Magazines have been doing that sort of thing for years. We would get renewal notices/bills long before subscriptions were due to expire (i think we had some where we had purchased 2-3 year subscriptions because it was cheaper and they would send out renewal notices/bills even though there was a year or more to go). My husband would just pay them until I noticed we had some that now had years till the subscription would expire - we had a magazine we got for the kids for quite a while after they lost interest in it because of this. Now he checks the little sticker on the magazine to see if it is actually close to being due before he pays.