I know most magazines are in financial trouble. They send me offers of a 12 month's subscription for $8 .What is really getting on my nerves is renewing and two month's later getting an expiration notice . I don't think it's a mistake . They apparently hope you are busy and not remember you have already renewed . I sent one back today and just wrote "nice try"
on it .

You also have to read the fine print. If you give them a credit card as payment, they will hit you next year at full price.

I play their silly game at times and just send them a check. But with all the bad mail delivery and missed issues, I have just let them expire and not renew.

Magazines seem to be going the path of television. They have more advertisements, fewer articles, and those articles are of lower quality and content. Add to that missing or damaged issues due to USPS and the overall value of magazines has been declining.

Some aren't too bad yet. While I gave up on Scientific American, Popular Science, and Popular Mechanics, I still receive Wired.

 
The magazines started playing this early renewal crap back in the early 1990's, first I recall. Our Dad used to give each of us three kids a year's subscription to National Geographic for Christmas, each year. He would make a one year renewal (x3) each year. Then they started sending out the early reminders, rather than waiting until a couple of months prior to expiration. The early ones were coming 10 months or so in advance. Dad was getting older, still with it, but he didn't read the fine print and just assumed it was for the coming year's renewal. When he passed away in 2002, we got annual subscriptions for the next 8 years, already paid for before he passed.
 

The one that always impressed me was the special price for our valued subscribers and you go on the web to their site and find a lower price for first time subscribers.

For some odd reason i still receive predator xtreme magazine and i havent paid them in perhaps 2 or 3 years? It still shows up every now and then.

For all the effort into renewal trickery that goes on, I've received a number of free subscriptions over the years. Either magazines that I didn't renew and they still came, or magazines that just show up every month. I check every bank statement and credit card. I didn't pay for them.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ravens1775,

I never let them have a credit card. They will just renew it on their own. Same with SiriusXM . The latter by the way, is very vulnerable to dickering . I got a renewal offer from Shooting Sportsman recently for 6 issues for $28.95 . When I didn't respond immediately, they offered 6 issues for $30.00 . They sure know how to haggle .

Some magazines have gone to publishing every other month, and have only decreased the annual cost by very little.