Magazines really hate it when you let your subscription lapse. The time between receiving your first issue and receiving your first renewal notice can be amazingly short. If you like the magazine that's not a problem; you can renew any time and simply extend your subscription.

Not all security software subscriptions work the same way, though.

In particular, if you renew your Kaspersky subscription too early you can incur a significant loss.

I'm bringing this to everyone's attention because in the various posts I've seen on WinCustomize, many folks have noted they are customers and are very satisfied with the software (as well they should be: It is excellent).

An irate customer apparently brought up this problem. He got a notice that his Kaspersky Internet Security 2011 was about to expire, so he extended the subscription for two years. Being a person of rare perception he noticed that the new end date was two years from the present, not two years from the previous end date. He lost two full months of coverage.

Kaspersky states that indeed this is their policy:

• If you renew in the two weeks prior to the end of the current subscription you'll retain the remaining two weeks. But if you renew sooner you simply lose the remainder of the current subscription.

According to my Kaspersky contacts a warning about this policy should have come up when the reader tried early renewal. According to the customer no such warning appeared.

If you're a happy user of a Kaspersky security product you'll certainly want to keep your subscription current. Just be very careful not to renew too early!

Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2375356,00.asp

Readers, have you encountered other peculiar subscription policies?

Let me know, along with any suggestions or ideas you have for my posts.