they gave him a call, or at least he thought it was AAA calling. It was actually a AAA reseller. He renewed AND signed me up, without telling me. I didn’t know until the cards arrived in the mail. He was charged more than the regular membership fee for my dues - it was cheaper on the AAA web site. Plus, I already have roadside assistance through my car warranty so I don’t need AAA. I called to cancel and spent half and hour arguing with them, they kept telling me there were no refunds. Finally I told them I would dispute it with my credit card company and they relented. But they prorated my refund and kept the amount for the first 15 or so days - those days that I didn’t even know I was a AAA member. I should have disputed that amount. I know I will never deal with them again, sheesh.
If I had to pick from the list of your best financial mags I’d pick Consumer Reports (already get Kiplingers,it was a free promotion), and Backwoods Home for a self-sufficient one, as we already get Mother Earth News (luvin’ that one). I’d love to have a couple more to page through each month…
March 21st, 2009 at 7:16 am
I ditched Smart Money after an entire article about how you should TRY to pay off your car in a couple years when you’re in your 30s.
Idiots.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:34 am
This seems like a relatively new phenomenon. I don’t remember ever dealing with this before.
Entertainment Weekly just did this to me. I never noticed the “auto renewal” thing they sent me or ignored it. Then they started sending me bills for $45 with late notices and saying the were going to start charging me interest!
I finally called them and they change my account balance to $0. I probably won’t subscribe again soon.
Also, I just went with Verizon FIOS. They had a deal where you got HBO/SHO/Etc for free for 1 month (I swore they told me 3 months, but whatever). Instead of just removing your access to those channels after one month, they auto-subscribe you after 30 days and charge you for it!!
March 21st, 2009 at 7:34 am
Where I live this is called “negative billing” and it is illegal. It became controversial here about 10-15 years ago when cable companies started adding new channels to subscribers’ cable line-ups and billed subscribers unless they called to cancel the new channel within 30 days.
It caused a huge uproar and backlash and we now have legislation preventing this practice.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:36 am
Spot on JD… give’em hell!
My favorite magazine - Sports Illustrated - recent did this crap to me on a gift subscription I gave to my nephew last year.
Fortune ran a similiarly crappy deal… I had subscribed for about 15 years and they started sending me urgent renewal 2nd and 3r notices a full 6 months before my last subscription elapsed.
Nutty behavior and NOT full service.
Thanks for sharing and riling us up as well!
March 21st, 2009 at 7:39 am
My husband and I recently realized that we spend a crapload on phone, internet, and tv cable that could be greatly reduced if we combined all three. We’re in Canada and have two real choices: phone company or cable company.
Because we don’t want to deal with changing our email addresses and because we like the cable company better than the phone company we’d like to use the cable company. BUT their bundle for the equivalent is $20 a month more than the phone company.
So we call to have them price match. They run around saying that the service isn’t equivalent if we have more than one tv (nope) or don’t like the phone company’s one year contract (don’t mind) or want their local cable channel (nope) or need a service call (I’d better not be paying $20 a month for service calls).
They won’t directly match the bundle pricing but then they start saying they can throw in all this stuff for free (digital cable-that I don’t want) or more tv channels or faster internet (we’re pretty light users so that doesn’t appeal either).
I counter-offer that I’ll downgrade my package to light speed and basic cable and he can give me a free upgrade to high speed and classic cable (which is what we have now). No dice.
He then or offers me the phone for $15 a month.
At that point, I realize that with the phone at $15 a month our monthly rate will jump to ABOVE their own bundle rate. ARGH.
I said point blank to the guy “I’m a loyal customer who is going to cancel this service if you don’t do this and you’re telling me you can do nothing for me?”
It’s still not resolved. I’m going to get my husband to call today to see if he has better luck and, if not, we’ll cancel and go with the phone company. I really didn’t want to but for $20 a month we have to.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:39 am
A few years ago, I signed up for Billpay online at Wachovia.com. I had been a faithful customer of Wachovia for over ten years. The bill pay service was pretty user-friendly, and things were smooth sailing. I got to control when, where, and how the bills were paid. One month after paying my utility bill, out of the blue, I get a returned check from another county’s utility company. My local utility, never received payment, even though I had manual entered the correct utility’s mailing address. I was slapped with a fine by my utility for late payment, and Wachovia just shrugged their shoulders at the mistake. So long to Wachovia Billpay. I’ll pay my bills the old fashioned way.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:40 am
This is pretty much Standard Operating Procedure in the magazine world. Many years ago I had a similar thing happen with AutoWeek. I would subscribe for a year for $10 or something, and then a year later they’d want me to re-up for $20. After a few years I just began letting the subscription lapse every year and then waiting for the phone calls asking me to resubscribe at a “special rate”, which I would do. I’d miss a few issues, but so what.
