RustyC

I think Atlanta consumer advocate Clark Howard (who does a radio show heard in a number of other cities as well) has been warning people off subscribing to some of the major Time Warner AOL titles for suscriptions because they've imposed "auto-renew." (i.e. customer must opt out of renewal rather than opting in). IMO this is an abuse of the trust consumers have in giving out credit card info, and also the kind of self-serving practice that it unfortunately takes boycotts to stop.

If this is the case with RH, I think it's also legitimate to complain to ValuMags. They're serving as the conduit and can't escape being a party to it. The right thing for VM to do would be to stipulate to publishers that auto-renews don't apply or VM doesn't carry the title, but that kind of backbone is too rare in business today.