I love magazines. This reading romance started when I was a teenager, with titles like Seventeen, 16, Beatles, and Teen Beat. In my NJ home there were always stacks of magazines on the coffee table. (With 6 Gallo girls, there was a lot of pop culture we had to keep up with.) Today, you’d find Golf Digest, Men’s Health, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Bon Appetit, and InStyle in our MA home. Something for every Dana!

But something happened this month that’s leaving a bitter taste in this magazine-lover’s mouth. Maybe it’s a common marketing practice among magazine publishers – and this rube only just caught on.

In a period of a few weeks I received both emails and direct mail solicitations from the publisher of one of my favorites, Vanity Fair. Both types of solicitations were to inform me that my subscription – plus a gift subscription I bought for my sister – was about to expire, and that I’d better hurry up and renew.

Vanity Fair has terrific writers, and the production values are stellar. (How popular is it in the Dana household? Well, when we get a new issue, my husband and I spring into the “hide-and-hoard” mode. Whoever gets it first, that is.)

Back to my urgent renewal message #1, in print. I sent back the form, indicating I indeed wanted to re-up my subscription.

Within days I got an email with the same time-sensitive appeal: hurry, renew! For some reason, I went online to have a look at my account…something I hadn’t done, well, ever.

As I dug into the site’s customer account support center, I saw something interesting: it seems that my account is paid up through 2017. Not 2014, 2015 or even 2016 – but a full 4 years from now.

Here’s where my being a rube kicks in. Evidently, when I first subscribed to the magazine, tiny print informed me that my subscription would be on auto-renewal unless I opted out. And I must be renewing annually, from either the direct mail or email notices. That’ll teach me not to pore over my credit card bill with a critical eye.

I emailed them, asking if it’s true I’m paid up through ’17 and if so, why am I hit with renewal solicitations? A week later they replied, saying, “yes, you’re paid up through 2017,” and that was that.

I just wondered the obvious:

If customers are on auto-renewal, why are they sent additional renewal solicitations?

Then I called customer service at Vanity Fair and asked them. I was told they send everyone the renewal notices at the same time every year. She asked if I wanted them to stop until it gets closer to my end date – in 2017.

It’s costing them to mail to auto-renewal subscribers every year, but it must be worth it. Surely I’m not the only one who’s all set with monthly magazine subscriptions – till kingdom come.

Shame on me – or them?