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.)
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I’ve written a total of maybe 10 paper checks in my life. So when my university requested a $250 fee and mentioned that I could either send in a paper check or use my credit/debit card, I opted to write my debit card number on the form since I knew that number and didn’t want to dig out a checkbook. Plus, people take *forever* to cash checks and I hate waiting for things to clear. So a few days later, I checked my bank account online and noticed that I was debited for $255 instead. I called the university and was told that there’s a “credit card processing fee.” I said, “Where does it say that there will be a credit card fee?” I looked over everything and nowhere did it mention anything about an extra fee. The guy put me on hold, reversed the charge, and said he’d check into it and call me back. A week later, they charge me $255 and though I have called and tried to talk to someone, I get no return calls.
I know what you’re thinking…only $5??! Well, the point is that it did not say anywhere that there would be an additional fee and I did not authorize them to take $255…I authorized them to take $250 so as far as I’m concerned, that’s stealing. And had I known, I would have written a check (though…they probably charge a mysterious $5 fee for that, too!). Not to mention…the $200 was a fee for something else and the $200 fee came with its own $50 fee and (apparently!) the $250 comes with its own extra $5 fee that was not mentioned anywhere on anything.
I know as far as college costs go, I’m just going to have to get used to shutting my mouth and paying the bill, but still. Why all the random unrelated fees tacked on to everything all the time?
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Just over a year ago, I gave a gift subscription to some sort of GPS golf yardage measuring system. Whenever possible I send a check for subscriptions because I know they’ll inevitably try do the automatic renewal if you give out your credit card, but this was a gift for which I didn’t plan ahead and I’m not even sure that it was possible to send a check.
I checked closely to make sure I wasn’t going to be opted into a renewal and went ahead with the order. Naturally, with no warning, they went ahead and charged my card again this year.
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I want the gift subscription, need to learn a lot more about money management.
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Smart Money is just trying to grow their bottom line. Shame on you for not contributing in this economy.
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I went through a similar ordeal with Readers Digest. I had given gift subscriptions to my sister and also my girlfriends sisters family a couple years ago for Christmas. Last year, I got renewal notices which had different rates based on how long I took for renewing this. I waited for a couple months before I renewed and finally got the same price I had got the subscriptions for before.
I also had subsciption for Taste of Home which is also part of Readers digest and since I did not want it, thought I could cancel it easy…yea right! The website does not give a corect link to cancel and when I called the phone numbers I could find after a lot of research, it took me almost one hour to cancel the subscription. You would think things would be easier to cancel if you dont want it. Oh well, I guess I am not the only one who has issues with subscriptions.
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Wow, just wow.
I’ve had a similar experience with TV Guide. What’s sad are the number of people who probably didn’t even notice the price increase and will go on paying it unaware.
Good on you for noticing, and for not just accepting it for what it was.
Thank you for exposing them – and their website for what it is!
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J.D.
Just thought you might want to know that I have been getting so much from GRS that I have decided to not renew my Money magazine subscription that I have been getting for about 10 years. I just don’t have the time to get it read, and I read almost all of your posts faithfully, so why spend the bucks even if it’s not much. Thanks!
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Good for you! I also get very annoyed at stuff like this. Sounds like they are taking a page from the health insurance companies. We have been repeatedly found mistakes on our bills and charges for which we are supposed to be covered but aren’t. Last year my wife made several phone calls and took extensive notes, to the point where we were about to go to arbitration. Two days before the arbitration the insurance company called to tell us yes, they had decided to pay the charges after all. It’s like they hope you will so tired of fighting and complaining that you’ll just give up and save them a bunch of money. They, like Smart Money, are counting on people to stay dormant and just accept the status quo.
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I really appreciate this article. I lived with my grandma for a few years just after college and noticed that she had quite a few magazine subscriptions. She’s not the best at reading the small print or shopping around, so I’m sure she’s not getting the best deals. Next time I visit her, I’m going to talk with her about renewing at cheaper rates. Thanks for the info.
