August Home Rant

[Pappy]

At one time, I subscribed to 3 publications from this company. (Woodsmith, Shop Notes, and Workbench) For economic reasons I have been letting my subscriptions lapse.

The last active subscription was to "Workbench" but, after August Home decided to stop its publication, I started receiving "My Home My Style". I did not connect the 2 magazines and figured the new magazine was a promotion of some sort.

How any resonable person in the magazine industry could consider this poor attempt at a home decorating magazine would be an acceptable substitute to a woodworker for "Workbench" is beyond me.

Working on my bills today, I found a renewal notice for this magazine I had never heard of, until it showed up in my mailbox, and decided to investigate. I didn't know it was an August Home publication until I did an online for the magazine.

To end this rant, below is a copy of the e mail I sent to August Home customer service. When, and if, they answer me I will post their response.

Gentlemen:

I recently started receiving "My Home My Style" magazine and have received a renewal notice for this magazine.

At no time have I ever subscribed to this magazine nor, until it showed up in my mailbox, had never heard of it. I had no idea why I was this magazine was beig sent to me, unless it was a promotion by your company. In retrospect, the only other reason I could think of that I would be sent this unsolicited publication would be the recent combining / deletion of some of August Home's publications to which I had current subscriptions.

If this is the case, you had given me the option of either finishing my subscription with another of your publications of my choosing or receiving a pro-rated refund for the remaining issues. Force feeding me a magazine of your choosing does not, in my mind, fullfill your obligation to my subscription.

At this point, the only satisfactory solution would be the aforementioned pro-rated refund. Unless this matter is settled to my satisfaction, I will never subsribe to any publication again and, further, will make all efforts to convince every person I know personally and online to do the same.

Sincerely,

(Signature and subsciption # deleted)

[Uncle Cracker]

Good for you, Pappy. I think they owe you your money back, and would take this matter to a satisfactory conclusion purely for principle's sake.

[Bruce Cohen]

Don,

That happened to me also. Luckily I had only 2 issues to go till my sub was up, of course, I didn't renew.

If I remember correctly, something was mentioned about making the switch but it wasn't a major announcement.

Being in the magazine business at one time, I always thought that they were competing with themselves having Workbench and Woodsmith.

I always found Workbench to be one of the better magazines out there and do miss it.

Bruce

[Ed62]

I actually let my subscription expire a few months ago. But I did receive an offer to subscribe to the new magazine.

Ed

[jking]

IIRC, they did mention the change in the magazine, although the announcement was subtle. I received two of the new mags before the end of my subscription & used it as a reason to reduce my subscription list. IMO, Workbench had been slipping in the level of quality & usefulness of articles for a while.

[thrytis]

"My Home My Style" is pretty pathetic. I wonder if most of the readers of Workbench were women so they decided to completely target women.

After my first issue of "My Home My Style" arrived, i called to cancel. It took under two minutes on the phone to transfer the remaining subscription to Woodsmith (which was my preference over a refund). They did ask why i wanted to discontinue "My Home My Style", but never tried to give me a hard time about it.

[crokett]

Pappy, I hope you receive satisfaction. I would be annoyed too.

[cgallery]

What? You guys are subscribing to home decorating magazines now?



LOL. Anyone have a good recipe for cupcakes?

[TB Roye]

Same here no more Woodsmith so I will not subscribe to the new mag. Down to Shop Notes and Wood and if Wood doesnt' straighten out my Subscription they will be droped. Some how Wood now comes addressed and the renewal notices come to LOML. Why? and nither one of us take Better Homes and Gardens. IDIOTS

Tom

[jon_ramp]

Some how Wood now comes addressed and the renewal notices come to LOML. Tom

Same with my subscription; however, my wife does receive Better Homes and Gardens. I ordered Wood myself, she did not purchase Wood for me so how her name in on my subscription makes no sense. Nearly a year ago, I wrote to their customer service department to have it changed, nothing happened.

[TB Roye]

I had the original sub to Wood and some how it ended up in LOML subs. The send the bill to her and she won't renew it for me.

I messed up in the post above. I still get Woodsmith and Shopnotes, never did get Workbench, so never got the replacement. That what you get for speed reading or when you get old.

Tom

[pelligrini]

I got that home thing too. I thought it was some intro mag. I didn't know it was a replacement for my workbench subscription. I thought my sub to workbench had finally run out. I won't really miss it anyways. There might be a few gems in the ones I've gotten, but certainly not worth it as a whole.

[JimD]

Somebody gave me a subscription to "Bottom Line". I didn't hate it but when it came up for renewal, they informed me that they were automatically renewing it and would bill me. I just ignored them until the bill came, then I continued to ignore them and didn't pay the bill. They finally got the idea and stopped sending it.

At least they didn't try the "automatic renewal" tactic with you.

In desparation at christmas time I gave my credit card number to some little outfit with a virus program that got good reviews that had a 60 or 90 day paid trial. It was cheap but it didn't work - so it still was not worth it. Then they automatically renewed me, charging my credit card, for the not so cheap next year. And they were hard to get ahold of. But I stayed after it and got a refund. Turned out Norton had turned itself off and when I turned it back on it fixed the issue. Didn't feel real smart after that one.

Jim

[phrog]

That's outrageous, Pappy. Home you get a refund.

[LarryG]

Regarding automatic renewals.

When I subscribe to a magazine, any magazine, or pay the invoice for a renewal, I write NO AUTOMATIC RENEWALS across the ticket -- even if I have every expectation of continuing to take the title when renewal time rolls around again. This has never failed to work for me. Because of that I suspect the subscription data base software allows for subscribers opting out of automatic renewals, and that all you have to do is ask.