I live in Minnesota, in the 2nd largest metro area in the state–about 70 miles away from the twin cities. No, I don’t live in the sticks!

A couple of years ago, I thought it would be nice to subscribe for home delivery of the Sunday edition of the twin cities’ main newspaper, “The Star Tribune”. In addition to the print edition, the Tribune had a substantial free online edition. On their online edition website there was a subscription information page including all the cost breakdowns for home delivery to various cities in the state, and also a page where you could put in your credit card number and order home delivery. So I did that–I used their own online page to request home delivery of the Sunday print edition, and put in my credit card number etc.

And then I waited for my paper to come. And waited! After about 8 weeks I realized I still hadn’t gotten the paper. So I called their customer service line. The rep said, oh of course you have to call if you want a subscription because that online purchase site doesn’t work! She actually acted like I was an idiot for using their online subscription site and expecting it to work.

I went ahead and subscribed to the paper anyway (by calling someone on the phone), but it was rarely delivered even though they did finally charge me for it. I finally canceled the paper last year because at that time there was literally nothing in the paper–just ads.

The Star Tribune went bankrupt in 2009—I guess I can see why!

I manager a number of magazine subscriptions for my job (research materials), and aside from the large volume of mail suggesting I “renew now for extra special savings!” every two weeks, things went pretty smoothly until I had to cancel them (for budget cut backs).

Not only are the subscriber services web sites exceptionally rudimentary, there are more errors than a virus infected computer.

If you’re lucky enough to have the option to cancel a subscription online, you shouldn’t do so right away if you have an active subscription: the cancellation is virtually automatic, meaning you won’t get what magazines you have remaining and you won’t get your money back. I have to set calendar reminders about when to go back and cancel.

The only time I ever get a customer service number is when I have a problem with the billing information, be it a card number or billing address.

I keep these (almost worthless) customer service numbers updated in an excel spreadsheet where I keep all the account information (this also includes expiration dates, account numbers and passwords).

And I must say, Martha Stewart magazine’s subscription services are the worst–although it seems there are plenty of companies competing for the title.

A follow-up: I received the first delivered copy of the Washington Times today, so I guess by (them) not auto-renewing (even though I requested it) I saved $35 on an annual subscription because I found a discounted subscription online after my subscription expired (because they failed to auto-renew)!

Another thought: I should probably cancel my auto-renewal to TurboTax because I see it heavily discounted in stores every April. Anyone else have info on how best to get TurboTax each year (i.e., lowest price)?

I have learned a lot from reading the comments. Years ago, my father used to get new subscriptions to his favorite mags to take advantage of the lower prices. I would come home from college and find Time magazine in my name etc.

I have had my share of phone billing problems. Every time I changed some aspect of my service or changed providers or moved, I had a new billing problem that took many phone calls to straighten out. I started to think it was standard practice to screw you over and double bill. I never did get all the money I was owed from Verizon for double billing me for DSL at my new and old locations for months when I moved. They claimed they did not have the old records. But I said “I do” and would be glad to fax them over. Then they kept coming up with convoluted explanations. Yeah, I know about the overlap of different service periods for different services, but this extra billing goes on for months? If I honestly owed them extra money, you would bet they would have the records. Thanks for the opportunity to vent and share.
Kathy

NO.

The result of the call was that I canceled my service and was irritated that I hadn’t called to cancel months ago. If they’d given me the service in the first place for half off, I probably wouldn’t have thought of canceling.

Having recently graduated my early 20′s, I asked to have my fee reduced, so they went down $14 for the 6-month payment. That didn’t seem ideal, so I looked elsewhere, finding a discount of $130 at another company (Progressive).

I like showing loyalty, though, so I called up Geico asking if they could go down any further, and they said they couldn’t. I told them that I would leave, and that they didn’t have to go down the full $130; still nothing. I then asked them to cancel my account, which the rep said he would do.

Story doesn’t end here with needlessly letting their customer go. I then proceeded to get phonecalls for several weeks asking me why I left and if there was anything they could do to get me back. I had already told them what they could do to keep me, but I asked again, and with each “no, we can’t give you an even slightly lower rate,” I asked to not be contacted again.

Three calls later, I’m now free of telemarketers, and with a lower auto insurance rate.

I immediately freaked and thought someone had stolen my credit card information. Then I thought maybe I should login to my Magazines.com account and take a look. Sure enough it had renewed my subscription. I spent about 10 minutes on the site trying to determine how to remove automatic renewal and the only method I could find was to delete my credit card info. What a pain!

I immediately emailed Magazines.com and later followed up with a call. Within 5 days I was refunded the money. It just goes to show, watch your subscriptions and check your credit card accounts regularly. I had no idea Magazines.com automatically renewed, and I’ve ordered from them off and on for years. I guess I either forgot or this is a new policy. I find it odd that it is so hard to remove automatic subscription from my account.

When I do run into a service that I know does this, I always cancel or email them to cancel right away so I don’t have to deal with issues (no pun intended) when the subscription runs out.

I haven’t decided how to solve this problem yet, since I can only unenroll from the union once a year, and my politics may get the better of my passions by that time. We’ll see how well the union focuses on core employment and HR issues during the current “restructuring” of the university system.

Similar frustration led me to cancel/expire my subscription

The bill that comes from Hearst corporation has no Contact telephone number…so if there is a mistake there is no good way to resolve it.

Imagine if they have your credit card number…