I never understood the magazine industry’s penchant for punishing existing subscribers with higher rates.
By the way, while I appreciate the free magazine offer, I don’t have time to read the ones I get now, if you happen to randomly choose my name, feel free to pick someone else instead. Thanks!
March 21st, 2009 at 7:42 am
I love the outrage. What is outrageous to me is that, most likely, at the corp offices of smart money, people devised this and someone signed off on it. Not so “Smart”.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:43 am
This didn’t fit in the original post, but I can remember the first time this happened to me. About 15 years ago, I subscribed to the Portland newspaper. At that time, I also subscribed to the paper for the small town in which I lived.
I had subscribed to many magazines and newspapers in the past, and they all worked the same way: When your subscription term was up, you received renewal notices and then the publication ceased to come.
Well, The Oregonian used this “auto-renewal” method. I couldn’t afford to re-subscribe (I was in debt!), so I just let my subscription lapse. Or so I thought. But the paper just kept coming. Then I got a bill for it. I called the paper to complain, and the CS rep was very brusque, explaining that because I hadn’t canceled, it was assumed that I wanted to keep on going. This baffled me at the time. That’s not how any of my other subscriptions had ever worked. That was more like the payment model for electricity or gas.
Anyhow, this made me cranky, so I canceled the newspaper and vowed never to re-subscribe. (A vow I’ve kept.) Since then, this practice has become more common. Since I’m aware of it, it’s just an annoyance. But when they use it as a way to raise rates? Beyond annoying and into slimy-land.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:45 am
Our firm been charged a fee for over 2 years that wasn’t supposed to be charged for one of our pieces of equiment. My boss was on the phone for 2 hours trying to get this straightened out. He was persistant to say the least but he ended up getting the charges reversed and credited to our account, saving the company over $2,000.
I used to get Mother Earth News in the 80’s and 90’s, but now only pick an issue if I happen to think about it.
I’ve always enjoyed Consumer Reports too and have bought a couple of issues of Shop Smart that were equally good.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:47 am
Sounds like quite an ordeal….i wonder how much Smart Money has to pay Amazon for the referral?? And how much its costing them vs. if they had just kept you paying $20 every 2 years!
My biggest frustrating with magazines is when they send you the renewal forms even when you are not due for referral…but don’t tell you how many months you have already paid for, thereby giving the impression that you need to renew! The one that i’ve noticed does this the most is “Parents”.
However my favorite personal finance magazine is probably Forbes.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:48 am
I am just SO relieved I am not the only person who finds this stuff incredibly galling and who goes through the trouble of calling around and checking ebay/magazine websites/amazon for cheaper prices. (BTW, magazines.com has good rates usually and if you use Fatwallet you currently get 5% back in a rebate check, sometimes they have 30% rebates.)
I have had this happen with several subscriptions and have always been able to beat the price online then call the company and get them to match the lower price. It’s ridiculous they don’t offer their repeat subscribers the best deal in the first place–nothing like punishment for being a loyal reader!
Pretty soon all the glossies will be kaput just like our local newspaper the Seattle PI. RIP.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:49 am
How clever of them…take more of your money to keep you in a state of less money, which makes you want to read their magazine to learn how to keep more of your money. Personally, I’d take a homesteading magazine.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:51 am
What a mess! Here’s mine:
I recently worked for a company that paid for my home internet connection through Time Warner. Since I was already a Time Warner customer, I just had them switch my bill over to my company. Done and done.
While at that job I got married and moved in with my husband. We were able to switch the Time Warner account to the new house and replace the one he was paying for already, which was through Earthlink (managed by Time Warner).
18 months later I was laid off and my internet needed to be switched back to me. I found this out one morning (while unemployed and job hunting) when the internet was suddenly not working. I called them and we straightened it out, they turned it back on immediately (after telling me it would take two weeks and unleashing my rarely seen ire), and I waited for a bill to come in so I could set it up in my online bill payment system.
My husband at some point after this called Time Warner to switch us back over to Earthlink, since somehow the rates are cheaper for the same service through the same company. Go figure.
