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Update: Elle
2003-06-05 12:08 am(Another 'what in Hell were they thinking?' incident.)
It took three phone calls and six people for me to track this one down: first to Elle's subscription department, who told me that the subscription had been entered by an "agency" called Neighborhood, who told me that it was a "gift" from New Trends Marketing.
The first person I spoke to there was apparently just an operator; the person she directed me to told me that the subscription was a promotion sent to everyone who had a subscription to TV Guide through them.
Aside: At this point I remembered that I had renewed my subscription to TV Guide a year ago, realizing only after I'd done it that it hadn't been TV Guide I was sending my money to, but some other company. OK, it was still a pretty good deal on a 3-year extension.
I told her I didn't want to get unsolicited subscriptions to magazines I have no use for, and she transfered me. The wait seemed interminable, and was full of clicks -- I'm guessing she had to go through several levels to find someone with a clue and two brain cells to rub together.
The last person finally said she'd put a note on my account that I didn't want unsolicited promotions. Thank you! Then she offered me another subscription to compensate me for my troubles.
Aside: anyone who has seen my office, either at work or at home, has seen the stacks of unread magazines. At a previous job my cubicle was declared a fire hazard and I had to dump the magazines, which were piled a foot or so high on a 6'x3' workbench. I do not need another magazine subscription.
So we began a five-minute search through categories of magazines: mens' magazines? No. Business? I suggested Forbes, but of course they didn't have that. A computer magazine? PC Gamer? Computer shopper? PC World? I think I dropped my subscription to that a decade ago. National Geographic? Get that already, and I didn't trust them to manage extending it without screwing up.
Finally we settled on another year of TV Guide. So all's well that ends better, as the Gaffer would say.
<rant>
But why in Hell did they think that everyone who subscribes to TV Guide would be interested in a fashion magazine? More to the point, how in blazes did they expect people to react when they start getting a new, expensive-looking magazine showing up in their mailbox?
My first thought -- after verifying that nobody else in the family had ordered it -- was that some idiot had clicked on a web ad in a browser that had my address cookies in it (though I'm pretty good about only filling in forms on browsers running in my own accounts), or that someone had broken into an account somewhere, possibly Amazon or some such.
</rant>
It took three phone calls and six people for me to track this one down: first to Elle's subscription department, who told me that the subscription had been entered by an "agency" called Neighborhood, who told me that it was a "gift" from New Trends Marketing.
The first person I spoke to there was apparently just an operator; the person she directed me to told me that the subscription was a promotion sent to everyone who had a subscription to TV Guide through them.
Aside: At this point I remembered that I had renewed my subscription to TV Guide a year ago, realizing only after I'd done it that it hadn't been TV Guide I was sending my money to, but some other company. OK, it was still a pretty good deal on a 3-year extension.
I told her I didn't want to get unsolicited subscriptions to magazines I have no use for, and she transfered me. The wait seemed interminable, and was full of clicks -- I'm guessing she had to go through several levels to find someone with a clue and two brain cells to rub together.
The last person finally said she'd put a note on my account that I didn't want unsolicited promotions. Thank you! Then she offered me another subscription to compensate me for my troubles.
Aside: anyone who has seen my office, either at work or at home, has seen the stacks of unread magazines. At a previous job my cubicle was declared a fire hazard and I had to dump the magazines, which were piled a foot or so high on a 6'x3' workbench. I do not need another magazine subscription.
So we began a five-minute search through categories of magazines: mens' magazines? No. Business? I suggested Forbes, but of course they didn't have that. A computer magazine? PC Gamer? Computer shopper? PC World? I think I dropped my subscription to that a decade ago. National Geographic? Get that already, and I didn't trust them to manage extending it without screwing up.
Finally we settled on another year of TV Guide. So all's well that ends better, as the Gaffer would say.
<rant>
But why in Hell did they think that everyone who subscribes to TV Guide would be interested in a fashion magazine? More to the point, how in blazes did they expect people to react when they start getting a new, expensive-looking magazine showing up in their mailbox?
My first thought -- after verifying that nobody else in the family had ordered it -- was that some idiot had clicked on a web ad in a browser that had my address cookies in it (though I'm pretty good about only filling in forms on browsers running in my own accounts), or that someone had broken into an account somewhere, possibly Amazon or some such.
</rant>
