My mom is over 65 years old. Last year she got two new magazine subscriptions, and then this year she got two more. Not only does she have no memory of ever ordering them, but they are types of magazines she would never read, like Glamour, and Teen Vogue. She is convinced that either someone has stolen her identity and is putting her name and address on the order forms, or company workers are accidentally sending someone else’s subscriptions to her, even though she has not ordered anything from the companies before, so how would they have gotten her name and address?
I am thinking that this could be some kind of mental problem that causes memory loss, and out of character behavior. She is certain that she didn’t order any of these magazines, and is defensive when I suggest she may be crazy. Are there other probable explanations besides dementia or Alzheimer’s?
Does she do those online surveys or visit websites? often times they have a checkbox that will sign you up for stuff if you don’t pay close attention.
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Publisher’s Clearing House. It’s easy to subscribe to the wrong magazine, particularly if you think you “have” to subscribe to win.
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Have young people been around selling magazine subscriptions for school/charity/whatever? A lot of people will just pick the cheapest subscription on the list, regardless of title.
My mom gets magazines with a note saying, “This is your final issue! Renew your subscription now!” On a couple of occasions, she has decided that she wanted the magazine, and she subscribed. :rolleyes:
I somehow started getting ***Golf *Magazine. Thought it was a joke… all my family and inlaws are golfing fanatics. But I spent the next months asking each of them… nope.
After a year, got a Last Issue! notice, and my wife and I said “At last!”
Never did figure it out. Maybe they send some out some randomly, and even if .01% renew, it helps in the long ru…
…whoa, wait. Might those freebie subscriptions boost their circulation totals and hence their ad rates?
I’ve had this happen several times. They’re prospecting for potential subscribers, and using various mailing lists to try to guess at people who might be interested in the magazine enough to subscribe once the complimentary subscription runs out.
In your mother’s case, it sounds like the magazines are just guessing very poorly. My suspicion is that she had, at some point, bought some fashion or cosmetic items (maybe as a gift for someone), and that landed her on a prospect list.
I started getting Rolling Stone out of the blue about a decade ago. At first, I thought someone had sent me a gift, but no one ever owned up to it. I’ve kept the subscription, because it turns out that I really enjoy the magazine.
I started getting Popular Mechanics the same way, maybe five years ago. I’ve never gotten a notice from them to renew, they have never asked me for any money – and I don’t bother reading it. It goes straight into the recycle bin.
On the other hand, at about the same time that Popular Mechanics started arriving, I also started getting Field and Stream. I don’t hunt, I don’t fish, I don’t own a gun at all, and was never, ever going to subscribe. I actually called their customer service number, and asked them about it. The very nice woman who answered the phone explained that, yes, I was being sent a complimentary subscription hoping that I was a prospect to become a paid subscriber. When I explained to her that I had no interest in their magazine, and there was no way I would be buying it, she apologized to me, and stopped the subscription.
It can be this, or if she signed-up for something online, or even purchased something online. There are sneaky ways some websites capture your info and begin sending you magazines.
For example, Active.com (to sign-up for running events - not that your mom is on this website), when you sign up for an event, and get to the pay page, you have to un-click a box the bottom with small print. If you don’t un-click, you are accepting a couple of magazines subscriptions, and even tho the first issue may be complimentary, they will happily start billing the credit card you used to sign-up for the event at some point down the line when you are not likely to notice (or remember).
Perhaps she just did not see the fine-print on some online purchase. I would check her credit card bill, tho, to ensure she is not actually paying for these magazines.
If you figure this out, let me know. I’ve been getting Business Weekly, Wine Spectator and People magazine for going on three years now. I have NO idea why I’m getting them but they never even offer a renewal of subscription they just…keep coming lol
I got Vogue magazine for a while, which made me feel terrible because the magazine is huuuuuge and I never even looked at it.
I THINK I may have signed up for it while shopping online. Sometimes sites give you a “free magazine offer” when you finish checking out and it’s *very *easy to accept it. Or, I got it from Conde Nast because I actually subscribe to another of their magazines.
Does mom do any online shopping?
Pretty much the same happened to my wife and I, years ago. She started receiving a women’s magazine, and I got a news magazine. I called customer service too (wanted to make sure that a bill for them wouldn’t show up when we didn’t order them), and I was reassured that these were complimentary one-year subscriptions with the hope that we’d subscribe after a year. What the heck; we decided to give them a try.
Well, after a year, my wife decided that she didn’t want the women’s magazine. I kind of liked the news magazine, but I already subscribed to a news magazine that I liked better. So, they stopped coming.
I somehow got a year of US magazine. Then later I got a year of The Week.
I don’t know why they starting sending them to me but I know where they got my name.
Something like 20 years ago I subscribed to Vanity Fair. Whenever I subscribed to something I listed my name with a middle initial corresponding to the magazine, so for instance Vanity Fair came to Hilarity V. Suze so I knew it was VF, the New Yorker came as Hilarity Y. Suze, N being the correct initial, and so on.
All of these free subscriptions came to V. Even though I let that subscription lapse in 2001.
This is a pretty long tail, I would say. And magazines are not the only things sent to V. I’ve been amazed. No other magazine has done that, even magazines from the same publishing conglomerate.
Mr.Wrekker got a subscription for GQ and Style. Decidedly not his cup o’ tea. I enjoyed them, for some reason. I starve for reading material sometimes. It’s kinda sad really.
Let me add to the list. A couple years ago at about the same time, I started to get two unordered subscriptions: ESPN Magazine (I didn’t even know they published one) and Forbes (or maybe Fortune, one of those F-mags aimed at billionaire wannabees). I had no interest in Forbes, but my landlord wanted it, so he took all those and I never saw them. I read some of ESPN and decided that, while I was a sports fan, I wasn’t a fan of that mag. It went in the recycling unopened. They don’t come anymore, but it’s been over a year.
So it looks like the OP’s mother is just getting some complementary subscriptions and shouldn’t worry about them.
Back in the day, I really enjoyed Saturday Night. It was a Canadian publication, and published all kinds of political views and opinion, from all across the spectrum. I didn’t always like what Saturday Night published, but it was so broad, that I couldn’t help but like it. Plus, it exposed me to reasonable and rational views that conflicted with my own. It made me question.
Anyway, when I was starved for reading material, Saturday Night was always my go-to when I found myself in an airport with time to kill, or in another city with nothing to read. Then, Saturday Night shut down. Nowadays, my go-to is The Walrus, but it’s just not the same–it’s difficult to take a tough-talking opinion piece when it is interrupted by freeform poetry.
FYI, in the publishing biz, sending a prospect free issues in the hope of getting them to subscribe is called a “forced free trial.”
My wife gets Vogue magazine with some random person’s name on it too.
She doesn’t mind flipping through it, but as an art teacher she loves to use the magazine for source material for children’s art projects–collages and stuff like that.
When I was in college, I got my girlfriend a subscription to GQ. She had specifically asked for it, and it was largely so she could look at pictures of very handsome men in very nice clothes. 
Pretty similar, I tend to get a lot of subscriptions to LGBT lifestyle magazines, I assume they’re usually from contests or forms I fill out during Pride events.
I’d consider subscribing but most of the articles are pretty lame.
The correct explanation must be that my mom is getting free trial subscriptions. I didn’t know that that was a common thing. To answer some people’s question: my mom never uses a computer because she is a technophobe.
I’m surprised that no one has mentioned the company that sends statements that look like renewal forms. They renew subs that don’t need renewing, and its easy to get unwanted things. I’ve asked them to remove my name from their files, but… I’ve seen warnings in mags about this.