screw you self magazine

I am signed up to get email updates from Self Magazine. They send me little tidbits on health and fitness with free recipes and exercises. I thought it was pretty cool. Every once in a while, they would have a give-a-way for a free bag of this or pack of that. I usually entered.

For the past while they've been doing daily give-a-ways in conjunction with Whole Foods. So, every day I would log onto their website and enter into the daily contest. The first time I entered, I got an error message and had to go back because I had forgot to check something in this box:

So I clicked "no" and entered the give-a-way. The next day, and every day after that, the website kept my information and preferences logged so it would be a simple click of the "enter" button to submit my name into that day's contest. All my information and preferences except for one. The one above. Every day after that first day, even though I had clicked "no", the box above was highlighted as a "yes". So, every day that I entered I had to remember to move the button to "no" again before submitting.

Yesterday I forgot to move it over and accidentally submitted with it on "yes". Instead of the regular "you are entered" message I am taken to a page that says "Thank you for your subscription! We will bill you!"

No verification that I actually wanted a subscription, no way to back out, no customer service numbers, no way to tell it that I didn't want a damn magazine subscription.

I've gotten no less than three emails telling me that I am now subscribed and owe them $15. All of the emails except for one that I tried to reply to gave me a "not able to deliver" message. The one that I was able to reply to sent me the same auto-reply I have received so far in my many attempts to get a hold of some kind of customer service representative. The auto-reply messages all say someone will talk to me some day when they feel like it.

I am pretty pissed. I think I can safely say that they trick a lot of people into magazine subscriptions and owing them money this way. I get that magazine subscriptions is how they make money, which is why I didn't mind all the pop-up ads about subscribing, but it's pretty low to force people into accidentally subscribing and scraping their information from entering a give-a-way in order to bill them, with no option to cancel.

Suffice to say, I will not be paying them. I will send any magazines back as "return to sender" and if I see so much as one bill coming my way I will be contesting it.

I will definitely never be visiting their website again, unsubscribing from all their email newsletters, and never again recommending any of their information or articles to a friend.

Seriously, screw you Self Magazine.