I’m stuck in introductory offer hell
Keep note of those half-price offers before they inflate your credit card bill next year
Congratulations on this free once-in-a-lifetime special introductory offer!
Yes! You can read this column for the next eight weeks for free, plus the price you’re paying now — unless you aren’t — in which case, see the fine print.**
Follow that? I hope not, because if you did it wouldn’t be a genuine “introductory offer” that’s usually meant to bamboozle you.
These offers pour into my mail from newspapers, magazines, music clubs, yoga classes and health clubs. They offer fabulous free trials or introductory rates you can’t resist — until they spiral upward in cost without warning once your introduction ends.
Recently a pal mentioned he’d neglected his Visa card statement and just noticed he’d forgotten to cancel an introductory first-month-free gym membership — that has now cost him several hundred dollars.
I scoffed. Then remembered I’d been away a lot lately and hadn’t checked my Visa statement carefully either.
The first thing I noticed was a month-old charge of $249 from The Motley Fool, an online financial journal I’d given a free trial last year and never read again — but now it had been “renewed” at its regular price.
I called instantly and they acted fairly, charging me only $21 for the last month. Whew!
But then I noticed another $50.59 monthly charge by the New York Times for the last four months instead of the $25 I’d been paying for years.
Yikes! Was that an introductory offer, too?
I phoned to complain and quickly found myself in telephone “voice jail,” being shuffled from recording to recording, then agent to agent. Finally one person explained: Yes, I had a $25 plan for several years, but apparently I’d cancelled it briefly 16 months ago — then renewed it two weeks later at the same rate.
The two-week gap meant it was now a new “introductory” offer that leapt in price after a year. Grrrr. I argued strenuously, but it was hopeless — I decided to pay the money, cancel and never buy the paper again.
But even that wasn’t easy, because the agent wasn’t “authorized” to accept my cancellation. She said I had to talk to the “Canada manager” — then she put me on hold for another 15 minutes, while I ruminated over my fate.
Introductory offers used to last a week, maybe a month, but now many are six months to a year and easy to forget — which seems to be the point.
According to a California study on long-term memory, the longer an introductory offer lasts, the less likely people are to cancel it.
That’s because few of us can remember things for as long as we think we can.
Countless suckers like me take a free trial, then forget they did — or when it expires. By the time they find out, they’ve paid the opposite of free.
That’s also why The Economist magazine just offered me a oneyear subscription for $152 — but they’ll reduce it to $135 if the subscription “auto-renews” each year.
Translation: I have to phone to cancel after a year — and they’re counting on me to forget. Maybe I shouldn’t complain. I wish politicians had free trials and you could cancel them before their four years were up. But your introductory offer expires after they’re elected.
Anyway, back in on-hold telephone hell, I’d finally been connected to the New York Times “Canada manager” Ray — an American in Ohio. When I told him I was cancelling, Ray instantly offered to reduce my $50 monthly bill back to the original $25 — “for good!” — though I still had to pay for the last four inflated months.
“Forget it,” I said. “I’m cancelling!” But Ray resisted.
“Hmmm … Maybe I could make a special request to the manger to get you a special introductory offer?” he mused. “Hang on there, sir — I’ll be right back!”
This was obviously the old car salesman stunt, where they pretend to visit an invisible manager in the backroom. I could actually hear Ray on the phone throughout, silently tapping a pen and breathing.
Finally he “returned,” excitedly saying: “This is your lucky day, sir! The manager says yes!”
So like a sucker, I said yes, too. How could I resist? Instead of the $25 a month I’d paid for years and the $50 I’ve been paying lately, I will now pay just $14. The only downside is I have to remember to quit in exactly a year or the rate soars. And Ray is counting on me to forget.
But this time I have a special secret weapon: you. My plan expires Oct. 18, 2018, so even if I’m off in Kuala Lumpur or the North Pole, I’m hoping some of you will kindly remind me to cancel.
By the way: I also have a Dec. 15, 2018, Guardian introductory deadline and a Spectator magazine one coming up March 2.
Please help me to terminate my introduction.