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I’ve dealt with many petty issues like that. My favorite major issue happened recently when my husband was rear ended. We thought “annoying, yes, but no one was hurt and the insurance will pay for damages.” Dealing with the other driver’s insurance became a full time job. We could have filed through our insurance and paid the deductible, then waited to be reimbursed, but since my hubby was not at fault I opted to cut to the chase and just file through the liable party’s insurance. LONG story short, it took two weeks and many phone messages before they would even agree to look at our car, then another week before arrangements were made to take the damaged car to a repair shop. The reason for the delay? The insurance company claimed they could not contact the insured even though they had left messages and even gone to their home. I was told that if they could not get ahold of the insured to get “permission” to pay the claim that they would deny it and we would just have to live with the damages or figure out another way to cover it (IE file through your own ins…we don’t want to pay this). I promptly called the insured who miraculously answered the phone and explained that they had been trying to get ahold of the ins company and the ins co would not return their calls. I grant you I don’t really know who was lying but I have reason to believe it was the ins co since they wouldn’t return our calls either unless we called numerous times. I called the ins co back and told them that I was able to contact the insured and that if they did not do the same in a very timely manner my next phone call would be to the Oregon Insurance Division. Amazingly that is when our car was assessed and the ball began rolling nicely from that point on. I know three weeks doesn’t seem like a long time, but driving around in a car with frame damage is not exactly safe. The general attitude was that “if you don’t like it, you pay the deductible and we will deal with this when we are good and ready”. Very frustrating.
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I HATE those magazine renewal things. Personally, I have had similar experiences and have gotten so frustrated that I only buy magazines with airlines miles or a personal check. I won’t even send in the postcard for two “free” issues anymore.
My choice would be Consumer Reports.
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I once had a credit card company tell me that they couldn’t refund my $0.59 balance because they were unauthorized to send back less than $1. After letting them send me a statement for many months indicating this credit, I finally sent another payment for $0.42 and then asked for a refund. They complied.
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Don’t buy from Buy.com. We did then a month later noticed an additional, unauthorized charge on our credit card from Reservation Rewards for $12
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When my fiancee and I bought our house last March, he applied for a Lowe’s Project Card so we could purchase some flooring. Here was the deal with that card: with a minimum $1000 purchase, you get 6 months no interest and no payments. Our flooring was going to be around $1700. We applied, and were approved for a whopping $6000! Well we purchased our flooring, and 6 months later, we paid it off. We decided to keep the card open, because we have more upcoming projects, and it’s a pretty good deal to have 6 months no interest and no payments. Well two months later, we got a letter from them saying they lowered our credit limit to $500. Now, if we have to charge a minimum of $1000 to get the special 6 month promo, how can that happen with a $500 limit?? Also, my fiancee’s credit is better (less debt, and a higher credit score) now than when we bought the house. He called and we canceled the card. But we’re still mad about it!
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I once “won” a trip from a quote unquote travel company. I had entered to receive a trip for two to Busch Gardens at a festival, or so I thought. This company called me up to congratulate me on “winning” the trip. I was excited because I had “won” something. They asked for my credit card number to pay a deposit and pay the taxes on the trip. Only after they charged my credit card twice did I realize that indeed I had not won anything and this was a scam. It took me several weeks of calling the company and begging them to give the trip to someone else and refund my money for the issue to be solved. The only way I was able to convince them that I did legally have the right to say “no” to the trip and get my money back was by reading the cancellation and return policy on the back of the packet they had sent me.
My favorite home-making/money type magazine is Real Simple. Of the magazines you have reviewed, Kiplinger’s or Consumer Reports would be my picks.
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That’s pretty bad.
I can’t think of anything similar happening to me, but when it comes to magazine renewals, I really hate the companies that send out renewal notices when they don’t have anything to do with the publisher. My wife has fallen for this twice (bless her) and both times the money failed to make it to the publisher to renew my subscription. And of course the publisher fails to acknowledge your payment because it wasn’t an “official channel”.
Of course, who do you think sold your subscription information to the hucksters in the first place?
They didn’t have an answer for that one…
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J.D.- I can relate…my husband’s SI subscription will be expiring and I rec’d an auto-renew e-mail letting me know that we will continue receiving SI if we don’t cancel. Sad thing is that they’re charging $49.95 when we were only paying $39.95! I looked on the internet and, like you, found better deals. Just decided to keep it since I feel I’m doing my part for our sad economy. Dumb- I know;
I can add so many other stories like this…i.e. I signed up online for a trial bottle of acai berry weight loss (just pay $4.95 shipping), only to find out that by ordering that I would automatically receive a bill after 7 days if I did not cancel the “membership” order. I’m disputing the charge of over $90 w/my credit card company. TOO LAME!!!!
Would love any PF magazine…love to learn ways to fatten our wallets!
Thank you, J.D., and keep up the great posts.