Three months later we get a call from Time Warner saying that we have an overdue balance of $100+ and if we don’t pay they’ll turn off our account. Yeah, we should have noticed that we hadn’t been paying them and been proactive, but because we do all of our bill payment automatically (and hadn’t paid them in almost two years) it slipped our mind. But I used that phone call as an opportunity to let them know that they have a billing problem, and though I was happy to pay my balance over the phone I’d really like to start seeing monthly bills so this won’t happen again. The woman on the phone agreed with me, took my credit card info, and promised everything would be fixed.
A couple of days after that we got a bill from Earthlink… for $8. That didn’t make sense, and thinking that we’d already settled with Time Warner, we ignored it.
This month, a month later, we got an overdue notice from Earthlink for that $8 (and still no bill from Time Warner). My husband called them this week and found out that it was for some online security package that he hadn’t signed up for when he called them last time. He canceled that and asked them about fixing the billing problem. Naturally, they can’t do anything about it.
So we’re still waiting.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:51 am
Those merry pranksters over at Fast Company have a similar routine going on. I’ve read the magazine since its inception and enjoy it a lot. So far, so good. My current subscription ends in May of 2010. Last year I must have received 6 emails suggesting I renew my subscription. I’d love to renew and I will, but get in touch with me about a half year or so before my current subscription expires - not when it’s a couple of years away. Sheesh!
March 21st, 2009 at 7:51 am
This happened with my gym membership. They said I would get a special rate through my employer of $150 for a year. I signed up in June and they neglected to tell me a “year” meant till December and that I had to fork up another $150 in January. When I called and complained their rep was rude and told me I wouldn’t get a better price anywhere and I should be more grateful. Normally, I would drop them and find someone else but even though my effective rate for the year will be $300 I’m still getting a good deal. Argh!
March 21st, 2009 at 7:54 am
I lost my job. I’ve got a new one, but at a greatly reduced rate. So I called California’s low cost healthcare plan for kids so I could enroll my daughter. I followed the directions on their website to a T.
And waited. And waited.
Finally I called. They told me I didn’t date the form. I did, but they didn’t see it. So I redated and resubmitted the form per their instructions.
And waited. And waited.
Then I called for a status check and was told I didn’t include a statement that my letter was a true and accurate staetment. So I resubmitted.
And waited. And waited.
Frustrated, I called for help. Not a single supervisor was available. They’d call back in 3 days, they said. When I persisted, the rep hung up on me.
And I waited. And waited.
Finally, after three reps in a week, I was able to reach a supervisor.
And do you know what she said?
I make too little money (even though I’m honestly employed in the first job I could find to support my family).
So there you have it. And for that, California just raised my taxes.
Keep up the GREAT work, GRS! You’ve helped change my life for the better.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:56 am
JD, you are right on, and keep holding the line. We’re working hard to do the same here, although with four teenage daughters it’s a little difficult at times.
One question for you, and I hope it doesn’t disqualify me from your giveaway: I hope you are not paying for the subscriptions, or at least would let me if I were to win one to pay a bit for myself. Seems to fly in the face of being frugal, but then again, maybe you are right…part of being frugal is doing the right thing, and helping others out is doing just that.
Again, keep up the good work. I enjoy your blog and find value from it regularly.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:58 am
How frustrating. Don’t businesses make life so much more complicated than it needs to be? My most recent financial frustration is this: I was in a car accident a year ago that was the other driver’s fault. I had back and neck injuries that required several months of physical therapy, an ER trip, many doctor’s appointments, a few MRI’s, and a lot of missed work. We are trying to reach a settlement, but for now, the medical bills are in limbo and have been sent to collection in spite of a medical lien filed by my lawyer. My insurance refused to pay, the other guy’s insurance refused to pay, and I never received 1 bill before they were automatically sent to collection. So now I get harassing calls daily from creditors for bills I never received in the first place. Bleh–sometimes you just have to hate “the system!”
March 21st, 2009 at 7:58 am
Thanks for the heads up. In the interest of instant social feedback, I’m retweeting this.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:58 am
One strategy would be to always let your subscriptions expire, then only subscribe as a new customer, at the lowest promo rate, to the magazines you really miss receiving. You’ll save money by getting the cheapest rates, and not buying the ones you don’t miss. Sometimes you can get taken off the automatic renewal program with a short email to the magazine.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:59 am
Go, J.D.!
For all the whining that companies do about how much more expensive it is to attract a new customer than keep an existing one, sometimes their tactics just don’t make sense. One would think that a ’smart’ money magazine would have a greater proportion of readers paying attention to such things.
