I used to look forward to my weekly dose of The Staggers. My print copy of The New Stateman would drop into the mailbox each week, bringing me a mixture of hope, despair and thoughtful distraction. Along with the daily delights from this place, and the music monthlies, my time available for ploughing into my huge inbound paperback stack was heftily reduced, but happily so.
When the Staggers ceased to arrive here at the tail-end of ’23 (despite no emailed or posted reminder) on Jan 5th ’24 I paid to renew my recently lapsed print sub for another full year. But no New Statesman copies subsequently arrived. Braving their dire telephone ‘customer support’ service, I queried this, but they palmed me off by saying I’d subscribed via a 3rd party – I’d renewed via magazines.co.uk the big subcriptions accumulator site, and suggested I raise the issue there instead.
At first I assumed that things were just taking a long time and waited a couple more weeks, yet still no New Statesman copies arrived. So I queried things with the magazines.co.uk people – the third party.
They were super helpful – confirming with detailed evidence that my subscription renewal had been advised to the magazine publisher on the day after I’d paid my money. They passed this confirmation on directly to the Staggers people. Sadly, not only did no New Statesman copies begin to arrive, but the requested email acknowledgment of the confirmation also failed to appear.
And still New Statesman copies fail to arrive.
I’m now four months in to my paid-for subscription and I still haven’t received a single copy. The latest email in this saga, again from the magazines.co.uk team, arrived yesterday offering me a full refund, saying that they too have had no response at all from the New Statesman despite multiple attempts to resolve the issue, and have no other way of helping me but to return my cash.
I know print mags are fighting to survive, so really, this isn’t helping.
Has anyone else here faced a similar wall of incompetence from a magazine? Can anyone suggest how I can fire a rocket up the New Statesman’s arse about my poor experience? Don’t suggest I just get my money back and resubscribe directly via the mag, as they can go to hell now as far as I’m concerned, but I’ll still do my damnedest to get at least an apology for their shocking complacency.
Had a similar problem with Private Eye’s subs dept a few years back. Eventually thought fuck it and stopped reading a mag I had been buying since 1972 and subscribing to since 1987.
Surprised how little I really miss it
When I saw the thread title I thought it was about poor editing and was expecting a pedants’ pile-on, headed by myself of course. So nothing to add except that it sounds a hopeless way to run a magazine that must be struggling.
Same here, Herr Thep!
Last periodical I subscribed to was The Beano, delivered with bulletproof regularity by the paper boy.
Being an intellectual ponce, I subscribed to the London Review of Books for a few years – wittily called the London Book of Reviews by Mrs thep. Always enjoyed reading it – the reviews are so long and detailed that they completely absolve you of any responsibility for reading the books in question. Being also a bit vague, I somehow contrived to take out a subscription in both countries. I did not discover this until I came back to Blighty to find 6 months’ worth of issues I’d already read on the doormat.
Always a day earlier than the anticipated Thursday, too. (The Beano, obviously; I have no idea when LRoB drops.)
This stirs a dim when-I-was-a-paperboy memory of delivering the NME on Wednesdays, a day early. I was THE MAN when I got to school and passed on the latest chart positions.
Mike, you are not and have never been The Man. Have you ever oppressed The Kids by telling them to turn their music down and cut their hair, or sending them to, like, totally die in Nam? No way!
Yeah, have either of you ever had someone stick it to you?
Oh.
You can laugh, but you’ve obviously never known the quiet satisfaction of telling an admiring crowd that Jet Harris and Tony Meehan were in with a bullet at no 27.
I hope the people at no 27 didn’t mind.
The mighty Tharg ensures my weekly dose of thrill-power arrives on-time.
We’re coming to 50 years of it being in orbit every week soon I think, in three years?
D.R. and Quinch is Alan Moore’s forgotten masterpiece.
“Mind the Oranges Marlon!”
…. something something oranges something….
they may not be the only fruit though
But they are the new black
Also a soft spot for the first Skizz series from him, set in Birmingham with the final scene at Spaghetti Junction. And Halo Jones. where did she go? Out. What did she do? Everything.
Dull Man alert: I assume you mean the Gravelly Hill Interchange
The Royal Mail now only delivers things other than parcels as a courtesy rather than as a service that has been paid for. Before Christmas two different local posties told us that they’d been told not to deliver anything other than parcels because that’s where the money is. They now only deliver letters etc “when they have time” because absolutely everybody does everything online. Well, everybody who matters anyway.
My Private Eye’s just arrived and by god they’re really putting the boot into Macmillan, and this Profumo character had better watch out – why does this stuff never get on the TV eh?
Fortunately the letters my guy has only delivered when he has the time include one from the fuzz telling me I’ve been busted for speeding, and one from HMRC telling me I’m getting a tax rebate.
