Freebie Friday - Jan 11

It happens every year.  Publishers all decide to compete for your attention by sending all kinds of deals to get you to subscribe to their magazines.  I try hard to resist, but I don't always succeed.

While e-mails with welcome back offers arrived for some, I got actual sample issues from both Prevention Magazine and Good Times.  Good times also included a bookmark, and promised a new watch if I subscribed, and a matching bracelet if I did it quickly.  I think I'll pass as I have plenty of reading material here as it is.

I also received my third and final free issue of Canadian Living.  The Sample Source people gave out free 3 month subscriptions a while back, and now that my last issue has arrive, so has a message offering me the final 9 months of a year's subscription for just $9.  They have a big round ball on the ad saying that's just $9 a copy.  Ha.  They aren't thinking straight.  That's $9 for the entire year, since I didn't have to pay for the first 3 issues at all.  Looking at it that way, it's only 75 cents an issue.  That's a deal that's hard to pass up.  I've been trying all week, but I do love to flip through magazines, and I know I'm never going to get another offer as cheap as that.

Have you looked at the price of magazines on the newsstand lately?  Actually, it's hard to find a price listed on most of them any more.  I think they are ashamed to print it.  You are darn lucky if you can find one as low as $4.99 these days.  A new one I really wanted to try last week cost $15.99, and that's before adding on another couple of bucks for taxes.   That does it.  While I really am trying to cut back on my magazines, I suddenly don't think I can afford to pass up the deal of 9 more months of Canadian Living for just $9....especially now that I've clicked though to the renewal and see that actually includes the taxes!.

The Non Subscription

Sometimes magazines offer a free issue to get you interested in their publication.  I often accept these offers and even if I can't handle a new subscription at that point in time, I do make note of the magazines I might like to have later on.  I'm a magazine junkie, and always have at least four subscriptions at any given time.  I also really like free reading material, so if something is offered for free, I'm likely to take it.

The thing is, in recent years, the publishers have taken to sending the invoice before the free issue has even arrived.  This bugs me to the point where I have been known to send them a note telling them that while offering a free issue is a great way to advertise, sending a bill before I've even seen their publication kind of counteracts their good will intentions. 

Last July I decided I would accept the offer for a free trial issue to a magazine I have never seen before.  It only comes out 4 times a year, so I knew I likely had to wait a while before the next issue would arrive in my mail box.  As I've now come to expect, the invoice arrived.  I put it aside to wait for the magazine.  When it came I would decide whether to pay it or cancel the possible subscription.  The magazine didn't come but a second invoice eventually did.  That's when I let them know that I was still waiting for the TRIAL issue. 

I got an e-mail with an apology, telling me "A trial issue does take about 6 to 8 weeks so it should be arriving by the end of this month. Please hold on to the notice and disregard any due dates on there until you receive the first issue."

Another month went by and yesterday along came another invoice. This one said that if I have not sent my payment within the past 30 days they will suspend my subscription.  Well, of course I had not sent the payment, as I still had not seen the trial issue.  By this time I'm sure they have no intention of sending me anything until I pay for it.   If I'm not getting the issue they promised, perhaps I'd never get the ones I pay for either.

I sent them another message, once again explaining that I still had not received the trial issue yet, though I ordered it in July.  No matter how you look at it, that's definitely more than 6 to 8 weeks.

I suggested they cancel the order as even if I like the magazine, I don't think I like the service.

 

And they did.

 

Apparently they don't understand that a trial issue is a good selling point and now they have lost a customer.