March 21st, 2009 at 8:01 am
You can go to http://www.smartmoney.com and you don’t need to pay anything for a magazine subscription. (This article doesn’t sound like it was written by you).
March 21st, 2009 at 8:06 am
Something very similar happened with a Sports Illustrated subscription I purchased as a Christmas gift for someone - imagine my surprise a year later when my credit card was charged again! Took me forever to actually find someone I could talk to on the phone.
I love periodicals and I like to support them - but practices like this make me cranky, too.
March 21st, 2009 at 8:08 am
My financial beef is with Yahoo.com
I have a local listings account that I’d like to cancel. I’ve tried at various times over the course of the past few months to either speak directly to a customer service rep or to receive a response to the emails I send to Yahoo. No response in either case. Yahoo’s CS doesn’t seem to exist anymore as I can only reach an automated service. The bank tells me that I have to cancel the debit card that Yahoo.com is using to keep charging me. I shouldn’t have to do that Yahoo!
March 21st, 2009 at 8:08 am
Reader’s Digest (here in Canada at least) does the same thing. This year I thought I would opt out and re-subscribe at a lower rate. I watched the magazine delivery like a hawk for a few months looking for the “cancel or we’ll resubscribe you notice.” Well, I never saw it. Reader’s Digest does enclose a lot of crap with the magazine, so it is possible I missed it somehow. Of course, the demand for payment comes in it’s own clearly marked envelope…
I’m cancelling regardless. They allegedly refund any unused portion.
March 21st, 2009 at 8:10 am
How frustrating this is, but unfortunately, not an uncommon practice. Businesses think they can fatigue you into buying their products by running you through a maze that leads nowhere, thus you opt for doing nothing, just as you said. I am embarrassed to say my husband and I both have been duped by special offers that claim you are paying for “shipping only.” The truth is, they are getting your credit card number so they can put other charges on it, which in some cases is not even put in the fine print. Then, when you call the customer service number, it is automated, or you are put on hold, or you get no answer at all. I did this once and ended up having to dispute charges on my credit card. Needless to say I learned my lesson.
These days I am not spending money and stay away from “special offers” or anything that says “free.”
March 21st, 2009 at 8:11 am
I have had this happen to me with another magazine… I ended up canceling the subscription… Thanks for the great article.
March 21st, 2009 at 8:13 am
JD,
You needn’t have canceled your subscription. You simply had to get the Amazon rate and your subscription would have continued.
Magazine orders go in from all kinds of places. When you already have a subscription and order another, no matter from where, it’s added onto your current subscription.
A few issues after completing the order with Amazon you would have seen the updated expiration date on your mailing label. No drama.
From Amazon’s subscription FAQ:
Need to renew a magazine subscription you didn’t buy from Amazon? Simply place an order today at our everyday low prices and keep the subscriptions you love coming to you. We will pass your renewal along to the magazine’s publisher to ensure that you keep receiving your subscription. You don’t even have to tell us that it is a renewal.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=602292&#renewals
March 21st, 2009 at 8:14 am
@Sandy E (and others)
I do pay to subscribe to PF magazines, and I don’t feel guilty about it. Here’s why:
1. They’re legitimate business expenses. What this means is that I’m buying the subscriptions with pre-tax money, making their effective price much less.
2. The magazines do provide excellent, well-researched information. They help me to build my base of knowledge.
3. They give me an off-line source. Yes, I could try to get the same articles online, but to be honest, most of the sites are difficult to navigate. Plus, I spend too much time online anyway.
So, I’m happy to digest PF magazines and to pass them on to friends when I’m finished. It doesn’t feel un-frugal; it feels like business.
March 21st, 2009 at 8:14 am
I love all these stories, because they’re the “why” behind businesses cutting back or failing. Bank A buys Bank B, jacks up the fees, fires half the tellers, transfers all customer service to India and cuts its CD rates, and then wonders why it can’t retain Bank B’s customers. Oh, and its business plan included getting even more of Bank B’s customers by offering extra services like insurance and investments. They assume their customers are stupid sheep, and are shocked and horribly disappointed when customers turn out not to be.
Cable companies, phone companies and of course magazines–the list goes on and on. If a business treats its customers like @#*@#, it can’t be surprised when its customers find better alternatives. What keeps some businesses going is that there are no alternatives–when those alternatives come, the customers are gone and so is the business. For myself, I can’t wait to cancel Charter Cable when that sweet alternative arrives.
