Till Death Do Us Part
If you were to visit the subscription page at The Atlantic magazine's website, you'd find an important note beneath the form for payment information. It reads: "By paying with a credit or debit card, you authorize The Atlantic to charge your account now at the price above and then before the start of the first 12-month term (10 issues at $24.50) and, without interruption, for all subsequent terms at the guaranteed low rate then in effect unless you tell us to stop."
There is, in fact, no apparent way to make a credit-card purchase without enrolling in the automatic-renewal program. And therein lays the problem—while devoted readers might welcome the convenience, many others will rightly regard mandatory autopay as a policy tilted heavily in the magazine's favor.
In a review of The Atlantic posted at Amazon.com, Bryan Byrd expresses a sentiment that's likely shared by other subscribers.
"I understand why a business might want to operate this way," he writes, "but as a consumer, I'm not a big fan of this practice. If I don't want the product anymore, I don't like the onus being on me to stop being billed for it. I'd much rather just let the whole relationship die a quiet, peaceful death."
The Po!nt: Automatic renewal programs are fine—but make them optional. That way, you can offer a service to those who want it without alienating those who do not.
Source: Amazon.com.
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Comments
This practice infuriates me, especially because you are typically auto-renewed at the highest possible subscription rate. My impulse when this happens is to cancel the publication altogether and read it free online. I can't stand practices that prey on the time-starved using the wolf's clothing of reader convenience.
Is this still legal in the States? Cable companies and magazines in Canada used to do this, but the Canadian courts have ruled it to be illegal
As someone who has spent the last 4 years in performance based marketing, I can tell you the industry relies on automatic renewals. But what I have realized just recently is that it is not only about human nature (how we are more likely to not fight an unwanted charge than we are to go ahead and hit "renew") but that the credit card companies are in on this too.
So good luck lobbying congress on that.
Speaking as an online publisher, sometimes it is not technically feasible to have both the auto-renewal/automatic monthly billing and an "other" option. It creates an additional layer of programming complexity to the backend of a website, adds more administrative costs and has the potential to create a more confusing check-out process for the user.
In my opinion, as long as the publisher makes it extremely easy to cancel and offers a rock-solid guarantee, this practice is totally acceptable not to mention "the norm" for most paid online content, including marketingprofs.com if my meory is correct :-)