New Scientist Anmeldelser 

New Scientist renewed my subscription, without my permission, after sending me a letter that stated I would have to contact them to renew. I was told that I would not be refunded, but the new subscription would terminate with the issue dated 1st January 2022. The last issue I was able to download was 4th December! This company is dispicable, I believe that is twice that they have stolen from me. Avoid.

Update:
Clearly customer services are not reading these reviews, just picking out keywords!

Update 06/01/2022:
After getting in touch with New Scientist through Facebook on 18/12/2021, I have still not had the issue resolved. I received a Facebook message yesterday and was told that they had not received an email from me. Sent them a screenshot of the email and also their email confirming when my subscription ran out. I found the thread in my deleted emails and restored it. If you are foolish enough to subscribe, keep ALL your correspondence. They seem to be working off the premise that you will not! Awaiting their response...

No information about the increase of subscription - my charges almost doubled without them even trying to send me a message. Of course, I cancelled it immediately - after years and years of being a loyal customer. You could at least respect your subscribers enough to let them know about the changes. I could have considered it, but now, of course, i will never even think about it. A disgrace.

I am absolutely shocked and disappointed that New Scientist has attempted to justify increasing the subscription to the tune of 33% on previous year's price!
And a whopping 43% increase on what was charged just 2 years ago!

I could perhaps understand a 5% or even 10% increase, but a staggering 33% more - from £55/qtr to £70/qtr.
No other annual fee of any sort, whether it be for energy, broadband, or food, has increased to such an extent.
Unless there is some huge demand for, or severe global shortage of magazine paper or printing ink, I cannot fathom how NS can justify the hefty hike.

The decision to cancel my loyal subscription comes with much disappointment - as colossal as the increase itself.
Doubtless there are many other loyal subscribers who share my sentiment.

I might reconsider subscribing again in a few years' time, when and if your quarterly fee is a little more palatable. I won't hold my breath though.

For now, I am so utterly gutted that I have to give up what has been enjoyable reading for so many years.

I paid for a years subscription last year (around £160) and I emailed them to cancel it from Nov 2021, since a lot of the items were extra.
They acknowledged, but when I looked at my N.S. account, the cancellation was from Nov 2022. i.e. They were hoping to debit me for another year.
The subscription was very expensive and in spite of the advertising on their website-
'Sign up now to get every issue direct to your inbox each month' - you cannot actually download the magazine on a desktop PC to read off-line unless you have the smartphone reader app, which, I am told by their helpline, expires with your subscription.
Whether you can access downloaded issues after expiry, remains to be seen. This used to be an up market magazine. BEWARE!

STAY AWAY THIS IS A CON!!!!

THEY GIVE YOU 6 MAGAZINES FOR £1 BUT IN THE SMALL PRINT THAT I NEVER ONCE SEEN THEY AUTO RENEW A SUBSCRIPTION I NEVER SIGNED UP TO. I HAVE NOW BEEN CHARGED £65 OUT OF NO WHERE WITH NO INFORMATION BEFORE OR AFTER FROM NEW SCIENTIST.

ANOTHER COMPANY JUST WANTING TO CON PEOPLE.

YOU THEN NEED TO JUMP THROUGH RINGS TO MAYBE GET A REFUND.

HAVE REPORTED TO OTHER AUTHORITIES

I have the app on my phone with no problems. But if I try to access it on the laptop - forget it. It's always wrong password. When I reset the password and resubmit, it says too many wrong password attempts, try later. So I try later and the same thing happens. I would've thought the Scientist bit in the magazine title might have have implied a bit of technical proficiency, but hey what do I know?

I subscribed for 1 year, using a student offer. I did not know that the subscription would auto-renew. At no point did new scientist communicate this information to me. I didn't read the magazine at all (still have most issues wrapped in the cellophane they were sent in, as my circumstances changed and I'm not at home most of the year). I definitely would not have spent £150 on a further year's subscription. I had no notification of the renewal, that they took more money out of my account, or anything. I found out only when I checked my bank account. I emailed them immediately to ask them to refund the money. I was told that they would refund £90, as this was the pro-rata refund. Not great, but better than nothing. I assumed that this would be done, as they promised. I checked my bank account several months later - no refund. I emailed them again to ask where it was. Now I've been told that there will be no refund!

