First magazine experience is a nightmare

1611mac · 01-17-2013, 07:04 AM

My Discover magazine story....

I've read hundreds of books on my iPad but not one single magazine! I used to subscribe to Discover p-magazine (years ago) and I thought reading the digital version would be a great "first magazine" iPad read.

So I go to the Discover web site and order a digital subscription to the mag. It was cheaper than a "newstand service." Upon checkout there was NO instruction about obtaining the download. I wait and wait and receive NO emails. After 24 hrs I check my credit card and see that yes, I was charged for the digital subscription. I go to the website and cannot log in to my account. I cannot do a password recovery... "no account with that email" I'm told. (Even though I had been charged.)

I send an email to customer support at Discover telling them that I received no account confirmation email nor order email (no, the email was not in my local trash or junk folder, it was not in my web server junk.) 48 hours later no response.

I read every faq and help file on the Discover site. Nothing... Just a mention that Discover is delivered by Zinio and phone number is provided to contact Zinio. After being on hold forever at Discover I give up.

I call Zinio (as per faq) explaining my situation. Customer rep DOES find my email but no Discover subscription. Then I'm told IT CAN TAKE UP TO A MONTH FOR US TO GET THE ORDER. What? I say... I order a digital download and it can take up to a month to get it? NO WAY! Yes I'm told.

So I'm given a "complimentary" digital edition of Discover. Will be available to me in "minutes." Twenty four hours later I still have nothing in my Zinio library.

Today I'll call Discover (since I received no email response) and sit on hold forever to find out what in the world is going on....

Or maybe I'll just go buy a paper copy at my local store.....
Or maybe I'll just stick to reading books....

.
.

JoeD · 01-17-2013, 07:12 AM

I signed up for a free trial of a piano magazine, 12 issues. Turns out the mag only works in a browser with flash. Against my better judgement I popped flash on and the magazine reading experience was horrendous (I didn't really expect it to be any good, but benefit of the doubt and all...) I didn't make it through the first few pages of the mag before deciding even for 12 issues free of a mag I've enjoyed in the past on paper, it wasn't worth it.

Noticed they had an iPad version of the mag, but sadly because they outsourced that, and the company they used to do the iPad version obviously takes a cut of any subscriptions that come via it, there's no way to get access to the iPad version despite having an online sub to the mag. Not likely I'll buy an iPad only version either, who knows which device I'll get next and unlike paper mags, I'd like to stock pile digital ones just as I do with my ebooks

Glad it was a free trial, there's no way I'll ever pay for this kind of setup.

Only other magazine I've bought digitally so far was a fantasy short story one and they just made a PDF available for download. No fuss, instant download and readable on pretty much anything as it's a PDF.

crossi · 01-17-2013, 08:29 AM

I'm sorry you had such a bad experience. The only digital magazine I've subscribed to was Locus and that was great. I like it better than the paper version because the print was too small in the paper edition. No problems downloading or reading it at all.

1611mac · 01-17-2013, 08:49 AM

OH GREAT!
Got back an email answer from Discover customer service. It says this:

Quote:

Due to the nature of your question, I would like to direct you to our digital publishing partner, Zinio. Digital subscriptions can be purchase through them as we only provide the print version. Please visit their website at www.zinio.com

Now look at the THIS Discover Web Page where they clearing are selling a Digital Subscription, complete with picture of iPad.

They also offer a print/digital bundle. In my email I also described to them how I had been charged. How could I have been charged if they don't sell it???

Arrgggghhhh!
Obviously their customer service people have no clue....
.
.

Asawi · 01-17-2013, 09:03 AM

I tried a digital subscription of Sew News. The best way to read it is downloading it as PDF. I suppose that isn't an option for all magazines, but I'm really pleased it is for this one, since I certainly prefer reading it that way (EZPDF app) to the ways the suggest (some sort of Flash in a web browser interface or Adobe Air.
I'm not really much a magazine reader anyway, but at least not the issues I do get won't be stacking up in my living room...

tubemonkey · 01-17-2013, 09:24 AM

I use Pulse for my magazine content. Granted, you don't get full issues; but it is free and satisfies my needs. Other similar services are Google Currents and Flipboard.

edit: Discover Magazine is one of the magazines available on Pulse.

