Future plc Reviews 

Another 'zero stars if I could' review of Moneyweek Magazine

An outsourced helpdesk that has no independent oversight so its impossible to contact a human to complain about their own 'help desk'. A disease thats widespread across business nowadays.

Helpdesk is staffed by people incapable of communicating, incapable of reading and incapable of thought.

Not a single question answered satisfactorily in 3 years. It takes days to get a response and then its just a random set of words. I honestly couldnt script such poor behaviour if I tried, its that astonishingly bad.

As usual, its impossible to complain around them and you get no response from the moneyweek, moneyweek editor, moneyweek EIC or future publishing twitter account. Message is...We Dont Care.

I have had the pleasure of cancelling my subscription.

I attempted to order a subscription to Decanter Magazine in October 2023. They then charged my credit card 4 times for the same subscription. After multiple calls and no magazines, I reluctantly gave up and cancelled the subscription in February. So far I've managed to receive 3 refunds. I've been assured several times that the final refund has been processed, but I have still not received it, despite repeated escalations and case #s. It's just unbelievable.
I would have though that increasing print magazine subscriptions would be a good thing, but obviously not.

Future have taken a payment of £27 from my account for a subscription. Unfortunately, they can't tell me what the payment is for, how it came to be made, or refund it. They're just going to keep it even though their is no sign of any contract.

Annual week subscription bought in April 23.
Magazine stopped being delivered in Jan 24, spoke to office after they sent another renewal letter, they assured me that the matter was sorted out, and my delivery was back on track
Came home from holiday to find they had taken payment - without my approval - multiple times.
Had to call bank to stop payments
As a previous reviewer has stated, magazines are great - Future publishing are appalling. I WILL NEVER USE THIS COMPANY AGAIN!
Update; post the above and 5 payments taken from my account (refunded)..call 0330 333 9495 its their UK number

Love the Magazines PC Pro & Computer Active, but the customer service of the parent company Future Publishing is a Joke. Purchased the USB 2023 back issues thumb driver, 3 weeks ago, never got it. Called customer services and they said they have not got stock and don't know when or if they will have it back in stock. As you can buy back issues on Optical Disk or USB drive, I asked do they have any copies of the CD. The broken English reply was "Sir you only purchased one product", I know I said, I am just asking though if you have any stock of the CD she repeats "Sir you only purchased one product" again I said "I Know", but I am trying to find out if you have any CD stock to see if we kind find a solution but again she replied like a stuck record "Sir you only purchased one product" why way it such a difficult concept for her to get, I just wanted to know if their were CD's available to consider my options but I could not get her to grasp this simple concept. Asking to speak to a manager gets the usual answer as "Sir a manager can not help you any more than I can" Well if manager had her level of competence, heaven help them! The call ended unresolved with a promise of a call back in a few days. But if it is like their usual promises it will be broken.

Order the Week for my Grandma for Christmas at the beginning of December, they failed to take the payment the first time, then to unlock the account and have now charged me twice for an annual subscription when a copy of the Week is yet to arrive 2 months after first signing up.

I have subscribedto Country Life for nearly 20 yrs. Thisyr I cant because, though they wont admit it but CL staff let it slip, their so-called systems can't process CC payments from non-UK banks. But instead they make it sound like its a problem with my card. And the Customer Service responses are dreadful. Anybody replies, we must phone you to sort this (yeah like my accountant will endorse that, a sub given by phone and no written evidence etc), a complaint I raised will be canceled "if we cant call you" (so surely it isn't really then a complaint!!!!?). Magazines Direct seems to be the subsidiary that all this BS emanates from ... so AVOID!!!

Subscribed to a magazine, they took their £100, then a couple of days later took it again. Bank can't dispute it for 30 days, so am £100 out of pocket for an entire month.

I made the mistake of signing up to their investor alerting service when I briefly owed shares in the company. Despite unsubscribing on multiple occasions i am still receiving daily emails. Don't see why I should have to change my email address to block their spam. Leave a voicemail and expect a return call? Ha! Avoid like the plague.

Appalling customer service. After paying for several different issues I received one! I was told payment has not been received and I was asked for proof. I sent screenshots and was told I could have a refund or replacement - I chose refund. I was then told this proof was unacceptable and to provide actual statements. Again, I did this and now only receive emails starting with the same copy and pasted response that it has been forwarded to the relevant department. This has been going on for a month and can’t see it being resolved. An absolute zero customer service and a total let down. I’ve searched for their complaints department but can’t locate one. No doubt they won’t give this information as they’d be inundated!

DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY
Bought an e-gift card which you'd think would be sent automatically but as yet after 10 days it has still not arrived. Customer support seems to have no power to fix the issue.

AVOID WASTING YOUR TIME AND MONEY.

Magazines suddenly stopped being delivered but mo ey continues to be charged to my card. After various calls and chats with their outsourced contacts in India or wherever, I blocked their future charges with my credit card company. I've just written off any hope of a refund. A bunch of fraudsters!

Maximum PC went digital only, I chose to have undelivered print issues refunded. They claim the refund attempt was made. The refund never appeared. After several calls a claim they would mail a check has not taken place either. Their subscription service provider; magazinesdirect.com, stopped responding. I also received phishing email from a third party when responding with feedback in their email.

