For a publication that's always pointing out scams, their subscription fliers seem like a scam. It's 2008 and due to their devious Subscription Renewals I'm subscribed until 2010. Let me explain how this happened, so that you can be ready for it. This also happens with their Consumer Reports on Health.

If you decide to subscribe, note that they will send you a renewal notice at least in Sept, Oct, and Nov regardless if you have renewed already. So that, if you use the renewal notice in Sept and select "bill me in Jan", in Oct they will send you another renewal notice. By the time Nov comes and you get yet another renewal notice, you'll be wondering if they didn't get the renewal notice you sent them in Sept (you won't see a cleared check because you told them to be billed in Jan). You will be tempted to send them the Nov subscription renewal form. Fight that temptation or you'll end up renewing twice! That's what happened to me at some time in the past and now I'm subscribed until 2010 and am still getting renewal reminders as if my subscription were running out.

Also, if you buy gift subscriptions note that they will bother your recipients by sending them subscription renewal forms too! So, if you plan to keep giving them a gift subscription you have to tell them to ignore the renewal fliers. I found this out when my father and mother-in-law mentioned they got renewal forms! Why are they bothering my recipients?

PS: It's worth subscribing for a year, so that you can see this devious renewal subscription behavior for yourself. Same thing happens with their Consumer Reports on Health.

I've taken this magazine for years and it's time for a renewal again, so says the latest snail-mail reminder from CR. However, I am rethinking "renewal" since--surprise--I get the best reviews and recommendations from Amazon.com users' reviews, along with other online sites that provide product reviews! As several reviewers of CR have pointed out, CR seems to be more automobile-orientated and also tends to repeat reviews of certain products way too often (vacuum cleaners come to mind).

I have decided to NOT renew my CR subscription and, instead, I will continue to rely upon customers' reviews from Amazon.com and other online sources. If I feel deprived from CR, I'll seriously look at the online membership option. I do all of my product research online, anyway...

My conclusion, therefore, is: Consumers Report is strictly an entertainment vehicle and has little value in helping me make informed decisions when purchasing products. I do not like the yearly CR-selected products' evaluation forms that CR sends out, which are coupled with CR's request for donations/money. I don't participate in this event...as I assume many others do not, either.

need to buy something? is it a bargain or a dud this mag helps alot

At times it's hard to believe that this long-lived publication is "non-profit," as though it were performing some indispensable public service by comparing luxury cars and getting fussed up about things like a dimmer switch that isn't conveniently located. Nevertheless, it's an entertaining magazine, offering at least one feature each month that makes for a fast and fascinating read. Given the overkill of information on the internet (pages upon pages of specs and tests devoted to a single subcompact digital camera, for example, or the seemingly infinite amounts of information about stocks, finances, mutual funds), CR could be looked upon either as overkill (offering comparatively superficial product analyses) or as a more sensible, user-friendly alternative to the excessive information available online.

As for the usefulness of the advice, it's a toss-up whether I've come out better by purchasing a CR "Best Buy" or by going to a low-rated (and often less expensive) model. In the case of some American automobiles that were trashed by CR or which received nothing but those "black boxes," I've often done well by selecting the condemned product (a Mercury automobile that lasted me 15 years comes readily to mind).

The magazine's shortcomings: 1. Frequently, the models reviewed by CR have been phased out, updated, or replaced by the time the magazine publishes its ratings; 2. Much of the material is simply no longer as useful: the ratings of mutual funds, for example. You'll find the same and more in any number of popular financial publications or free of charge on sites like Yahoo, though past history of a fund's performance can mean little; 3. All of the warnings and advice about buying cars, as if the consumer really has significant control of the cost let alone the time to spend hours in the quest to lower a salesman's profit margin by a few extra dollars; 4. The not inconsiderable extra charges the magazine assesses for their car pricings, or for special issues on health, or for the use of their website; 5. The frequent return appearances by certain products, as though we can't go a month without another review of flat-panel TV sets.

In short, CR used to be more valuable before the consumer became the wary, fully-informed, self-appointed expert that he is today (notice the number of reviews on Amazon that begin "I researched TVs for six months before purchasing this one." If that's what "research" has come to mean, no wonder we're constantly losing ground to other nations that still actually create and make stuff). For many Americans, devoting all of one's spare time to studying commodities and material items has apparently even taken priority over using them.

In short, it's time for Consumer Reports to become more critical of "consumerism" itself. Rather than educate people to be better consumers, how about a few provocative articles suggesting how consumers can be better people?

Not sure how I bought anything without this or why anyone would. Great reviews and great information. Buy it, you will not regret it.