DISQUS

Stephen A. · 11 months ago

How frustrating! And admirable that you want to cut down on clutter.

You could always donate the magazine to a school, library or neighbor, I guess.

eas · 11 months ago

A while back, I got a monthly to month subscription to their online magazine. I was going to cancell it a few times, but I always had some imminent purchase that I might want to consult it for, so I let it go. Eventually, I just forgot about it for a year or so.

They happily kept charging me the much higher monthly rate, rather sending me email letting me I could save money if I switched my subscription to an annual rate. I thought it was ironic that a non-for-profit consumer magazine would take advantage of my forgetfullness like that (especially since they knew that I hadn't logged in for months) but, whatever.

I tried on and off for a few months to switch to an annual subscription, but it never worked. After various error messages and at least a few exchanges with their online customer service I just gave up and canceled.

Now I just access them through my public library's web site. If I need the current issue, I walk over to my local library branch.

dave · 11 months ago

Isn't it funny how when companies make mistakes that they always favor them
and not you? This is what Doc is talking about with Vendor Relation
Management (VRM) -- we'd keep track of these companies like they keep track
of us, we'd issue credit ratings, and when they screw you a mark would be
added on their permanent record that I could see when it's time to purchase
something from them. I know this is what Bizrate is for, and there are
probably a hundred other sites that try to do this, but we need to *really*
do this for everyone all the time.

felicity · 11 months ago

a few years ago i joined month-to-month and tried to cancel after a couple of months. it took hours and hours by phone, many calls, to get them to cancel, and they were infuriating about it -- that AT&T-ish kind of runaround where you get put on hold for 10 minutes, then disconnected, and when you call back the new person says there's no record of your previous call so you have to start over, but could you hold for just a moment please? eventually they assured me the thing had been canceled, but it hadn't -- i had to start over yet again, no hope of any refund of erroneous charges. i think that cycle ran twice before it finally actually got canceled.

mrethiopian · 11 months ago

Dave – Did it occur to you that your request for not killing more trees came after the magazine had actually had been sent? I would imagine large corporations that do mass mailings would do so in a manner that maximize the time allotted, so people that do actually want a magazine issued for January don’t get the magazine in May.

When did you call and cancel, how many days went before getting the useless garbage? Did CR give you a call # to reference your call and request, did you ask for one? Regardless of my banter I imagine you will NOT be asked pay for something you canceled, though I have been wrong in the past.


PS First post, but I have lurking in the long grass for some years - Keep up the excellent work of pissing the idiots off.

Mr. Ethiopian

dave · 11 months ago

I called and cancelled within 5 minutes of the mistaken order.

johnkoetsier · 11 months ago

Funny!

Reminds me very much of dealing with large telecom companies, actualy.

Joshua_Whalen · 11 months ago

I think the VRM idea is genius. If you're really going to go forward with it, let me know, please. I'll volunteer as much time as you can use. It's an awesome idea that's long overdue.

I've had great service from some companies, lousy from others. It would be great to have single site with multiple rss feeds (by product type, by service type, top 100, bottom 100, etc...), that aggregated all of it.

Count me in! And kudos to Gizmo Project for resolving an outage in under 24 hours from my original email. They spent a lot of time mailing back and forth with me, and really acted like they cared. The best support I've ever gotten from any kind of telephone company.

Donal Kimbro · 11 months ago

I can't log in. My e mail address has changed from dkimbro162@aol.com to DKIMBRO162@BELLSOUTH.NET. iT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO TALK TO SOMEONE AT CONSUMERS REPORT. PLEASE TELL ME HOW TO TALK TO SOMEONE ABOUT CANCELING. i GUESS I WILL HAVE TO GO TO THE BANK AND STOP ALL FUTURE PAYMENTS. HELP
DONALD kIMBRO

Dave · 9 months ago

I'm looking to buy a new car and see CR has info about pricing, so I subscribe $26 for a year. I try to get the pricing info and there is a fee of $14. I sent an email to Customer Service and said I'm cancelling my subscription because they never said there would be extra fees. I have to pay 1/12th of the $26. If there are a million people fooled like me, they just made 2 million dollars for giving the consumer ZERO information. What a scam.

Janet · 2 months ago

Here is Consumer Reports Maganzie Email/Phone and address

customerservice@customerrelations.consumer.org

(800) 234-1645

Consumer Reports Magazine
101 Truman Avenue
Yonkers, NY 10703-1057