Adam Jewell - Search & Affiliate Marketing

You probably know Morningstar & Morningstar.com. They have a lot of research on stocks and mutual funds aimed at helping the average investor make smart investing decisions. They have good content and some good videos to help investors learn about various funds and stocks. They’ve got print publications and an online version.

Last year I subscribed to the online version. They must have kept track of how many times I went to the site and didn’t subscribe since the subscription price dropped as time went on. I found the video series moderately useful and would check to see what they had to say about various 401K and Vanguard funds. Little did I notice when I signed up they opted me into an auto renew deal where they just bill my credit card when the current subscription expires.

Someone over there probably decided they would make more money if they set everyone to auto renew and made it impossible to do anything about it on the Morningstar.com website. They sent out an email to alert me that they were going to auto renew the subscription at a rate higher than the original subsription rate. I went to the site to try to cancel and couldn’t do it so just sent them an email response telling them NOT to renew the subscription. I figured that should be sufficient and they would cancel the subscription.

A month or so later a charge from Morningstar.com shows up on my credit card for the new increased membership fee. I didn’t want to be auto renewed in the first place, I sent them an email to request they not auto renew and told them what I though of the auto renew policy and they still renewed my subscription.

Finally, I had to call them during their business hours and wait on hold for a few minutes before finally getting to talk to somoene who offered a $79.00 anual rate to try to get me to stay on as a subscriber. I think that was about HALF the rate they originally billed me for, for the renewal. The operator was pleasant but I’m still going to get billed something for however long it took to get the membership cancelled.

If you want some decent research on stocks and mutual funds, Morningstar.com is an excellent place to go to at least get your feet wet. If you subscribe, it seems like they assume you want to be a perpetual subscriber and will just keep billing your credit card until you call them and tell them to stop. When you do that, they’ll offer you a highly discounted rate.

Bottom line, if you don’t want to have to deal with yet another company that thinks they have the right to perpetually bill your credit card when you pay them once for something then don’t subscribe to Morningstar. If you like the content and want to play their little games, then call up and tell them you want to cancel and chances ae they will drop the price of your membership by nearly 50% to less than $100.