Tracking lateness

[NorthWay]

(BTW, I got Edge (#329) today too.)

(W? T? F? I just read EDGE when I find it in my mailbox, so I'm not paying _that_ close attention, but today #328 arrived. After #329. Wrong order, you know. Shipped via a re-mailer in Praha. How is it even possible to mess up something so bad Future?)
(EDIT: #328 used a German re-mailer.)

[thegamesnotoveryet]

(BTW, I got Edge (#329) today too.)

(W? T? F? I just read EDGE when I find it in my mailbox, so I'm not paying _that_ close attention, but today #328 arrived. After #329. Wrong order, you know. Shipped via a re-mailer in Praha. How is it even possible to mess up something so bad Future?)

Yeah, at this point I'm just keeping my fingers crossed in regards to finishing out my subscription, and then leaving Future(at least as a subscriber). These guys just seem to be clueless in basic customer service, and back when my sub was super cheap, the service was 10x better. Now, the cost is way up, and the service is pretty much in the toilet, which is the fastest way possible to lose past, present and "Future" customers.

[Weblaus]

So issue 190 is as of now coming up to 3 weeks and of course still MIA. But since 189 took a whole 5 weeks and 1 day to reach me, well... You'd think that Future now using a German re-mailer route should speed things up for German subscribers at least, but clearly that's not the case so far and actually seems to have gotten even worse. At least in case of RG.

And frustratingly enough, it seems like replacement copy delivery has some problems now as well: I ordered one when I thought that 189 surely must have been lost and that's also already taking 2 weeks - previously, replacement copies we're mailed directy from the UK and never took more than 1 week. So either the current one actually did get lost for real (which would be somwhat ironic) or they've started re-routing stuff ordered from the website. Which would be crap, but par for the course, I guess.

[tokra]

I'm still waiting for issue 189 (and 190) in Germany as well. My hope was to let the subscription run out and just buy the single issues through the webstore. But if these run late as well this is not really helping. At least I could pay these through Paypal and always open a "non-receipt"-conflict with Paypal and get my money back. Clearly no one at Future read these complaints or cares about them. The subscripton department answers and suggestions are totally non-helpful when they suggest to try the digital subscription instead. I want the mag on paper!

Let's see how many issues I can buy through their webstore and need to claim non-receipt before they block me completely...

After that I just need to rely on the illegal PDFs that can be found on the net a few days after release. That's how Future scares away paying customers.

[tokra]

Update: Just received my replacement-copy of 189 which as shipped Feb, 11th today (Feb 20th). Apparantly this was shipped through Switzerland.

[thegamesnotoveryet]

I'm still waiting for issue 189 (and 190) in Germany as well. My hope was to let the subscription run out and just buy the single issues through the webstore. But if these run late as well this is not really helping. At least I could pay these through Paypal and always open a "non-receipt"-conflict with Paypal and get my money back. Clearly no one at Future read these complaints or cares about them. The subscripton department answers and suggestions are totally non-helpful when they suggest to try the digital subscription instead. I want the mag on paper!

Let's see how many issues I can buy through their webstore and need to claim non-receipt before they block me completely...

After that I just need to rely on the illegal PDFs that can be found on the net a few days after release. That's how Future scares away paying customers.

Yeah, customer service is a joke, and I get upset each and every time I deal with them, as they are beyond useless 9/10 times. Normally when I get other books direct from them, they do ship faster, as your paying for shipping. Where with a subscription, they ship as cheap as possible to maximize profits, so that arrives much slower. My direct orders average about 14 days(2 weeks), and my subscription averages about 3-4 weeks.

Any replacements for missing or damages arrive in 2 weeks, but they normally ship those in a bubble mailer, and those arrive to me beat to utter s**t almost every time. Now when I get a damage or missing, I just request an extension on my sub, and just buy the issue locally. There's no reason to get a replacement for a damaged copy, and then have it arrive more damaged than the first time around. It's just become to much work to get a magazine in a timely manner, and in decent condition each month. Up until Future took over, I had never once posted in these forums, now I'm here all the time due to problems, which should be a red flag to someone, but sadly it's not.