My frustrating customer service calls are valuable in one sense, though–they remind me to see that my own business treats clients fairly and deals with problems quickly–I’m pleased to say we’re always improving in this area.
March 21st, 2009 at 8:14 am
Being married to a librarian has its benefits - virtually any magazine I want is available through him.
March 21st, 2009 at 8:16 am
So a month ago a friend on Facebook sent me an IQ challenge which I took on their website for fun. I registered on the site to take the test. Well a week later I start getting annoying text messages with strange and uppity trivia facts. This continues for about 3 weeks, silly me I think nothing of it. Well finally they send me a text saying I’m being charged for all these stupid useless messages and so far I am at $10! I cancelled it but ouch! I didn’t know they could just randomly charge it to your cell phone even if you don’t give out a credit card number. I won’t be taking anymore stupid online “tests”.
March 21st, 2009 at 8:16 am
Wow. I’m so sorry this happened to you. I bet a lot of other magazines do this as well…but for SmartMoney (aka The Wall Street Journal) that’s a low.
SmartMoney is my favorite finance magazine. For the past two years I buy every issue of the Best Stock picks and browse through them all. (Actually how I found SmartMoney) Not all finance magazine cater to the same audience so I connected with SM the best. Last year I bought a subscription because I kept buying it at CVS. So I actually saved money at $20/12 issues.
Well good luck and I hope SM sees this and changes their set up.
March 21st, 2009 at 8:18 am
My tale of frustration is when I was told by the Washington Post that a story I wrote would be published in one of their columns and I would be paid $100. Week after week I didn’t see it, so I called the newspaper. I finally spoke to someone who said she was the newly appointed head of that column. She had decided that the topic I wrote about did not fit her needs, so she decided not to include it. “Uh, were you ever going to contact me?” No. “Why, thank you very much. I appreciate your professionalism.” I promptly cancelled my subscription to the Washington Post and haven’t renewed since.
I don’t care for Smart Money much either. I like Kiplinger’s and Money Magazine much better.
March 21st, 2009 at 8:19 am
I can’t say I have much experience with magazines - I haven’t been subscribed to any since I was a doe-eyed girl reading Teen and Seventeen magazines! But I feel your pain - bad customer service is all around us.
You know what I hate? When companies make it difficult for me to give them my money. Why don’t they want my money? Here’s an example - it’s from a few years back, but it still annoys me:
I wanted a friend of mine to see An Inconvenient Truth, so that he and I could have lively debate about it over the phone. He was in Washington State, and I was in California. I offered to pay for his ticket, since I really wanted to talk to him about the movie. Well, I figured that would be easy, given modern technology. Turns out the only theater near him showing the movie used MovieTickets.com, and not Fandango. That’s fine, I’ll just purchase a gift certificate to MovieTickets.com, and give it to him, and he can buy the ticket and see the movie and all will be good.
Wrong. At that time (I have no idea about now, because I have never used MT.com since), they didn’t offer gift certificates. In fact, there was absolutely no way to buy a ticket for someone else. You had to physically take the credit card you bought the tickets with to the theater to pick them up. Which wasn’t going to work, since I was three states away!
End result? I still don’t think that friend has seen An Inconvenient Truth. I should really find the DVD and lend it to him…
But seriously. I wanted to give them money, and they wouldn’t take my money. Why?
March 21st, 2009 at 8:19 am
Wow, that IS lame. Magazine subscription service seems to be on average craptastic. Mine is, I subscribed to Mother Jones digital, and I discovered they were sending it AFTER the print version was on newsstands! Kind of defeats one of the major points of subscribing to a magazine (and in this instance, for me “getting it before it hit newsstands” was a major reason).
March 21st, 2009 at 8:20 am
When I was a silly 18 year old, I signed up for one of those “get entertainment weekly for four months free!” at best buy and planned to not renew it. That was my first experience with auto renew- it took me three tries and two autorenews to cancel it! Since then, I never give my credit card to magazines and choose the bill me later option - then pay by check.
March 21st, 2009 at 8:23 am
As for my tale of financial frustration, I could write a series of horrifying tales called, “The Financial Aid Office,” and market it to college students. I’d be rich.
The worst, by far, was last year when my financial aid office lost the tax return they requested of me.
No, they didn’t lose it once. They didn’t lose it twice. They lost it THREE times. It was months before I got everything straight, and once I talked to someone with half a brain, I found out they didn’t even NEED my tax return.
As for where those three copies of my tax return, with SS# and everything, disappeared to? No one knows to this day.
