COMPLETELY RANDOM: Subscriber Abuse

I subscribed to Marie Claire for you, dear reader.  I assumed I'd probably be getting December as my first issue, probably late in the month.  Instead, my first issue was November, arriving in my mailbox over a week into December.  As you can see, it also showed up looking like it had been chewed by weasels.

The back is even worse, and all of the pages in the issue are bent.  I imagine them pulling the rejects from the previous month's issue, the ones that didn't make the quality cut, the ones that perhaps were used to entertain weasels, and shipping those out to their new subscribers.  What a great first impression!  It reminded me of something else - the last time I subscribed to Marie Claire and received a two month old issue that may have been delivered by a pack of wild dogs.  This out of date issue that they'd already printed before I sent in my check counts against my 12 month subscription, so they "save" some money.  So uncool.

I received my December/January copy of Harper's Bazaar the same day, and they helpfully included this letter:

Expiration notice?!?!?  Oh noes, I thought!!!  Except...check out the highlighted area.  My subscription is expiring with the September 2014 issue, which is 9+ months from now.  I'm not supposed to know to read that.  I'm supposed to freak out and renew, and then they'll trick me again in six months with the same threat of expiration and I guess eventually my subscription will outlive me!