Ti-Ron · 01-17-2013, 10:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I use Pulse for my magazine content. Granted, you don't get full issues; but it is free and satisfies my needs. Other similar services are Google Currents and Flipboard.

edit: Discover Magazine is one of the magazines available on Pulse.

Thanks a lot for the Pulse link! Really usefull, love it so far!

Asawi · 01-17-2013, 10:35 AM

I use Pulse as well! Love it! I wouldn't have known about it if it hadn't been preinstalled in the Galaxy Tab I bought for my daughter.

tubemonkey · 01-17-2013, 10:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ti-Ron

Thanks a lot for the Pulse link! Really usefull, love it so far!

You're welcome. It's one of my favorite apps and I use it all the time.

For those interested, here are the websites. The above links were for iTunes. Android versions are also available in the Play Store and Amazon Appstore.

pidgeon92 · 01-17-2013, 11:11 AM

I have several subscriptions via Zinio, and the magazines show up immediately after order. I'm really surprised that the Discover website doesn't send you directly to Zinio for subscriptions. Probably because of the bundle.

I also have a separate subscription to People. I had to get the physical magazine subscription to get the digital subscription at a decent rate. I give the physical magazines away, and just read the digital on my iPad.

tubemonkey · 01-17-2013, 11:23 AM

A really neat app to use in conjunction with these magazine apps is Pocket. You can save articles (and also videos and web pages) for later viewing when offline. It's integrated in quite a few apps, including Pulse and Flipboard.

Apache · 01-17-2013, 11:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1611mac

OH GREAT!
Got back an email answer from Discover customer service. It says this:

Now look at the THIS Discover Web Page where they clearing are selling a Digital Subscription, complete with picture of iPad.

They also offer a print/digital bundle. In my email I also described to them how I had been charged. How could I have been charged if they don't sell it???

Arrgggghhhh!
Obviously their customer service people have no clue....
.
.

At this point contact your Credit Card Company and explain it to them. I had a company refuse to listen to me and contacted Am Ex. The Am Ex lady said they will definitely listen to Am Ex. She was right and they broke both legs getting it correct.

Apache

HappyMartin · 01-17-2013, 12:38 PM

I subscribe to Procycling through Zinio and have had no problems at all. I like the navigation options and the text option for reading the longer articles. Much prefer it to the paper version.

taustin · 01-17-2013, 02:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apache

At this point contact your Credit Card Company and explain it to them. I had a company refuse to listen to me and contacted Am Ex. The Am Ex lady said they will definitely listen to Am Ex. She was right and they broke both legs getting it correct.

Apache

And it is important you do this soon. You don't necessarily have to initiate a chargeback right now, but if you don't contact the credit card company within 30 days to tell them there's a problem, you may not be able to initiate a chargeback after that (though the time limit varies by bank).

You might also call Zinio and tell them that a month simply isn't acceptable, and if they can't deliver on the purchase within a more reasonable time (and anything more than "right now" really isn't reasonable on an online purchase of digital content) that you want a refund, or you will issue a chargeback. Chargebacks are kind of a big deal to merchants, in that if you get very many of them, your transaction fees go way up, and you can lose your merchant account entirely if it keeps up.

Note, however, that if you do use the chargeback option, you will likely never be able to use that card with them again.

murraypaul · 01-17-2013, 02:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by taustin

You might also call Zinio and tell them that a month simply isn't acceptable, and if they can't deliver on the purchase within a more reasonable time (and anything more than "right now" really isn't reasonable on an online purchase of digital content) that you want a refund, or you will issue a chargeback. Chargebacks are kind of a big deal to merchants, in that if you get very many of them, your transaction fees go way up, and you can lose your merchant account entirely if it keeps up.

As I read the post, it isn't Zinio's issue.
They aren't saying they they can't deliver the magazine, they are saying that Discover might not pass the order on to them at all for a month, so they know nothing about it.
That is purely a Discover issue, no point shouting at Zinio about it.
And the refund or chargeback would be against Discover, not Zinio, as that is who the subscription was bought from.

I've subscribed to several magazines directly through Zinio with no issues at all, as have several other posters to the thread.