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AT&T has been the source of some of my biggest consumer frustrations. When I moved into my previous apartment, they didn’t bother to connect the telephone service when they claimed they would so I spent over an hour on the phone with at my parents’ house trying to get through the electronic phone tree to talk to an actual human about the problem. The system kept demanding my social security number, which I hadn’t given them in the first place!
Then when I graduated and moved into a house with my roommate, we spent at least six hours on the phone and at the local store trying to get internet issues straightened out. If there’d been another decently priced option, we would have left long ago.
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Pretty annoying, JD! Which begs a question: Who reads magazines anymore? I used to subscribe to a number of finance related pubs including Forbes, Fortune, Barrons, Inc. and Business Week. I kept finding the pubs getting thinner and thinner….and the content weaker..most of which I could find online in great blogs like GRS.
What is really funny is that I keep getting “bills” for these past magazines. At least they look like any invoice, but are actually junk mail offers. And usually these offers are not competitive. I think some people don’t read their mail or get a bill like this at their office and just pay it? Just another magazine rip-off!
I would suggest your contest link to on-line pubs that marry well with Get Rich Slowly. Something like Wall Street Journal online would offer more value in my view than some of these pubs which are now less than 50 pages. I really don’t think magazines are going to survive the tech wave….as this year most ads are down 20-25% and Chpt. 11 looms like the newspaper trade for many.
Good luck with the blog & your other projects, JD — its become one of my favorite reads! Anxious to read about the 2009 garden plans!
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Wow!
I hope someone from Smart Money sees your post. Although somehow, I don’t think it will change their ways. Unfortunately, I’m sure they make plenty more than they will ever loose from people who figure the scheme out. So many businesses use practices like these making it so paramount that we the consumer know what we are paying, and where that money is going.
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They’ve been doing it for years! I subscribe also. I always let my subscription expire, then sign up again with one of the inserts, or l wait till it expires and they keep sending me those “we want you back” letters offering a bigger discount with each one! What a racket.
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Wow, amazing comments! I’m an email reader so I only see them some of the time.
My tales of woe involve Go Daddy website server, Elle magazine, and some free trial – I think it was Shape magazine.
Elle did the EXACT same thing to me, in fact I thought I was reading my story! Except since there are so many beauty magazines and I’m unable to subscribe to them all, it was easier to switch – although I did resubscribe years later because unlike Smart Money, Elle is one of the best! Need to stay at the top of my field, right?
To the people who commented about paying the mags what they are worth/due, it’s really more about the point. It’s frustrating when they try to slip that one by you after two years. And why two, if it’s a loss leader why not one? But I digress.
Actually it was Fitness Magazine that gave me a two year subscription. They then sent me a bill the FIRST month! I finally just wrote a letter and stuck it in with the bill. They left me alone until the third month when I started getting renewal notices. I got them until I recieved the magazine in a plastic bag announcing that my subscription was over. It had only been about a year, but since I hadn’t read the last issue I decided to let it go. I am still receiving it 3 months later.
Go Daddy is similar to Kris’ story above. Except I didn’t fare nearly as well! I attempted to cancel it the first year and was unable to reset my password. So, $150 later, I tried again. I wasn’t notified by Go Daddy until my sites were renewed and the money was in their pocket. I was unable to find anything other than a sales phone number and no one there would help me. I wish I had known about credit cards reversing charges back then! It was quite a while ago. I finally got onto the site and cancelled what I could. The day everything was up for renewal I received a notice that my account was over due and going into collections. They attempted to debit from my expired credit card for another month. I used Discover’s One-Time Use Card, which should NOT have allowed a renewal. To test this, I decided to auto pay a bill with it. It allowed the bill to be paid for over a year.
Hopefully, someone (other than me) can learn from my mistakes! I love the story of the credit card company who wouldn’t send back less than a dollar! And #162? the one who just doesn’t get it and wants Smart Money!?
I think I’d prefer Consumer Reports if I’m chosen. I’m still relatively new to the financial world and from your description that one sounds like it has the least about investing!
Thanks for reading!
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PS Is Kris your wife? I couldn’t scroll up since I wrote that novel on my phone and didn’t want to lose it!
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I got really angry when TV Guide tried to pull a fast one a couple of years ago. I got several ‘renew subscription now at preferred rates!’ notices, and finally said, what the heck, I’ll pay for another year. *Two magazines* into the new subscription, there was a letter from the editor saying that TV guide was shutting down its print format and moving to a free online guide. Man, did the CSR’s get an earful that day from everyone. I felt kind of sorry for them. But what a boneheaded, morally dubious move!
