by CKR
Today I shredded the reminder from NARAL that my membership expired on some recent date in the past. Enough already.
I seem to get a reminder from NARAL or Planned Parenthood that they'd like money at least once a week. Sometimes they call, too. Even the organizations that are more moderate in their demands duplicate themselves far too often. Last fall I wound up joining Human Rights Campaign twice because they didn't stop their appeals after I sent the first check. Did I get a notice that now I was signed up for two years and wouldn't receive any more appeals? Go ahead, laugh.
Last fall I also sent money that I thought was going to renew my subscription to Harper's to some black hole that is preying on those of us who don't keep track of our magazine renewals. Now that they've found a patsy, I have gotten bogus renewal notices for Harper's Bazaar and Columbia Journalism Review. I don't even subscribe to Harper's Bazaar.
The legitimate subscription renewals come far too rapidly, too. And where are those crooks getting our names from? I'll bet they bought the subscription lists from the magazines, just as so many advertisers do. I've seen notices in the New York Review of Books, Scientific American, The Atlantic, and Harper's about this scam. In tasteful boxes at the outer bottom corner of the page, modest fonts, as though they're embarrassed that their own greed has brought this plague of junkmail locusts upon their subscribers.
So from now on, I'm going to be very careful and match up subscription renewal requests with the labels, if I can figure out the ever-more-obscure coding that shows when my subscription ends. And no more contributions to the overambitious organizations until their junkmail levels decrease. And I've got caller ID on my phone.