Business 2.0: Five Days for an Auto-Reply E-mail?!

One of the worst kept secrets in the magazine world is that Business 2.0 is in trouble.  That's disappointing as I regard Business 2.0 as one of the last few insightful business mags that's still standing.  Fast Company also ranks high in my book, btw.

Struggling to survive is one thing, but what would cause them to take five days to send an auto-reply to an e-mail message?  I got a message from them on 8/21 saying that my subscription has been auto-renewed.  I always question that sort of thing because it usually means I'm being charged a higher rate than a new subscriber.  So, I sent them an e-mail asking them for the terms so that I could decide whether to accept or cancel.

I kid you not: Today (8/26 at 6:10PM, 5 days after my inquiry), I got an e-mail from Business 2.0 saying that I've been "assigned an incident number" and "should hear from us in 2 business days."  That would be impressive.  After all, if it takes 5 days to auto-reply to an e-mail, how in the world can they get a real, live person to contact me within 48 hours?!

Comments

[vel]

hmm, may be they chose the auto reply mode simply because they needed 2 more days (in addition to the 5 days that they already wasted) ;-)...

[EBryant]

I also hate the auto-renewal gimick. Its often made worse when they seem to want to renew you 6 months into a 1 year magazines subscription (which has happened to me).