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This makes me so angry. It makes me never want to subscribe to Smart Money. I have been holding off on subscribing until I got a little bit of control over my finances, but now I may never!
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We subscribed to a magazine like this which is appears on-line and hard copy. We had the on-line version. we lost track of it and did not read it regularly anymore. Nearing the end of the term, they billed our credit card and automatically renewed it. If that isn’t bad enough, as busy as we were we did not see it on the credit card statement for some time. It took forever to finally end it.
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Thanks for speaking up! I feel your frustration…I hate continuing business with companies that don’t treat me correctly. Sometimes, it is a necessity. Our VoIP rate continues to rise (for no reason other than they can), which bugs me. But it is still cheaper than the basic phone line, so I feel compelled to stay with them.
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I had a similar experience with the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Last year I had to cancel my credit card which the PD was deducting from automatically. Not to go too far off on a tangent, but the reason I had to cancel the credit card is because one of the credit rating agencies (experian) had fraudulently started deducting $15 a month from my account for a “credit monitoring” service without my authorization. I had somehow stumbled into one of their traps when I did my annual checkup at annualcreditreport.com. So be careful. It took a complaint to my state AG and BBB to get my money back. And don’t even think about Freecreditreport.com. That is the mother of all scams.
Anyway, my PD subscription got deleted when I cancelled my credit card, so they started sending me a bill in the mail…and the bill was 40% higher than what I had been paying thru auto deduct.
So I cancelled my subscription (which wasn’t easy to do) and found an online deal like you did that was significantly less.
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I emailed a link to this discussion to Smart Money’s Public Relations department. It will be interesting to see if/how they respond.
Consumers are angry and companies need to know about it.
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My boyfriend belongs to a gym in the town he previously lived in. He no longer goes to the gym and would like to terminate his membership. However, in order to terminate his membership, the gym requires him to go IN PERSON to the gym WHEN A MANAGER IS THERE. He cannot terminate by email or letter or phone call. He works full time and is never free during business hours. It is maddening.
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That should be illegal. I have given up on magazines entirely. I once subscribed to all sorts of magazines for men’s interest, organic gardening and finance. I have since found that I can be greener and a lot more frugal by finding most of the info for free through web sites and blogs. Or I just get a coffee and read them at my local Borders. I looked back at some of the older issues and compared to the new version. The newer issues were lighter and had considerably less content. They also tell you to go to their web site for even more content. Why pay for the real thing anyhow?
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There is no reward for loyalty in consumerism. Every year I have to go and chase a better deal than what I get offered through my subscriptions.
that’s why you go and find free subscriptions.
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The bright spot in this is that it’s a great reminder to read the fine print!
I love that you’re taking action on this. Much better than grumbling and doing nothing, at least in my experience. I’m a big believer in the well-written complaint letter and I usually get a response.
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I’ve dealt with a couple of these but the one that I remember most was a magazine (now defunct and whose name I do not remember) that I subscribed to. A few months before my subscription ranout I got a post card filled with type most of which was irrelevent but right in the middle of a paragraph was a notice that I needed to call a number or my subscription would be automaically renewed. I had decided not to renew so I called and after many “push 3 for …” choices, I finally reached a person who told me some catch 22 choices that I also don’t remember but I somehow I would loose some issues if I cancelled then or would have to continue with the auto renew option. I decided to cancel but no matter how intriguing a Rodale magazine looks, I’ve never subscribed to one again.
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I agree .. auto-renewal of a service like that is annoying enough in and of itself. Trying to sneakily raise your rate like that is just outrageous.
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Oh, so many things come to mind!
To start with, my first non-customer service story features — ME!
It was my first job out of high school, working for the telephone company, doing directory assistance for the whole province.
I got a call from someone in the US wanting a listing for the “Vancouver Hotel”. Per requirements I looked it up exactly as requested and there was nothing. He says “But there must be. It’s a big hotel, right downtown.” We weren’t supposed to suggest listings but I *knew* he meant the Hotel Vancouver. I asked if he knew what street it was on and he replied with the right street. I said “Could you mean Hotel Vancouver?”. He agreed, I gave him the number and he went away thrilled that I’d helped him.