The publishers can’t be arsed, as it’s all going online now. Actually, gone, pretty much. When I’m on a train to That London, I am often the only person reading a newspaper, magazine, or book rather than my phone. Not that this makes me a better person, necessarily. But I’m of the generation that prefers reading on paper.
When MOJO magazine ditched the cover mount CDs from their export editions I tried to buy the UK issues via their online shop (named »Greatmagazines.co.uk« rather unfortunately).
When my first order for the three latest issues didn’t arrive after six weeks, they told me it was due to Royal Mail, »and probably Brexit«. At my next inquiry, two weeks later, a person called »Fiona« promised to send the mags (all three issues) »literally, as we speak«. Two days later an envelope arrived at my office in Berlin (cheers Royal Mail…) – with only one of the three issues I had ordered. Another phone call, and again, two days later I received another copy of the issue they had already sent me. When I asked about this, they told me the third issue (the most recent one) was sold out by now and promised a refund. Never heard of them again, and never got a refund.
MOJO soon realised it was a bad decision to cancel the CDs (export sales everywhere had apparently gone down considerably) and rectified this. I got the missing issues from random sellers on Ebay, at half the price.
When a »publisher« can’t even handle subscriptions and back issues anymore, they’ve practically given up.
I have the digital NS which is OK and the app works much better than it used to. When I lived in France I subscribed to The Word and it hardly ever turned up. Hopeless. I’d never subscribe by post again.
The French postal service…. a better form of state-sponsored piracy you’re not likely to encounter.
I think there was an investigation and the whole consignment was being dumped somewhere in Northern France
Well that narrows it down 🤭
I was given a gift subscription to Mojo years ago and renewed by annual DD because they offered me a good deal. A year or two later they doubled the price without bothering to inform me and didn’t think that was a good reason to refund the difference so I cancelled the subscription.
Having moved my subs online, delivery tends not to be a problem, but it sometimes pays to argue the toss on price. About a year ago I ditched The Economist. It was a company paid sub, but the dicked me around so much on renewal; wouldn’t accept a US company credit card because I was in the UK, so I binned it. I’ve just had a half hour argument with the Financial Times who wanted to charge £50 more for a renewal compared to a new customer. They ended up knocking £84 off, so it was worth 30 minutes of having a mild strop.
I also object to the autorenewal that they all now apply, in the hope you’ll forget and they’ll push an increase through. When The Athletic did this I complained and got an autoreply that basically said tough poop. So I raised a credit card charge back, and they gave me a refund, refusing to offer a better price. Which is ironic as 6 weeks later I singed up to the New York Times for £4 a month, and got The Athletic and their games included.
The Athletic can be annoying. I started subscribing in 2018 with an introductory offer of £29.99 and had not long auto renewed at £59.99 when they brought out the first £1 a month for 12 months offer. Funnily enough this coincided with all the dickhead trolls in the comments sections. Anyway, I unticked the auto renew and got a popup screen offering renewal for £17.99. I now pay £24 a year.
Every now and then, the city newspaper ‘General Anzeiger’ offers a free 2- week subscription to its daily broadsheet. I take it up, because it gets cancelled at the end, with just a questionnaire to complete and an invitation to take up a paid subscription. Although its journalism has the typical strength of a German city newspaper, I rarely read it, preferring to simply refresh the supply for lining the 🇬🇳 🐖 (guinea pig) cage.
Once, when buying yet another handbag for my wife online, I got, as reward, the offer of what I thought was a similar free subscription to a newspaper from Cologne. Except it wasn’t the same. Come the end of the two weeks I was automatically added to a paid subscription to a rag that was far worse than the Bonn paper. It took phone calls and repeated emails to extract myself from the contract a month later and 80 Euros worth off. Little Muffin has no idea how valuable the bedding she micturates is.
Next time, I’m sticking to the free case of 6 bottles of red wine.
Years ago, Offspring the Elder asked for a sub to Rock Sound magazine for her birthday/Xmas. Every month I would have to repeatedly ring customer services when the issue was in the shops but her copy had not yet arrived. Every month I’d end up with either no copy, or multiple copies. Sometimes I’d have to buy a copy on eBay if the front cover artist was popular and it sold out.
In the end I cancelled the sub (they then rang me up to ask why – the first time they ever did anything proactive), I got a refund from my credit card and sold the pile of back issues on eBay. I think I ended up quids in, which at least covered some of my costs.
I’ve just checked and it is still going, incredibly.
Back in the days before The Word folded, I took out a cut-price subscription to Mojo, just to get the “Forever Changing: The Golden Age of Elektra” 5CD+book&assorted tat box set they were giving away to new subscribers.
When the box hadn’t arrived after a few weeks, I rang them about it and they sent out a replacement box, which arrived within a few days – as did the original one they’d sent out, so I ended up with 2 copies. Gave the spare one to Heppo & Ellen to be given as a raffle prize at a Word mingle.