Magazines Direct Reviews

Very poor service, send issues late and miss issues citing technical printing error (even though these issues were available in shops).
I cancelled my subscription and expected to continue to receive the further 12 issues I had paid for. Instead my deliveries were stopped. it has taken me 2 phone calls and I have only received one issue a week late. Did not send a collector issue I had paid for.
Wish I could subscribe directly with the magazine instead of having to keep using this disappointing service.

I took out a subscription offer which included a free camera rucksack “worth £70”. I had to ring as the offer code was not accepted on the website. I was told the rucksack would arrive “in a few months”. The rucksack never arrived and Magazines Direct are now saying that the “claim period” has expired. I will commence legal action through the small claims court in 14 days. Appalling!

Update - Ive been in contact directly with Magazines Direct. They simply deny that I claimed the offer, then said I was too late to claim for it not arriving (bearing in mind they had given a lead time for delivery of over 2 months anyway!). I should have read the Trustpilot reviews before I ordered.

Absolute scam. Took money fraudulently and are still yet to refund despite me chasing. AVOID!!!

Further Update (18th July 2022): On Saturday I finally received the correct 2022 Tour de France magazine I ordered 5 weeks ago. In addition, both amounts of money that were incorrectly taken from my bank account have now been refunded. My bank were very helpful in assisting me to resolve this issue. It turns out that the £142.89 is in fact 11 x £12.99 so they'd charged me a 1-year subscription for a single magazine that only comes out once a year. Even though this is now resolved, the whole incident took up a lot of my time and caused a lot of worry.

Update (11th July 2022): Logged into my bank account today only to see that not only have they taken £12.99 from my bank account again (for a magazine I am yet to receive), but they've also taken £142.89!!!! I rang Customer Services and was told it was because I'd taken out a subscription. I told them that no, I had not taken out a subscription for £142.89 and had only ordered a one-off special magazine for £12.99. Then the person on customer services admitted that they 'didn't know' why this amount had been taken out of my account and they would escalate it to the relevant team. The person I spoke to in customer services assured me that the money would be refunded (although he couldn't tell me exactly when) and that would personally call me back tomorrow with an update. I am so cross and upset about this that I can't put it into words. So now I am going to have to call my bank to explain why I will probably go over my overdraft limit this month and ask them to put a stop on Magazines Direct taking any more money out of my account.

Ordered the premium edition of Tour (de France) 2022 magazine on 7th June 2022 and the money was taken from my bank account with an email confirming my order. 3 weeks after placing the order and still no magazine I emailed customer service. Received an email saying they were awaiting further information regarding this and thanking me for my patience. Heard nothing for a further week (and still no magazine) so sent another email to customer service. Received an email yesterday saying they had re-ordered the magazine on June 29th and it would be with me soon. Got excited when it arrived today only to open the envelope and see that they'd sent me the 2021 edition!! Utterly useless as I use the magazine to follow all the stages on the Tour. So cross and disappointed. I have no idea if/when I'll get the magazine I actually ordered as it is now listed as out of stock on their website :-(

A Scam! AVOID AT ALL COSTS! If I could give zero starts I would.
Have charged me twice and will not refund me- contacted customer service 3 times and was hung up on.
They tried to claim I never paid when I have photographic evidence from my bank statement already provided and they will not refund the charge which they took again without my permission.
Have yet to receive a copy of my subscription for 6 months!!! Do not give any money to these people, they are scamming you.

I received my magazine and there was a misunderstanding on my part.

The worst experience ever, Magazines not delivered,
Or when they are they are out of date, I am currently waiting on issue 301 and 302 of classic rock,
Only 9 weeks and 5 weeks overdue, the usual blame the postal service crap, and we will send out another copy which never arrives. I have cancelled and i am changing my credit card details , as i have no trust in these clowns Avoid, Avoid.
PS i cant wait for the generic email response from them.

I took out a 3 month subscription in Dec 2021. The subscription included a free £10 e gift card. The 3 issues of the magazine arrived okay but I still have not received the £10 e gift card.
I have emailed so many times and also phoned a few times now. I was then told I would receive a £10 amazon voucher instead of the e gift card but a few weeks and I still haven't received anything.