[Weblaus]

Update: Just received my replacement-copy of 189 which as shipped Feb, 11th today (Feb 20th). Apparantly this was shipped through Switzerland.

Huh... 9 days is almost okay, I'd take that for sure.

My replacement copy shipped on January 31st and arrived yesterday (February 22nd), with the labels suggesting it went through France... 3 weeks!

And of course my 190 is still not here while various other parts of Germany had it by Wednesday and subscription routing seems to actually go through Germany, yet there still is no kind of recognizable logic apart from the magazine being ridiculously late every single time.

I still very much prefer magazines on paper, but it's getting worse every month and at the same time enticing to switch to digital after all - in which case I'd stick to Readly and/or whatever the net offers, but for sure I wouldn't support Future any longer. Sucks for the editorial team, but to be honest, nobody there seems to show any support for their international readers anymore as well. Too bad my subscription is still running for a long time, though...

[tokra]

No 190 here either. Just got the renewal-reminder by postal mail though which reads like an insult now... Maybe time to switch to illegal downloads of the PDFs and just buy the paper-magazines through Ebay later. You could get issue 191 there already...

[thegamesnotoveryet]

Issue #190 arrived to me yesterday here in the states, Las Vegas to be exact. So it took about 25 days or so since #189 had arrived, so not as good as it used to be, but still in the OK range.

[Large Bass]

my subscribers issue of issue 189 finally arrived today beaten to hell still waiting on 188,190 and 191.Over 2 months is way too long to wait especially seeing this was the 1st issue of the last 6 where I got my subscriber issue and not the newsstand issue.I love the magazine but this have gotten to a ridiculous point and nobody seems to care about these problems so I can’t see myself resubscribing its a waste of money seeing I don’t get my issues.

I also finally received the nintendo all stars bookazine I ordered back in December.

[Weblaus]

So surprisingly my issue 190 decided to arrive after all on Monday, so it just took five and a half weeks and even more intererstinglich, clos to two weeks longer than some other parts of Germany - is this some sort of routing lottery nowadays?

To prevent even more frustriation, because clearly issue 191 will most likely also take another 4 weeks or so to show up, I spontaneously decided to order a copy from the webseite last week, which indeed made it here in about one week (via Switzerland, god knows why, the last replacemend went through France).

Which would be okay if the spine of the magazine wasn't broken in 4-5 places, so now I basically have an issue that nobody would pick up in a store due to its terrible condition. How nice of Future to not try to protect magazines in their loose evelopes at least a little bit.

So now it's kind of back to waiting for the subscription copy with fingers crossed that it'll show up with less damage whenever it does...

[NorthWay]

#191 elected to grace me with its presence today. No re-mailer info, apart from "Orangepost" with a Norwegian address. Possibly a tad late.
EDIT: Local newsagent has it already. (I.e. 7th)
EDIT2: EDGE #330 arrived 15th.

[kiwimike]

Not a subscriber, but recently bought one of the RG Annuals that was specialed on the favourite mags site. And it was very fast delivery, almost Imagine days fast. I think just over a week to arrive, which I haven't seen for a long time. General rule of thumb now is 3 weeks, so hats off to them for that.

[Weblaus]

For the second time in a row my subscription copy of Edge has managed to arrive within about a week (well, 8 days this time, it was 6 last month).

While the last two issues of Retro Gamer took over 5 weeks each and the current one is - of course - still nowhere to be seen.

So whatever it is that Future is handling different with these two magazins, it's glaringly obvious that they don't give a F* about non-UK subsribers of RG (expect Norway for mysterious reasons).

[Boulder]

So whatever it is that Future is handling different with these two magazins, it's glaringly obvious that they don't give a F* about non-UK subsribers of RG (expect Norway for mysterious reasons).

Norway gets the magazines fast because the crate containing them is just thrown into the sea in the UK and then it floats to the coast of Norway. To get the magazines to Germany or Finland, it takes more effort, maybe even some retries to get the crate sucked into the Baltic Sea.