March 21st, 2009 at 8:24 am
When I gave birth to my child in 2005, I got a FREE subscription to Parents magazine with the purchase of the hospital’s photo package. I read everything attached and it clearly stated it was a free 2 year subscription and after the last issue I would choose whether to get another or not. That was soooo not true. I sure did get my last magazine come 2007 and to my surprise I also received a bill! It was around $20 and I could have easily paid it off but that wasn’t the point. I tried the customer service line and that didn’t work (mind you that it took me lots of searching around to find it) the website asked me to put in my account information to access my account and when I did it said it could not find it but I was still being sent reminders once a month of that owed money. Finally I subscribed to their email service so that I could try to talk to somebody. It was useless! I just decided to ignore those bills.
March 21st, 2009 at 8:28 am
We attempted to cancel cable by phone a week ago. After being on hold for 32 minutes before even speaking to someone, the rep tried to offer us “deals” to stay with cable. We were cancelling cable but keeping internet and needed to be between $15-$30 so she is offering us $60 packages. This went on with the required hold while I check for an hour. At that point she stated we could not have the lowest internet rate unless we had cable also, like this was impossible. Ultimately, we could not cancel over the phone, we had to return our remote and box to their office. So over an hour and a half for nothing. We drove 35 mins to the office, handed in the box, asked for the cheapest internet and they gave it to us with a free upgrade in speed for 7 months because we are “such good customers”. What a laugh!
March 21st, 2009 at 8:30 am
I must say this is extremely similar to my own story of dealing with Sports Illustrated (now I realize it isn’t a personal attach but just ineptitude).
My wife got me the subscription originally through a magazine drive at the school in which she was teaching. At the time of expiration, we received the automatic renewal at almost double the school’s magazine drive price. We canceled the subscription and renewed through the school again.
We have since found out that if you renew before the subscription expires they will add the duration to your existing subscription automatically. So I get the better price and avoid the annoying “your subscription is about to end” notices.
March 21st, 2009 at 8:32 am
At our former place we got suckered into an alarm system. They sales guys worked hard to get us a good deal and the install went very smoothly. We were happy and started paying our bills every month and things seemed to be going fine.
Then we planned on going on vacation and wanted to set up a special access code for our house sitter. And that’s where things got crazy.
First, the installers had written down our secret passcode literally (for example “qwerrty spelled with a ‘q’ and two ‘r’s”). So when we called and said “qwerrty” they wouldn’t accept it. This took an inordinate amount of time to sort out.
Then we discovered that the installers never submitted an alarm form to our local police department (or told us that we needed to) so for all the months we’d been happily paying, no police would have some to our home if the alarm went off.
The phone rep kept saying “well, the alarm would have gone off, so it was working.” And we kept saying “but if there’d been a problem no police would have arrived so it wasn’t working!” She said the sales/installers were subcontractors and they therefore weren’t responsible for their work!
We finally settled on half our money reimbursed, but were still locked into a two-year contract. Idiocy!
March 21st, 2009 at 8:34 am
I find this sort of “gotcha” capitalism very, very frustrating. I stop doing business with any entity that tries to trick me into buying something I didn’t intend to buy, or to pay more money than I intended pay.
March 21st, 2009 at 8:36 am
This happened exactly to my sister! Except in her case it was People magazine. They gave her an automatic renewal with not only a higher rate but also some hidden fees of which even THEY couldn’t explain when we called them. Needless to day, they lost a subscriber for good.
March 21st, 2009 at 8:37 am
I always try to pay an additional $50 on my credit cards minimum due each month. I opened my Chase account and the minimum due was much higher than it usually is. I have not used this card. I examine the bill and the interest rate had gone up 5.99%. I have never been late with a payment. I have very good credit. I call them up and they tell me they have raised all the rates due to the economy! I said excuse me? you were bailed out, I was not. They then tell me since I called they would reduce my rate back down to the original rate. I have noticed this in other bills too. Time Warner just went up $6. My garbage service went up when the cost of gas was so high. It has not gone down and they do not plan on having it go down. Service fees, adminstration fees, because we can fees. it is driving me crazy.
March 21st, 2009 at 8:46 am
My biggest frustration has been with register.com - and I havent taken the time to call them. I have registered a few sites over the years and they defaulted them into auto-renewal. I usually get an email a few months before with a “special rate” - which I usually don’t look at because they don’t expire for a few months anyways. Then when they are coming up - my login or password or something does not work - so I can’t get in to turn off the auto-renewal. What’s a shame is that they charge over 3 times! their competitors. I know it will take me some time to address the whole thing, and one of these days when I have a few hours I will deal with it… hopefully before the next one renews.