Abysmal service. Their support is clearly outsourced to wherever they can find employees to gabble incomprehensibly and cannot understand simple requests. I have given up expecting to be able to read my subscribed magazine on their ‘Pocket Mags’ app. All I can do is cancel my subscription and write tge whoke thing iff to experience.

Until recently i had my magazine delivered without any problems.
Now since the latest direct debit was taken, i have not received my magazine and when i contact Future Publishing, they say my subscription was cancelled.
They then say they will esculate and allow them 2 days, so call them 2 days later and want another 2 days and so on.
Now i am going to speak to my bank to get my money back and then cancel the direct debit.
My subscription was with Dennis publishing but got taken over by Future publishing who dont know what they are doing.
Disgusting way to treat people in this manner

Bought a £9 expert guide that contained the most useful basic guide.

Do not use this shockingly disgraceful company.
Charged twice and didn’t deliver the promised incentive gift.
Zero stars if possible.
Hopeless website and even more hopeless overseas call centre.

A week ago I got an email from Magazines Direct saying:

"Dear Subscriber,

Happy Spring! We noticed you only have a few issues left in your subscription. Why not make the most of our spring savings and renew today. Not only do you get to continue with the brand you love but you’ll get an additional 20% off with SPRING20. Just make sure to have it renewed before the 4th May to get this offer. "

So, since I only had three remaining issues of my current subscription, I took them up of this offer and renewed my Future Music subscription via PayPal. The money has cleared with my bank; however I noticed I have neither received any email acknowledgement or confirmation of my order from Magazines Direct any more than my account at MyMagazine.co.uk has been updated to reflect the 13 more issues I paid for.

Smelling a rat, I contacted the Magazines Direct "customer services" querying why I hadn't received an order acknowledgement email and why my MyMagazine account had not been updated.

I got the following reply:

"Thank you for your email regarding Future Music.

Please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused.

I have checked no payment has been taken from your account, but if this is incorrect let us know. Send over proof of payment and I can investigate the matter further, then renew the subscription accordingly

We look forward to hearing from you shortly.

Kind regards
Neha Jaiswal

Magazines Direct Customer Service"

Luckily, I had the good sense to take a screenshot of the order at the time of placing the order and screenshots of the PayPal email confirmation that came through at the time. I sent this through.

I've had multiple emails back from their customer service contact centre in India saying they have no records of any order or payment in spite of providing evidence. I have been getting more and more irritated by these people to the point that I even contacted the Future Music editor Simon Truss here in the UK who said he has no access to the systems, he'd chase it up.

I also (in April) recently renewed my PLAY and Computer Music magazine subscriptions (PLAY by 2 years) via Magazines Direct. Neither magazine subscriptions have been extended in my My Magazine account. When I queried this with the customer services and got the reply

"Thank you for your email regarding Play Magazine.

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience this has caused.

Having checked our records, I have been able to locate an active subscription to the Play magazine, which will commence with the August 2023 edition and it will be on sale from 27th June 2023.

Please be advised that it will reflect only when it is due to arrive and you are therefore unable to view it at the moment.

I hope this clarifies the situation for you and thank you for your patience in this matter.

If you have any further questions, or need help, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Kind regards
Karpagam Sambanthan

Magazines Direct Customer Service"

This of course makes absolutely no sense!

When are Future PLC going get rid of the disorganised, useless Magazines Direct?

I'd been a customer with Imagine Publishing for about five years before it was acquired by Future Publishing (FP) and have been a reluctant customer since. No issues with Imagine Publishing but I've had serious issues with Future Publishing especially with customer service.

Good things about FP: they standardized shipping fees, have a magazine I like and were unintentionally giving me free issues for a while.

Bad things about FP:
-Subscriptions cost about $10 USD per issue for Canada and I can't pay in CAD.
-FP upped my subscription rate when I changed my credit card information.
-FP doesn't provide DRM-free digital subscriptions and you can only view on Android/IOS devices.
-Support has been terrible, here's some examples:
-I couldn't find my purchase history after Future transitioned to a new website. I spent eight months with support over two different cases for them to eventually say that my purchase history was lost. I can still only view recent subscriptions but not purchases and they don't provide invoices/receipts unless you ask.
-FP has charged me for two different purchases and then claimed that both were declined. They acknowledged the first mistake after more than a month of back and forth emails but they absolutely refuse to accept their mistake on the latest purchase. This is after I've sent screenshots of my credit card bill, the individual transactions and confirmed the purchase went through with my bank. I was forced to dispute the transaction with my bank.

Beware of the dysfunctional support. You might find a bookazine on sale and get a reasonable purchase experience but steer clear otherwise.

If it could be nil stars that's what they deserve. Absolutely disgraceful the way they deal with subscriptions. I have been missing 3 copies of W&H from my yearly subscription. I have been emailing since September to ask where they are. Must be 10 emails now. Still the same brush around. " I've escalated to the relevant department.."...ha ha. Pull the other one...Thats just a lie.
.you're just hoping I'll go away.....I won't.