New Scientist Anmeldelser 

I subscribed to New Scientist so I had a source of reliable information during the pandemic - this after some 25 years absence as a subscriber - and have been enormously pleased with the content, which is hard to fault. The commentary pages can be somewhat political from time to time, and that's to be expected, but the majority of the content is well written, well researched and a joy to read in these troubled times.

In that regard I can't recommend NS highly enough.

My low rating is solely down to the delivery of the 'paper copy' which is at best erratic and at worst regularly delayed by up to a week.

What is particularly frustrating is that other weekly subscriptions I have consistently arrive on time - delays appear to be peculiar to NS. While I understand that there may be delays due to Covid, an analysis of deliveries since January has shown NS as a significant outlier.

Having contacted Subcriptions and Customer Services, I've either received a stock response, or that delivery is within 3 days of the dispatch and is therefore acceptable (a criteria which isn't in the T&Cs and something I wouldn't have mentioned had they not brought it up).

My advice to NS is firstly to apologise to subscribers when they contact you - "sorry to hear you're not happy" is not an apology - and to perhaps either be up front about continued delays, or even to offer some token gesture to subscribers by way of thanks for enduring the current problems and sticking with the magazine.

At the moment I feel like I'm talking to AI - a far cry from my previous subscriber experience.

I came on to leave a positive review and was a bit surprised when I read the other comments for New Scientist.
I signed up for a new subscription last autumn and have been very happy with the magazine and the experience since. Sure, the delivery is occasionally a day or two later, but that seems pretty normal these days.
What prompted me to write a review today though was receiving an email informing that my next issue might be a bit later due to delivery issues. I was really impressed with the proactive communication and thought some Kudos was due, as it's above and beyond the service I've gotten from some other subscriptions recently. This thoughtful update has saved me the worry and hassle of contacting separately to check the status, and fortunately I don't think the pace of scientific development is such that I will be late to the party by reading my updates 4-5 days late for one occasion.
Aside from the above, the quality of content is always really good. There are always thoughtfully written articles on a broad range of subjects that I think are great for people with an interest in science and technology subjects.

I had a free trial of 30 days before a paid subscription started.

Customer services first I didn't have the free trial of 4 issues (which seemed extremely unusual) and when I corrected this, they said I cannot cancel during a free trial and would have to be charged the full quarterly amount.

This of course goes against the whole meaning of a 'free trial' and seemed exceptionally deceiving.

Gift yearly subscription for about 5 years now for my father in law. The amount just keeps going up, things do go up!, but gone up by £50 this year. Had a look on the internet and found other web sites that are upto £33 cheaper for exactly the same item, yearly printed copy.
Ask subscribe New Scientist .com why and just said thats our price !

I subscribed for New Scientist on 3rd November 2020. There was a warning that it could take up to 4 weeks to start supplies.
After 6 weeks, on 15th December, with nothing received, I contacted customer services. 6 days later, I received a reply asking for further information - which was already on my original email.

I immediately replied and, 8 days after that received a response trying to blame postal delays due to Covid - absolute nonsense, as all other expected mail, first and second class, has arrived in expected timescales. How come the up to 14 expected copies of New Scientist were singled out?

To date, I have received a total of 2 copies 'on time' plus one back copy that was apparently ordered by customer services.
No sign of any results from reporting 'missing copy' via the web site.
I have again written to customer services (last time before I shall be writing legally to their company secretary) and will look out for a further response in around a week (48 hours - pah!). I have asked them either to sort it out finally and let me know what has been going so wrong of cancel and refund my subscription.

... 3 weeks on ...
Well, I did receive the expected response blaming Royal Mail.
However, telepathy is alive and well - 2 hours after writing the above, the previous week's edition popped through the door (5/6 days later than expected), The following day, the then current edition arrived (when one would expect it). Thereafter, I have received the following 2 editions on the expected Friday or Saturday.
How wonderful that the Royal Mail was suddenly able to overcome its Covid-related delays. We will see whether the good news continues.

I signed up a an annual exhibition for a years subscription to the magazine. I discovered a year later that a second years payment was automatically taken. When I told the magazine that I did not want this I was given a complete run around and told that the policy was to take recurring payments unless I stopped them. I pointed out that this was never agreed and asked for contractual documentation that showed that this was something I had agreed to. Amazingly the next day I received an email saying I would have a full refund of £99. It was even confirmed in a letter which came to my home. Two and a half months and several emails later they have not repaid. I am now threatening to sue them. Do not sign up this is a scam.

After paying money and subscribing online nothing would activate my account. 12 hours later their support was able to activate my account, with the wrong subscription "app + web" when i have paid for "print + app + web". Trying to use their "manage subscription" online with the details they provide just results in "Subscription number could not be found, please check and try again".

The website is outdated, doesn't work properly and i would advise everyone not to bother with this junk.

As a non-scientist, I find the content OK, but only OK.
I wouldn't object to more challenging content and fully understand why others complain.
The reason I am writing this review is that I am very disappointed that my quarterly subscription for web based magazine has gone from £24.75 in 2018 to £35 in 2019 and is now £49.
That is ridiculous and feels like a scam!

