I enjoy reading Forbes Magazine enough to subscribe to it occasionally when I get a good offer. But usually the renewals are expensive, and by then I am tired of the magazine. I remember how often I don’t even get to read an issue before it’s outdated, and I let my subscription lapse.
A half year after that, Forbes sends me a direct mail piece, offering a $21 renewal for a year, and a “free gift” comes with it. This time the free gift was a bag.
The $21 was good enough for me to decide that I want the magazine again. I wrote on the order card to forget about the bag, that I didn’t want it.
When I got the bill, it said that as soon as I paid, they’d send me the “free gift.” I wrote the check, and wrote on the response slip to please hold the bag, I didn’t want it.
Today I got the bag.
This little bag came in a plastic USPS priority envelope. The shipping must have cost a couple of dollars. The bag, made out of cheap smelly plastic with thin fabric straps, must have been made in China and I can’t imagine how it didn’t cost another two dollars. Shipping it from China to the U.S. is another two dollars. The whole thing is useless. I don’t know what I would do with it. It’s too small for anything useful, and too flimsy for any valid purpose. It’s going to lay around the house for a while until eventually I throw it away, never used.
Forbes is spending almost half the subscription value (my guess anyway) on this item I didn’t want and told them several times I didn’t want.
Forbes is a classy magazine, with ads for Rolex, private jets, and Bugattis. I cannot imagine that any single Forbes reader would be caught dead with this bag, with Forbes written on it. What are they thinking?
Now here is the kicker: As I wrote this post, something felt like deja vu. So I searched my own blog and found this post from almost five years ago, when they sent me a cheap watch – and I that the same rumination.
Please, Forbes, figure it out. We really don’t want your hokey gifts!