We've all seen renewal notices covering the last copy of a magazine issue advising us that the subscription will soon end. Don't worry -- magazine publishers have no qualms about continuing to send renewal notices in the mail that look like invoices.
What surprised the Consumer Help Web team this week was a wrap around Smart Money, one of our favorite magazines typically chock-full of useful personal finance advice. This time, we received a notice that our subscription would automatically renew unless we took action!
Marketers call that process an "opt-out". That's fine for email, but the next document we receive from them that looks like an invoice will actually be an invoice. Salespeople call this an assumptive sale. One of our managers called it the height of chutzpah.
Smart Money has so much good information at a reasonable price that we are reluctant to cancel, but this is an awful precedent. Remember to read everything a company sends you. There is nothing legislating this automatic renewal. For all we know, we missed agreeing to such a thing in the mouse-sized print when we bought the subscription. The biggest irony, of course, is that we suspect Smart Money would advise against falling for such an automatic renewal.
Labels: magazine, Smart Money, subscription
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