Guess who got into trouble? Yep. I suggested, it increased my disposal time for the call to over 40 seconds and I should have just hung up on him. But what about customer service, I asked? He should have known the name of the place he wanted. If he didn’t, tough luck. And, it’s not like there was any alternative phone company or the internet back in those days where he could have found the info. (Yes kids, back then I looked up the phone numbers in a bunch of paper books on a big metal stand in front of me.)
Negative billing, as has already been mentioned, is blessedly illegal in Canada after a *huge* debacle a number of years ago. Suffice it to say, the cable companies learned their lesson. Too bad you don’t have legislation to prevent it in the US.
And, on a slightly positive note, my Executive Director has a subscription to Time Canada. We were notified recently that Time Canada is ceasing publication and they plan to put the balance of the subscription to Newsweek. I called up to find out how many months were left. It turns out that there’s quite a bit and my ED is actually leaving the country later this year. I managed to get the subscription cancelled and they agreed to send a refund cheque for the balance (in the $30-$40 range).
I’d love to win a subscription to one of the self-sufficiency mags you talked about recently. Now I have to go back and reread the article to decide which one….
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In response to #5-Sarah, 21 March 2009:
Be glad you cancelled your Country Living subscription. I had just paid for a “professional discount” subscription on Country Living in Jan 09. In Feb, I received notice that Country Living was no longer being published & they substituted Family Circle instead. No choices, no refund, just the old bait-and-switch for another magazine I would never buy in the first place.
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The pure anger that comes across in this post makes it literally one of the best you have written in a long time.
I tip my hat to you, JD. I tip my hat. (And I hate Smart Money as well.)
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Please bear with the long story but read it thru!!
My story is not for a magazine subscription but for one of the online banks HSBC online savings. I opened one account back in 06 when they were offering 5.75% interest rate on the account. I had money sitting there since then until Feb of 09. In Dec 08 i signed up for a higher healthplan deductibe plan at my place of employment and decided to open up a separate HSBC account to deposit by “HSA money” since I didnt qualify for an HSA account as I was informed my deductibe had to be over $1000.00 to contribute?? Anyway so the reason I opened this account was to start ‘saving’ for the deductibe incase I ever needed to pay it. Well come Feb 09 my employer changed the health ins co and I signed up for another high deductibe plan which came with an HSA account that they contributed 1/2 for you and you did the other half. “Sweet deal” so I signed up for that and I realized I had an extra HSBC account that I did not need.
So I call up HSBC – of course someone in India – (not that i have something against them its just that sometimes I feel they dont understand what you are trying to tell them) and I explain that I need to cancel the last account that I opened in 08. I told them I did not need it anymore and that I didnt feel comfortable having an account that I wasnt going to use open. I was told that they would charge $25.00 to close the account. Me being frugal I said no please waive the fee since as you see I have the other account that has a huge amount there and as you can see I have been a faithful customer since 2006. I couldnt close the 2006 account since I had to stop 2 direct deposits going in to that account and restart again which was a process that would take more that a month considering my place of emmployment you have to wait 3 weeks for direct deposit to kick in.
Needless to say the ‘no-customer service’ rep stated that they couldnt waive the fee. Listen this – I had to send bankmail for the request to close the account to be prcessed they couldnt do it over the phone.
Well by this time I was fuming so I proceeded to kinldy hang up the phone, transfer the funds in the 2006 account to a MMA my credit union offers – by the way their rate right now is much better than HSBC. I proceeded to close the 2006 account and transfer out the money I had in the 2008 account and right now I only have $.02 in the account waiting for 6 months to lapse so I can go ahead and close the account.
Point in this long story is they lost me as a valued customer. I had refeered about 6 pple and I told them about my CU and they went ahead and closed their accounts too. If HSBC had just waived the $25.00 they would not have lost over $100,000.00 in combined deposits that myself and my friends took out of them!!!!
wow! Now I can smile!!!!
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I experienced a problem with my internet/phone service – Cavtel. I subscribe to a combined service (DSL & voice over internet) costing about $40 per month. The phone modem that is provided by the company stopped working. After spending 3 days contacting customer service I was told that since the modem was broken I would have to discontinue that service since they no longer offer it and no longer support it (they would not replace the modem and will not allow you to use your own). I could go with a $50 service plan that would replace the service I had. While trying to work through the problem with customer service, I spent hours on the phone including hold time on average of 35 minutes each call which I had to use my cell phone minutes since the internet phone was the house line. After speaking to several managers, etc. the only solution they could come up with was to keep my land line number by having it forwarded to my cell phone – or upgrade to the more expensive plan.
I agree that it’s frustrating dealing with large companies that don’t stand behind the products they offer.
