Buying something from Best Buy? Check your receipt, you may have been signed up for a magazine subscription and you didn’t even know it.
Fake Wired Magazine "Renewal Notice" Almost Tricks You Into Paying More
By October 17, 2008
Here’s a reminder that one must remain ever vigilant against shady direct mail offers that masquerade as bills that you are expecting.
By October 7, 2008
“If Radiohead can do it, so can we,” writes GOOD on their subscription page. They’ve temporarily changed their subscription model from $20 annually to pay-what-you-can, as long as it’s at least one dollar. If you’re on a restricted budget but want the hard copy version of GOOD, here’s your chance. [GOOD]
By September 20, 2008
What sort of ad do you run next to a full-page PSA that says, “My sister accidentally killed herself”? Probably not this one. [FAIL Blog] (Thanks to theblackdog!)
Conde Nast Will Never Stop Emailing You. Never. Stop Asking.
By April 10, 2008
Condé Nast marketing department, are you on crack? Have you put some trinket from “The Hills” in charge of your mail server? Justin has emailed you repeatedly to tell you to stop spamming him. His marketing preferences on your site show a vast field of “No” for every single title on your list. And yet he’s received 16 emails since his last request—almost three a month. You should know better—or, as Justin puts it, “This isn’t some Nigerian guy trying to make my penis larger or send me money, this is a company here, in the United States, that I know should be held accountable.”
TIME's "Subscribe For $1.99" Offer Misleading
By April 10, 2008
First, we want to say thanks to TIME Magazine for naming us one of their top 25 blogs. Now that’s out of the way, and we can ask why they’re using such a misleading ad on the masthead of their site: “Subscribe to TIME Magazine for just $1.99″ it says! Yes, but when you click through to the sign up form, you see that your “subscription” is for six issues—six weeks—and that the fine print indicates you also agree to an auto-renewed fee of $19.95 every six months. We don’t mind the $1.99 tryout period, but hiding the real subscription fee in fine print is sneaky. Any magazine with the good taste to recognize our blog should also respect its readers enough to be upfront on the details of its subscription offers.
By January 17, 2008
“The Astrologer” magazine shuttered in December 2007 due to “unforeseen circumstances.” Hmm. [Neatorama]
Hollywood Video Signing Customers Up For Magazine Subscriptions Without Permission?
By December 19, 2007
We’ve received two letters claiming that Hollywood video is signing their customers up for magazine subscriptions without their consent. The scam sounds similar to the ones that Best Buy is accused of in their on-going racketeering lawsuit.
10 Magazine Gift Guides Reviewed & Ranked
By December 13, 2007
You’re busy: you don’t have time to shop, or to read magazines, or to look at magazines for ideas to guide you when you go shopping, which you’re not going to do because you’re too busy. Luckily Slate has pre-digested the gift guides from ten magazines including Vogue, Maxim, Consumer Reports, and Gourmet, then barfed them up like an HTML mama bird for your shopping convenience.
Wired Editor Reveals Magazine Subscription Card Lies
By December 4, 2007
Wired Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson annotated a typical magazine subscription card to showcase its numerous lies. He asks, “Why do magazine circulation departments treat people like idiots?” Then he answers his own question: “because it works.”
Shady Magazine Seller Ordered To Pay Over $7 Million
By November 27, 2007
Kevin Trudeau isn’t the only one writhing in the icy grip of justice this week—one-time magazine subscription entrepreneur Richard L. Prochnow was ordered to pay over $7 million a few weeks ago when the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a judgment from July of 2006. Prochnow ran Direct Sales International (DSI), a bad magazine company that lied to customers and trapped them in a “buying club” that charged monthly fees and was very difficult to cancel.
Media Consolidation Is Bad For Everyone
By November 4, 2007
Bill Moyers produced an excellent segment on media consolidation and its disproportionate impact on minorities. African Americans and Hispanics account for over a quarter of the population, but own just 33 of the nation’s 1,350 television stations, and only 6% of radio stations. According to Melody Spann-Cooper, owner of Chicago’s only black-owned radio station:
Radio has moved from being in the business of empowering and educating people to Wall Street, to making money. And that’s not the big corporate conglomerates, you know, that’s not their fault. They were allowed to do this.
Time To Offer Flexible Magazine Subscriptions
By October 28, 2007
Taking a page from Netflix, Time is developing a service that will let customers pay a single monthly price for up to seven rotating magazine subscriptions. Dubbed Maghound, the service is Time’s attempt to augment the yearly subscription model by embracing the internet.
Is This Fashion Ad Promoting Gang Rape?
By October 22, 2007
How offensive do you find this Dolce & Gabbana ad? The folks at NOW Foundation have it at the top of their list of offensive ads, describing it as “a scene evoking a gang rape and reeking of violence against women.” In fact, it was banned in Spain earlier this year after public outcry, but was published in Esquire here in the U.S.
Reports Of Godless Materialism's Demise Greatly Exaggerated
By April 18, 2007
“The Simple Life Goodbye to having it all” Time Magazine, April 8, 1991
Avoid Magsforless.com
By December 28, 2006
Magsforless.com and My1mag.com are really crappy. Don’t buy magazines from them. They claim to use the power of bulk purchases to negotiate special rates. The reality is magazines never arriving, completely unresponsive customer service, and ruminating observers of human behavior everywhere bereft of their New Yorkers.
