I’ve recently started getting magazines I did not order. First Forbes, a couple-three months ago, then ESPN (I didn’t even know they published one) started coming about three weeks ago.
I have no use for either magazine. My landlord will look through Forbes, but neither of us sees anything worthwhile in ESPN. I’m a sports fan, but that magazine is aimed at some other kind of fan, I guess. I haven’t done anything about either, other than to toss them in the recycle bin. I suppose I should contact them and tell them to stop wasting paper. Not sure how much good that would do.
If they send you a bill, mark Cancel on it and return it. If they don’t, do whatever you want. You might have bought a product without knowing that the free subscriptions were an added bonus.
Not new subscriptions, but I get magazines I no longer subscribe to, but they keep being mailed to me. I also keep getting “This is your last issue, resubscribe or we will stop sending it” notices. It’s been maybe 2 years, and they haven’t followed through on their threat yet.
I’m guessing that being able to include me in the count of magazines they send out is worth more than the cost of printing and mailing me a copy. So even if I don’t pay a subscription, it’s worth money for the publisher to mail me a copy.
It’s been over twenty years so things may have changed, but back when I worked in the circulation department of a local weekly newspaper chain, one of the ‘rules’ used by the auditing body was that someone could still be considered a ‘subscriber’ for up to six months after their subscription ran out, so long as they were still ‘in the process’ of receiving ‘Time to resubscribe’ bills/notices.
So if the circulation of a particular newspaper was close to some important dividing point psychologically or for advertising rate categories, people would routinely get issues way past what they’d paid for. Especially if we were coming on one of the audit periods. It definitely made financial sense to pay the tiny added cost of a little more paper and postage in order to keep the higher advertising rates.
I would call and tell them you don’t want the magazines and that you’ll NOT be paying for them b/c you didn’t order them . I would also ask the post office if there is anyway they return the magazines for you. I heard of this happening to people and that they don’t have pay for unwanted magazines.
I’ve been getting Vanity Fair and Ebony. Not interested in either, and much too low in melanin to be part of the target audience for the latter. Did contact Ebony to tell them “I didn’t order this, I don’t want it, you’re wasting your money sending it to me, and I absolutely refuse to pay for it”, and they’re still sending.
Every Saturday they leave the newspaper circulars on my driveway. Not any of the news content - just the ads. I have a perfectly good box under my regular mailbox where they are supposed to leave such things, but they ignore it and litter my driveway with the darn thing. I have called to get them to stop - they ignore it.
Kind of a First World problem, I know. But darn it - get off my [del]lawn[/del] driveway!
Yeah it’s a gimmick for sure and some people think they have to pay for them especially elderly people . This is what the magazines is counting on to happen.
My mother in law in had subscription for just about every magazines out there and they never were read. Some were the difference names . It was sad and upsetting to see how she was taken advantage of b/c of her age!
Yeah, taking advantage of Elders happens a lot. Want to know who one of the worst magazines is for this? Guideposts, that feel good oh-so-religious magazine. What they do is send out early renewal notices – which, interestingly enough, do NOT show what the current expiration date for that subscriber is, even though it is included on the address label of every regular issue they send.
Anyway, they also arrange the checkboxes on the renewal notice to really promote what a great deal subscribing for two years instead of one is. But even if you DO reup for two years, they will send you ANOTER renewal notice just a few months later.
When I had to take over handling my mother’s business affairs (Alzheimer’s) I discovered she had subscriptions to FOURTEEN magazines despite her having limited eyesight and zero interest in many of the subjects (Motocross??? She was an 84 year old woman pretty much confined to her house!) and her subscription to Guideposts had an expiration date 11 years out!
And she still got a renewal notice a few months after that.
My daughter started received Rolling Stone about a year ago, a mystery to us all. I think it stopped, but she never got a bill or renewal notice. We thought maybe someone ordered it as a gift but nobody admitted it.
That’s happened to me occasionally and the culprit was Ticketmaster: buying tickets online there is occasionally a box you need to actively uncheck or else you will get a trial subscription. I unsubscribed because I don’t read it and the magazine takes up space in my mailbox. It hasn’t happened to me in awhile, either because I’ve found the check box or the outside chance that they have me on a “do not subscribe” list due to my increasingly angry entries I added to the unsubscribe web form whenever this happened.
My stepdaughter hasn’t lived in this state – let alone this house – for years, and yet copies of Woman’s Day and Elle began showing up monthly shortly after she moved out. Apparently, the fact she was a cheerleader and beauty-pageant entrant during her high school days landed her on the “desirable subscriber” list once she hit her mid-20’s.
I got some free magazines a few years ago after signing up for a half marathon. I was thinking “What the…?”, but it dawned on me that on the registration page (Active dot com) you have to actively decline the free magazines offer by unchecking a box, otherwise they passively sign you up (as if by ignoring the offer, you are accepting them by not declining). I musta missed that. I never paid for any of them, but it worried me since I paid with my credit card, and thought the magazines may have that data and auto-charge me.
If you write “Cancel” on any forthcoming bills, they will know there is a live human being and potential sucker at your address. Best policy is to write “Deceased” instead.
