Magazine Subscription Rip-Offs. This is one of those things that tick me off, treating paying subscribers as jerks. PC Magazine just did this sort of thing to me.

I am on what they call automatic renewal. This means that when my subscription is up they send me a post card that says okay we have renewed you for another year at a certain price. Then out of my next copy of PC falls a card that says if you send that card back you can get two years for the price they just told me I would pay for only one year!

This happened two years ago, I wrote and complained and they added the second year to my subscription for free. But I should not have to ask for it. Now another magazine is doing the same stupid trick.

I am not talking about six months down the road they run a limited new reader special, although I do think the current subscription base should never have to pay more than the new readers on an annual basis.

Free copies are a great way to get new readers; even things like the New York Times new home delivery specials make sense once in a while. But the idea of using different marketing campaigns with some offering better deals than others at the same time is bullshit.

I do intend to write some posts on the whole stupid consumer and how we allow companies to get away with this crap.

I have cut out an article about the airlines lobbying Congress so that they can strip out all fees, including some of their own company specific ones, from the advertised price. The purpose of this is that when you do a web search for the cheapest fare you will find out only after you are committed to pay for the ticket what the true cost will be. Just like that small print in TV ads.

If a company resorts to that sort of bogus advertising, consumers should boycott the company.  ¶ 12:15 AM