I am in absolute disbelief that this magazine would treat it's customers so badly. I will never read another copy, and have shared this story with social media, so that other people won't fall into this scam. I'm now seeking legal action, as I'm sure that these scam rolling subscriptions must be illegal - not to mention the broken promises from customer service. I just never expected this from (what I thought was) such a well-regarded publication. However, reading these reviews, it seems that their good image is just a facade and they are nothing but scammers. I look forward to doing my part to exposing their shoddy treatment of subscribers!

Edit: I posted what happened to their facebook page and was promptly contacted and given a refund. So if you have trouble with these people, expose them in public to force them to act decently.

I came on here while trying to decide whether to re-subscribe to the latest offer and it was interesting to read other reviews! I had trouble before but was beginning to question whether or not I was somehow at fault - I now see I wasn’t alone in my experience. Basically I had to call 3/4 times to try and cancel my subscription and each time they had lost the record of my previous call. Eventually they agreed to refund me some of the issues, however I was sent less than the agreed amount. And when I called, guess what... the record of that conversation had once again ‘disappeared’! From the beginning I also found the information in my account online misleading as it it seemed to imply I did NOT have an active subscription with no info on next payment date. I gave this feedback to the call handlers and they seemed uninterested. Not great! However, I do like the magazine itself, and find it a stimulating read.

I have been a subscriber for years and liked the publication. The admin and their systems however are useless and infuriating. Their database seems to be based on post-it notes stuck on a fridge. They can't cancel an email address, they can't communicate a renewal, they change subscriber number at will and are reluctant to give refunds based on their errors. Friendly customer service don't do what they promise. I am convinced they are in breach of data protection regulations and am about to report to the ombudsman how they handled my personal identification data. What a shame that a good writing is spoilt by incompetent administration.

Monthly update for August 2021...

This has been going on all year.
So here's a copy of email sent this month. (ho-hum!)
-----------------------------------------------------------
Hi Charlotte,

Humbly suggest that you check your database for all the other complaints that I've made this year on exactly the same subject.
Look carefully at previous complaints and you'll find my account/membership number, which NS keeps asking for and which I keep sending.

It's printed on the address label when my paper copy of New Scientist arrives.
So, in the past, I've scanned this and sent it to you. Not that it made any difference.
Unfortunately, I can't scan the label this week because the paper copy of New Scientist is late . . . Again.
I guess it might arrive Monday.
Or maybe Tuesday of next week, a day or two before next weeks issue is distributed.
But not to worry. I went down the supermarket last Thursday and read this weeks copy there.
Ho-hum!

But you should be able to find my account number in any of the previous complaints I sent.
There are plenty of them, given that I complain each and every month for most of this year.
It's now August and I'm still complaining . . . doesn't time fly!

And especially given that I can sign in to my account with this email address.
So I can guarantee you that it's on your system, and has been for many, many months.
. . . On & off.

Oh, and by the way, this is the standard reply I get every month from New Scientist:

We would like to apologise for the service you have experienced with New Scientist.
Please contact customerhelp @ newscientist.com and we will investigate this further.
Kind regards,
New Scientist Customer Help

After cancelling a gift subscription 7 days after ordering, I am still waiting for a full refund 2 months later.

I find that this website is mostly garbage. It lures you in with usually a nice picture and a quick title. Then when you read the article you find it's like something you'd expect to see in the national enquirer which for those over in Britain is basically a garbage newspaper. Most of the scientific evidence they have is unproven at best. Personally when I see it more often than not I just scroll right past because I know it's not worth reading because like I said in most cases a lot of it is garbage

This is the worst paid for app I have ever used. It just does not work, reporting errors every time time I try to drill down on an article. I agreed to be a beta tester for audio offering, Doesn't work either. Website okay apart from adverts , rather annoying since I paid a yearly subscriptin

Same as the majority of the reviewers, I signed up to the trial offer expecting paper copies of the magazine delivered to me.

When I realized that I was only given access to the online version, I emailed them asking how much it'd be to upgrade to the print version. They switched it for me straight away, no questions asked. Considering I was only inquiring, I thought it was suspiciously easy at the time but hey, that's what I was after.

I realized my gut feeling was right when I checked my bank balance a few days later and realised they'd charged me £65 for the joy! I had in no way agreed to that charge in my communication with them so I emailed them straight away asking for an explanation and a refund.