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I was planning to comment despite the contest, but I wanted to say that Runner’s World tried to do the same thing to us a few months ago. The automatic rate was twice the “online rate” for new subscribers. When I called to get the lower rate, I was told I could either pay the higher rate or cancel and begin a new subscription online. I chose the latter. Not that much trouble, but annoying nonetheless. I love your response to this situation.
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Looking through these, they are all about either a) banks, b) telecon companies, c) cell phone companies or d) magazine subscriptions (but I blame you for that).
Why is that? For telecon, there’s really not much competition in most areas, I bet that makes a huge difference. I wonder if it started with the long distance wars in the 80s, that’s as far back as I can remember.
Cell phones have competition, but only with other cell phones. They are really all the same, and they are all terrible. Maybe I should just go off the grid, and stop paying for telecon, and cell phones…
For banks, there is lots of competition, but then again, people (and banks) are touchier about money. Why is it that banks aren’t the most efficient business out there? They don’t actually sell anything, they just give, and get money. You’d think that since they don’t actually have a product, that they would be able to do things really fast, and do nothing but spend their time fixing problems for their customers.
Just an observation, one that will probably be overlooked here in the 240s, but I don’t want a magazine subscription. Too much paper.
–Jeff
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Recently I received several phone calls from National Geographic wanting us to “lock in” to their “preferred” rate before a rate increase took effect. I asked when our subscription expired and was told “next month.” That didn’t sound right, so I checked and found that we had nearly 1 1/2 years left, and the quoted rate was very high. Thanks for the tip about subscribing through Amazon.com for cheaper rates. However, I have always paid by check for magazine subscriptions and therefore have not been “forced” to continue having my credit card account charged if I don’t want to renew. Is it possible to pay by check (mail it in) with Amazon?
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This confirms my reasoning behind paying for subscriptions by check, so that they can’t use my credit card for a renewal. I’m also feeling cautious about renewing for more than a year at a time. We’ve been burned this year by Young Money. I purchased a subscription for my college son, and about the time I did, they apparently faced their own financial crisis. The issues were late in coming, and very small and more like free issues. They recently sent a “good news” letter saying that they are now going to have two print issues and two online. Not too impressive. I’m glad I only have a one year subscription!
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I am currently having trouble with AT&T and the bundle package of home phone and high speed internet. They have been overcharging me the past 4 months. I just got the bill this weekend and it has a $15.99 charge under the “enhanced features”. I was assured after calling and clearing everything up last month that it would be all set. I am going to have to call them again tomorrow and once again get this straightend out. This is the last straw for me. If they can’t fix it I will leave.
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I dropped one phone line from my cell phone company and instead of a lower bill the next month, it was $40 higher. It took a number of phone calls to get it dropped. Not fun.
If I’m selected, I’d like to try Kiplingers. Thanks!
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Oh, I can feel your pain! I have spent 3 months trying clear up a $22 charge on a Visa card that has been closed for over a year because Cooking Light magazine automatically renewed a gift subscription I had given my mom. They did not ask me to renew it. They did not ask my mom to renew it. They just did. Of course, I have had to do all the leg work to show Visa that we didn’t place the order and then convince Visa to remove the last fees and finance charges for the item, despite having protested it the day I got the bill. Grrr. So frustrating!!
I will enjoy reading one of the magazines on homesteading if I’m a winner. We’re planting our first garden this year (in June after the last frost – it’s cold in Cooperstown!)
Thanks!
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This sort of thing has happened to me before and I agree–it’s extremely agitating. When I re-subscribed I ended up getting the same issue twice. Lame!!
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JD,
This happens to me with Charities. However it’s the reverse. I called up one charity to increase my contribution. They informed me they couldn’t do it over the phone they had to do it online. I kind of understand it’s probably a matter of keeping admin costs low, but still. It’s quite annoying.
-Nate
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This one in minor (and I probably am going to get told I deserve it), but still.
I’ve got a credit card at BoA that has a balance and is at 0%. I’m paying it off slowly, and in the meantime I’m appreciating that 0% rate. Well, I scheduled a payment for the day one was due. Their system helpfully applied that payment the day after, changing my account to 22% interest and charging me almost $200 in fees. I called and complained, eventually getting the following “deal”: they’ll put me back to 0% (only once in the lifetime of the account), but I still pay the fees. They don’t really care if I move the account away from them, they’re not making anything on it right now anyway.
Gah!
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