March 21st, 2009 at 8:47 am
My worst customer service nightmare involved Juno “free” internet back in the early 2000s. They now operate under the name NET ZERO, and I cannot say enough horrible things about them. I had signed up at age 19, not realizing that a company should never ask for a credit card for a free service. I was only able to use the service once or twice - it would always say “you’ve been online too much, you cannot sign on again until tomorrow after 11 pm” and the next day I would be unable to access it.
About 3 months later, I started getting billed for $15 a month, which was certainly not the cheapest dial up at the time, for a service I had never really used. I called to cancel, they asked me to verify the expiration date on my credit card to verify my identity. I told it to them, and they said it was wrong. They asked for my password to verify the account, I couldn’t remember it. Since they “could not verify my identity” they refused to cancel the account. I spoke to various managers, no one would do anything for me. I probably spent 6 hours on the phone over the course of a week on hold, getting hung up on while being transferred, and speaking to managers. I finally started writing my credit card company every month disputing the charge. 4 months of disputing and they stopped billing me.
I am interested in Mother Earth News if I am chosen, thanks
March 21st, 2009 at 8:48 am
We somehow got subscribed to Computer Games magazine. What a disaster to try to get “unsubbed”. I was so frustrated. I hated the magazine and was embarrassed to have it even coming to our house. I followed their advice about getting off the list. It kept coming. I did this a couple of times and then we finally had to call the credit card company and have them cancel it.
Since we never knew how we got subscribed in the first place, the whole thing just made me angry!
March 21st, 2009 at 8:48 am
I’ve run into the same problem with other things I have ordered, including mineral makeup. You can’t get it unless you sign up for automatic renewal then they hit you with the increase. Automatic renewals suck. The worst by far was signing up for credit monitoring, Triple Advantage, through FreeCreditReport.com which was awfully hard to get out of. It took three phone calls and the first one, an obviously overseas operator used my less than perfect understanding of her heavily accented spiel to hoodwink me.
March 21st, 2009 at 8:49 am
Hi JD,
I noticed that XM radio offers a lot of different management options when I use IE instead of Firefox. You may notice the same thing.
Bill
March 21st, 2009 at 8:52 am
This recently happened to me with a magazine that I have subscribed to for many tears. It was automatically renewed and billed to my debit card for $29.97. When I called to cancel, they offered me the same # of issues for $14.97, I declined. A week later I found the same # of issues at a discount mag site for $3.50. It seems like a common practice with magazine subscriptions for them to offer a low rate and the loyal subscribers get a higher rate. This makes no sense to me. I often will let a subscription lapse and then re-subscribe at the low intro rate.
March 21st, 2009 at 8:56 am
My tale of financial frustration happened earlier this month when I tried to upgrade my internet speed. I am currently a Brighthouse customer, but wanted to take an advantage of a deal that Earthlink offered where they would give me six months of the faster speed I wanted at the price I was paying now, and then the price would go up $12. I called Brighthouse to see if they could match the deal. They couldn’t, but said that they are Earthlink’s providers. So they connected me to Earthlink. Cue long holding time followed by a rep from an Indian call center. They then told me they couldn’t provide service to my area, despite both their own website and Brighthouse saying they could.
Sigh.
I haven’t upgraded my internet yet.
March 21st, 2009 at 8:57 am
Not to play devils advocate, JD, but Smart Money seems to have gone the distance to notify you that they were changing to an auto-subscription (they put a full page ad on the front of your magazine, they didn’t bury it in fine print). And the super low rates you’re scouring the internet for may not even pay the cost of the magazine–it may well be sold at a loss in order to get you interested, so that you’ll eventually renew at a rate that allows them to, heaven forbid, make a profit. I’ve seen companies take advantage of customers, but you’re kind of being silly on this one. We’re talking $10 a year, for a subscription you-yourself say is vital to your business. Pay up, man. Ad revs are dropping and these guys are probably trying to find ways to keep staff.
March 21st, 2009 at 9:03 am
@Starving Artist (#90)
Believe it or not, I half-way agree with you. For me, the $10 a year isn’t a big deal. And I understand that magazines are losing ad revenue in great big chunks. But what gets my blood boiling is the fact that they’re not just doing this to me; they’re doing it to all of their subscribers. And what they’re doing is trying to pass a price increase off as a customer benefit. If they had simply mailed me a re-subscription notice in the mail with the new rate, and hadn’t tried to do the auto-renew thing while touting how great it was for me, I would have probably paid the extra money. But auto-renew? At twice the price? And saying that they’re giving me this “benefit” because I’m a “preferred subscriber”? That’s pretty lame, SA. Pretty lame, indeed.