This happened over a week ago and despite me chasing this payment once already, all I've had was a few robotic responses back and no real timeline given for when I can expect to see it.

Never would have thought the operation behind this publication was so terrible. Avoid if possible

Misleading offer. I was charged two times. The first was when Iaccepted an offer and then a second time without even receiving a receipt. The bank informed me about a charge of 99 euros for a subscription which I did not select. I only wanted the offer and as soon as I entered the payment info in my profile they charged me an extra 99 euros. Absolutely disappointing!!!!

Just to note that, as with others, my experience of their subscription offer was absolutely dire. I’m not sure what’s going on in sales and marketing, but they seem to have hit on a surefire recipe to get rid of readers.

After my experience, I am always tempted to wish them good luck in this disastrous project, except that I wouldn’t want to see the magazine disappear.

I signed up for 10 Issues for £10. But now they're telling me it was ten issues on App and Website, which is not what I wanted.

The offer I used is still in my cache. It says: "Subscribe online today and receive 10 issues delivered to your door for only £10."

This isn't good enough. You can't have one thing which actually means another...

But it's the customer service, which took 3 attempts to get them to actually answer my email, that really rankles. It's just a huge waste of everyone's time if the people reading emails don't actually READ them.

Very disappointed. I'm sure they'll post a message here asking me to contact the customer services, but considering the track record, is it really worth it?

You start a trial with the intention of giving the product a go. You set up a reminder on your calendar to either cancel or continue with subscription. They process the renewal charge more than one week in advance.
No transparency on agreement, poor response from customer services, makes you doubt these products have got any sense of honesty.
They don’t care if you’re a happy paying customer, they just want your money. Better to buy the magazine from the shop and keep control of your money. Avoid subscribing.

I was going for 1-2 stars, but that would be highly unfair, for a poor customer service is "standard" these days and has been established as the "golden rule" by Amazon: Don't listen to customers, don't read their mails, just send empty apologies that have nothing to do with the problem at hand.

That out of the way: The content offered for the money is good. No, it is not "intellectually challenging science-of-the-day", it's more of a glimpse into recent discussions, semi-more-in-depth essays about what you find everywhere around the interwebs (including all the latest hypes), but for the most part the articles are well written and at least *feel* like reliable first-step-sources. If there were more scientifically founded discussions of opposing views on a matter, less pop-science "for the laywomen", the high price for a subscription would be even more justified.
However, the presentation of that content is poor at best or outright unacceptable. A website from the late 2ks, an Android app that is simply not working properly (see reviews on G's "play" store) and Amazon-like support (see above: Doesn't even READ questions coming in, just sends out copy&paste texts) is NOT what you expect for the money you pay.

Personally, I would prefer more audio content, but for now I am going to cancel my subscription since the content isn't DELIVERED to me. I simply do not have the time or the will to keep "trial and error" my way through malfunctioning apps or slow websites, thank you.

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Response to response from vendor: I did report problems "immediately", first response from support took over three days (so much for "immediately") and was non-sensical. After I gave a negative feedback on the support I received, support escalation clicked in. I provided screenshots and detailed information about the issues I experienced and got back a response that my input was being forwarded.
That happened over a week ago. My "issues" are such that I can not enjoy the content (for which I am paying) and that products offered (the app) malfunction. Over a week of response-time is neither "immediately" as you say nor is it creating confidence in a satisfying customer-vendor relationship.
The copy+paste response published here on Trust-Pilot really nudges me to drop my rating from three stars to zero stars.

-- UPDATE: After way over a month STILL no response to my mails. My fear that "support" is only interested in paying customers and give a bleep once you are ready to go was correct. A garbage app and content you can easily find for free elsewhere isn't worth the high price. Downgraded from 3 to 2 stars.

I have subscribed to NS on paper for almost 40 years and still look forward to and enjoy the content every week. Good content costs money I understand but the publisher has apparently allowed costs to spiral out of control. May 2019 I paid £37.25 pq, May 20 £47.50 pq, up to £55 pq in Oct 20, and now they want £65 pq from April 21. Almost DOUBLE in two years, what is going on? Are they trying to get rid of customers? Reminds me of the loyalty penalty on car insurance and electricity.