It is also pathetic that while I can subscribe or upgrade my subscription online, I cannot cancel …

Still waiting for a refund since 2nd Dec, 20 days ago. Have emailed customer services several times and phoned 3 times. Just keep being told it has been actioned and takes ten working days, even though it has been many more days than that. No one there really cares or can explain what the problem is. A shambles of a company. Ref 50114491

We haven't received our gift box. We ordered it on 24/11/20 and the fee was taken from our account that day. I called your customer services team on 18/12 and spoke to "Stella" - call no. 18959403. Stella gave me a subscriptions email address to contact - I've also sent an email to them.
Unfortunately Stella didn't seem to know about the gift box subscription guaranteed delivery dates you've published on your website.
["Gift-box offer available for new gift subscriptions on Print or Print + App package in the UK only, while stocks lasts. Offer ends 31/12/20. Order by 12th December to guarantee pre-Christmas delivery and by 10th December to guarantee delivery by 18th December. This will enable you to meet the last Christmas post deadline if you wish to post the gift box on to the recipient within the UK. You can continue to order after 10th December, but we cannot guarantee pre-Christmas delivery. 15% discount will automatically be applied at checkout."]
We will be really disappointed if we don't receive this in time to give as a Christmas present.
I still haven't received a reply from either of email addresses I sent emails to. Customer service? Where???

Took advantage of their Black Friday deal, it is a gift for my dad. It was easy to order and you get a gift box which is a nice touch!

Superb coverage of coronavirus and easily digestible scientific news for the layman, I really do enjoy receiving my magazine every week.

I signed up for the 10 magazines over 10 weeks for £10 which I thought was great! I called in to cancel my subscription weeks before the end to ensure my account didnt roll over into the the standard price Direct debit of £65 a month. The advisor made notes on my account and assured me multiple times on the call that I would not pay the extra and my account would close... after a few weeks I get woken up by a messege alerting me that I have entered into my overdraft, £65 had been taken by new scientist...After calling in again the customer service team took full responsibility and apologised but said they couldn't repay me the overdraft charges and I'd have to wait days for the money to be re payed into my account, the best they could do would be the 23rd October.... I wait still no money, I called in today the 28th of October to be told I would have to wait 14 days!!!! For money to be placed into my account!!! I was then forwarded to a incompetent advisor who made out that this is what I had signed up for when I entered in my details!!! I am appalled by the Customer service, I have never experienced anything like it, I was laughing on the phone at the absolute lack of care the so called senior advisor had for me and my situation! I worked for British Telecom for 2 years and dealt with customers in billing on a daily basis we had extensive training on how to deal with situations like this and it seems that not one of the staff I had spoken to had recieved the correct training to deal with customers appropriately the service is absolutely shocking. I hope for your sake if you are reading this you never have to deal with New scientist customer service it is disgraceful.

iSubscribe has informed me that New Scientist has been suspending a number of subscription deliveries because of an inability to process payments during this difficult period. This has not stopped them from sending numerous emails informing paid-up customers that they have failed to pay. This suggests serious dysfunctionality within the company. I am still owed paid-for copies and will advise all my friends not to subscribe.

New Scientist is not a scientific magazine. It cannot be relied upon to write unbiased fact based articles on scientific topics. The journalists don’t appear to have the enquiring, analytical style that I expect from a science article. They are very forthcoming with their own opinions but not with scientific evidence, analysis and references.

I get my scientific news from a variety of main stream online newspapers following the Health and Science writers and they’re much better at writing a balanced, fact based piece than a supposedly scientific magazine!

I have asked for a refund of my subscription for this reason. Let’s see what happens.

FAR TOO MANY EMAILS!

SENT TO JUNK AND WILL TRY AND UNSUBSCRIBE

I love new scientist but for some reason or another I missed subscription payment and forgot to renew. Obviously valuing customers they sent out a new discount offer. Very supportive.

Overall it worked although as I had a free account established it was confusing. Not certain about special offers or price lot of different offers as far as I could see, will see what happens.

I used to really love New Scientist. But in the last couple of years, even though I have a non-scientific background, I feel quite patronised by how much the content has dumbed down. I can tell that they're trying, but I get the vague sense that many of the writers are just out of their depth. Doesn't feel very impartial either. And I say this as someone who shares the New Scientist's political views. Thing is, I come to publications like this to get away from tribalism, not to indulge it. Solid facts and articles written by experts about cutting edge science seem to be diminishing. I suspect it's a money issue, but there's a definite swing towards opinion pieces. Even the TV show reviews, which I don't particularly have an interest in, but understand the need for, are bland and uninteresting. They also seem to have an increasing number of writers who obviously select a few relevant studies and regurgitate them with a half-informed narrative. The result is simply that it's not very engaging anymore. I used to come away feeling hopeful, but now it more often feels more like reading the Guardian (where you come away feeling depressed and ill-informed). This is a real pity. Now more than ever, we need to challenge people intellectually, promote the benefits of critical thinking, and highlight the value of scientific literacy. New Scientist used to do all this in a quiet, unobtrusive way. But it increasingly feels like it has shifted agenda, though where is unclear. Whatever their intentions, I'm sure they're good, but I think ultimately it's just swerving towards the Internet of clickbait. A real case of, if it ain't broke..!

I used to love New Scientist but with a new editor it has gone downhill fast. Hard science is no more, now it's a fact-free political activist magazine full of paid-for adverts masquerading as journalism.

It has non-binary contributors who insist on being called "them", it has a cooking blog and the back of the issue always features a lame interview pulled straight from the back of a teenage pop mag. It's like a soccer mom's fever dream of what a science magazine should look like!

The never ending references to "micro aggressions", "privilege" and "victimhood" are clear indicators that it's being written by people with only rudimentary grasp of world history and human psychology. My guess is old journalists have been fired and replaced with cheaper activist hacks who graduated from b***s*** degrees like "gender studies". It's the only explanation for a dramatic drop in quality.

I won't be renewing my subscription until they re-hire proper scientists.