March 21st, 2009 at 9:08 am
Martha Stewart Living did it to me!!! I was going to renew (in my time), but after getting nasty renewal notices I called and found out their new renewal policy. They did treat me well when I complained and canceled my subscription; but once again, I feel duped! Trust in business is melting further.
Along the same line, I received a text message for solitation of ring tones. I ignored it since I was not interested. When I noticed a $9.99 charge on my cell phone bill, I called they said I had subscriped to that service. After reviewing the text message (I still had it) the message said I had to opted out for this not to happen! I now throughly read my test message. What a ripoff!!!
And we wonder why people are getting cynical!
March 21st, 2009 at 9:12 am
I also had the same troubles with a magazine company….
I purchased 5 magazines on a website for 2 year subscriptions. I started receiving the magazines a few weeks later and had favorites but for the most part liked them all. After a year and half of receiving the subscriptions I started to receive notices that my subscription was ending. Some of them were offering the same or better pricing than I had originally paid and a few of the prices went up. I canceled the ones I did not feel like they were of value to me and renewed the ones that I wanted to continue reading. Then…I received a notice from one magazine that I had not received. I was confused because they sent me a notice I would automatically be renewed unless it was canceled. I had never received any magazines from them, yet they have my address to resubscribe me? I called and they were very sorry that they did not end them. They were going to send me a few old magazines and they can then resubscribe me for a discount. Wait…where are my other 24 magazines…just sending me 4 doesn’t solve the problem…subscribing me for 2 years in the future would. Long story short, got my money back and no longer subscribing to them!
March 21st, 2009 at 9:13 am
The same thing just happened to me–I got the same issue with the same wrap-around cover. I, too, called the automated number (but, unlike JD, I don’t write about personal finance for a living, so I decided to cancel it because I’ve never loved Smart Money). Not only is there no option to speak to a person, but you have to stop the continuous service and THEN they still plan to charge you for renewing your subscription–you can un-enroll in “continuous service”, but then you also have to tell them to cancel or they’ll still charge you what they were planning to charge you. I did end up canceling the whole thing, eventually. But I was *so* unimpressed with the whole thing. I’m with JD–the whole thing, and then giving a current customer a crappier price, is totally lame.
March 21st, 2009 at 9:19 am
The Wall Street Journal is trying to do that to me right now! Renewing at the “subscriber’s” price is over $200, while a new subscriber gets under $100.
March 21st, 2009 at 9:20 am
Auto-renew doesn’t bother me in the slightest. If some service is useful enough that I need it every month, I don’t want the default case to be that it gets turned off if I forget to fill out a form. What if you had to renew your phone or electricity service every year?
Auto-renew at double the previous rate is pretty shady though.
Here’s the main reason I think people are upset at automatic magazine renewals, but not automatic phone service renewals: We actually *care* about having phone service. We don’t really care about most magazines.
Magazines are, by and large, a waste of money. They’re more advertising than content, and even the content tends to be pretty non-compelling in most of them. I don’t have any subscriptions at all to any periodicals, and I don’t feel like I’m missing a thing.
March 21st, 2009 at 9:21 am
Eh, I won’t belabor the point, because I half-way agree with you, but it’s really not that nefarious. It is a benefit, not having to waste time resubscribing, and every company calls their customers ‘preferred’ (unless you (grin) write an article lambasting their services to the world). I’m glad things sort-of worked out for you, however, and I agree it’s good to keep companies more-honest.
March 21st, 2009 at 9:24 am
Thanks for the information. This has not happened to me yet. I normally get the “renew now” letters or covers after the first issue for the next 23 issues saying, this is your LAST time to renew at this special price. If you sign up a friend, it is free for them and costs you money! I usually ask for new subscriptions as gifts from family. It is easy, cheap and useful. Then I pass the mags onto friends/family to recycle.
March 21st, 2009 at 9:28 am
This is a great post. I love what you are doing in response to them. I currently frustrated by the lack of customer service EVERYWHERE and that when I call to talk to someone about a bill, I can’t get a real person on the phone. Grrr. I waste so much time on hold or with a machine, that when I do get to a real person, I take my frustrations out on them and had they simply answered the phone in the beginning, it would have been much more pleasant for all involved!!