It’s almost July but despite having paid for 6 copies of Ideal Home in November 2021 I have only received 1 copy of the magazine. I have phoned Magazines Direct on numerous occasions and have responded to their requests for more information at least 3 times but all to no avail. Please don’t waste any money with this company they just don’t fulfill their part of the contract

I’ve been a subscriber to Future Publishing’s magazines since 1995 and never had much in a way of any problems. Unfortunately since closing the My Favourite Magazines website and launching Magazines Direct, the service has gone drastically downhill. It’s rather ironic that Future Publishing as a company appears to be making more money now than they ever have in their ENTIRE history, yet the service and attitude towards customers has never been worse. While they did eventually send out my free gift, which is greatly appreciated, I had to wait 8 months to receive it, and had to chase them up with multiple emails (which are of the standardised reply variety). Future have always had great subscriber offers, often times they do look too good to be true - they used to give away brand new Sony PlayStation games in the mid to late 90s worth 50 quid - but back then they would arrive within a couple of weeks.

If your magazine subscription is running smoothly, then everything is fine. Issues turn up, often earlier than the on-sale street date, and at a discounted rate. The moment you have a problem however it all falls apart. If an issue doesn’t arrive, or is damaged, you can be waiting weeks for a new copy to arrive, if at all. While they do run what is practically an infinite replacement scheme (I’m sure there must be a ‘this guy is taking the ****’ scenario) this is no good for their special subscriber edition copies (offered on magazines such as Total Film, Retro Gamer and EDGE) as they hold no additional stock. So if the initial copy gets lost or damaged, tough. You can only have a regular high-street replacement. Magazines are now sent in a white paper envelope (in the past it was plastic cellophane, often with a cardboard sleeve to reinforce the magazine and mitigate bending) so there isn’t much protection. Fine for something like Women’s Weekly, not great for Country Life. It’s a lottery every month.

I purchased a 12 month magazine subscription back in Dec 21, which included a free gift. By March I had heard nothing and received nothing so decided to start chasing.
The phone number supplied connected to another country. I became suspicious and asked to cancel my subscription and get my money back. I was told they couldn't do this and would need to cancel the magazine publisher directly! They then arranged for a copy to come out to me urgently, which arrived about a month later, not through the post, but some random guy in his car. I heard nothing again for another month or two so left a scathing review after which I received a response and apologies only to receive another magazine, not through the post again but a random guy in his car......fast forward to now and I have received a total of 3 magazines in 7 months and only receive one when I chase. They wont give me my money back and I can only speak to a foreign chap with bad english. This is some kind of scam, not sure I'll ever receive my magazines as I've given up chasing for them. Will just leave this review wherever I can to warn others.........AVOID AT ALL COSTS

Ordered two magazines which never arrived and after lots of emails and having to wait 6 weeks for them not to arrive I got the response below.

I’m really sorry that you haven’t received your order of The Producer's Music Theory Handbook (4th Edition) and Music Producer's Guide to Synths. I have checked our records and can confirm that they were dispatched to you as normal. I can only assume that they have been lost within the postal system.

Not to worry, we’ve re-ordered your The Producer's Music Theory Handbook (4th Edition) and Music Producer's Guide to Synths and It will take 3-7 working days for the order to arrive with you.

In the meantime, if there’s anything we can do, please get in touch.

Kind regards
Sophia Kemp

Waited another 2 weeks but never arrived..

I put a dispute in with PayPal and got my money back and bought them eventually in WH Smith’s for £4 cheaper…

I wish I had seen the reviews on here before I purchased them…
Shitshow.? just a waste of your time and energy.

I took up an offer of
Trial £3 for 3 issues
Ongoing £3 for 3 issues
Confirmed in writing from Magazines Direct in 2 emails
Unambiguous.
Charged £3 for trial and have now been charged £12.50
Now being told "nevertheless, we will not be offering the 3 price" !!!!!!
EDIT POST RESPONSE
You have clearly not understood the issue!
The offer I took up states :
"Trial £3 for 3 issues
Ongoing £3 per quarter for 3 issues!"
Your offer verbatim in writing (twice)

So the other reviews or right, these guys are basically thieves. Signed up for a year of Home and Garden for the mrs as part of a gift for her birthday. I think we have gotten one issue about five weeks late. Just avoid them. Crooks.

Jesus. Don't know where to start. First of all the subscription management is simply not working. Whenever you have a chance to make changes on the subscription it won't go live. Or sometimes just disappear. Or sometimes some issues never arrive. No customer support beside the automated mails.