I received this kind of letter from Taste of Home. I had responded to their offer of a free issue but did not subscribe. I know that is what they hoped I would do, but I did not. I have done this before with other magazines and had no problem. This time they kept dunning me for payment for a subscription and finally threatened to turn me over to a collection agency. I let them know that I will NEVER subscribe to their magazine after that.

I had a similar thing happen to me with McCalls Quilting. They sent a "bill" in a yellow envelope with big black writing on the outside stating that my service was going to be cancelled if I didn't pay! Then inside it was just a solicition for me to renew. I was furious & wrote to them about it! Of course, I never heard back. Then last yr I received a cd from Fons & Porter that contained patterns of quilts that were on their show. The cd clearly stated that the 1st one was free and they hoped I would order more in the future. I received no less than 5 dun notices to pay for the free cd. Due to that I'm no longer going to subscribe to their magazine. Unfortunately I think the majority of these mags are now owned by the same publishing company & that is why the same scare tactics are being used. Also, I have never heard of any magazine that has automatic renewal system in place and I sure wouldn't do business w/one that does. The law clearly states that if you receive something in the mail that you did not order you also do not have to pay for it. The postal regulations considers this a free gift. I finally returned the "free" cd because I didn't even want it in my house. I still received 2 dun notices for payment after I did that.

Thank you for sharing your experience. I still have one subscribtion, McCall's Quilting. I will be on the look out. I am sorry you have to bother with this.

I had a situation like that you can email the better bus. bureau and they will take care of it.

Me too. I subscribed and paid to Better Homes and Gardens for 1 year. At the end of that year I kept getting monthly magazines and invoices - I didn't reorder and didn't send their invoices back - I didn't even call them. Took them 2 years to stop sending me their magazine. Just before Christmas I loaded up the 3 years of magazines and took them to our local animal shelter store. Someone will pay 25cents to read them.

I have had the same problem with Good Housekeeping and Guidepost.......and my dh with woodworking and they start about 5 months before subcription is to expire.......

Dish and Direct TV give you a bundle of movie channels for the first three months and if you do not call and cancel they start charging. The same is, you have not ask for them but there they are. They hope that you will forget.

That's one reason I don't subscribe to any magazines. Plus, most of them are just filled with ads. I'm not going to pay for ads. :)

The latest thing is the automatic renewal. I bought several children's magazines for our grade to use at school this year. I read each offer on the internet carefully to make sure that I wasn't agreeing to an automatic renewal when I used my credit card. (School reimbursed me). Only one, Sports Illustrated for Kids, had that clause so I ordered it throught the mail with a check. The others have been arriving for about a month now and I haven't seen a Sports Illustrated yet. I will be watching carefully when the year is up for all of these mags.
lots2do

Good grief!