01-17-2013, 07:04 AM	#1
1611mac eWanderer Posts: 523 Karma: 1441998 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: NC, USA Device: iMac,iPad3,iPhone5-Kindle Fire,Touch,PaperWhite	First magazine experience is a nightmare My Discover magazine story.... I've read hundreds of books on my iPad but not one single magazine! I used to subscribe to Discover p-magazine (years ago) and I thought reading the digital version would be a great "first magazine" iPad read. So I go to the Discover web site and order a digital subscription to the mag. It was cheaper than a "newstand service." Upon checkout there was NO instruction about obtaining the download. I wait and wait and receive NO emails. After 24 hrs I check my credit card and see that yes, I was charged for the digital subscription. I go to the website and cannot log in to my account. I cannot do a password recovery... "no account with that email" I'm told. (Even though I had been charged.) I send an email to customer support at Discover telling them that I received no account confirmation email nor order email (no, the email was not in my local trash or junk folder, it was not in my web server junk.) 48 hours later no response. I read every faq and help file on the Discover site. Nothing... Just a mention that Discover is delivered by Zinio and phone number is provided to contact Zinio. After being on hold forever at Discover I give up. I call Zinio (as per faq) explaining my situation. Customer rep DOES find my email but no Discover subscription. Then I'm told IT CAN TAKE UP TO A MONTH FOR US TO GET THE ORDER. What? I say... I order a digital download and it can take up to a month to get it? NO WAY! Yes I'm told. So I'm given a "complimentary" digital edition of Discover. Will be available to me in "minutes." Twenty four hours later I still have nothing in my Zinio library. Today I'll call Discover (since I received no email response) and sit on hold forever to find out what in the world is going on.... Or maybe I'll just go buy a paper copy at my local store..... Or maybe I'll just stick to reading books.... . .

01-17-2013, 07:12 AM	#2
JoeD Guru Posts: 895 Karma: 4383958 Join Date: Nov 2007 Device: na	I signed up for a free trial of a piano magazine, 12 issues. Turns out the mag only works in a browser with flash. Against my better judgement I popped flash on and the magazine reading experience was horrendous (I didn't really expect it to be any good, but benefit of the doubt and all...) I didn't make it through the first few pages of the mag before deciding even for 12 issues free of a mag I've enjoyed in the past on paper, it wasn't worth it. Noticed they had an iPad version of the mag, but sadly because they outsourced that, and the company they used to do the iPad version obviously takes a cut of any subscriptions that come via it, there's no way to get access to the iPad version despite having an online sub to the mag. Not likely I'll buy an iPad only version either, who knows which device I'll get next and unlike paper mags, I'd like to stock pile digital ones just as I do with my ebooks Glad it was a free trial, there's no way I'll ever pay for this kind of setup. Only other magazine I've bought digitally so far was a fantasy short story one and they just made a PDF available for download. No fuss, instant download and readable on pretty much anything as it's a PDF. Last edited by JoeD; 01-17-2013 at 07:15 AM.

01-17-2013, 09:24 AM	#6
tubemonkey monkey on the fringe Posts: 45,746 Karma: 158575914 Join Date: May 2010 Location: Seattle Metro Device: Moto E6, Echo Show	I use Pulse for my magazine content. Granted, you don't get full issues; but it is free and satisfies my needs. Other similar services are Google Currents and Flipboard. edit: Discover Magazine is one of the magazines available on Pulse. Last edited by tubemonkey; 01-17-2013 at 09:50 AM.

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01-17-2013, 08:29 AM	#3
crossi Guru Posts: 997 Karma: 12000001 Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Seattle Wahington U.S. Device: kindle	I'm sorry you had such a bad experience. The only digital magazine I've subscribed to was Locus and that was great. I like it better than the paper version because the print was too small in the paper edition. No problems downloading or reading it at all.

01-17-2013, 09:03 AM	#5
Asawi Gadgetoholic Posts: 1,467 Karma: 3865860 Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Sweden Device: Kobo Libra2, Tolino Vision 6	I tried a digital subscription of Sew News. The best way to read it is downloading it as PDF. I suppose that isn't an option for all magazines, but I'm really pleased it is for this one, since I certainly prefer reading it that way (EZPDF app) to the ways the suggest (some sort of Flash in a web browser interface or Adobe Air. I'm not really much a magazine reader anyway, but at least not the issues I do get won't be stacking up in my living room...

01-17-2013, 10:35 AM	#8
Asawi Gadgetoholic Posts: 1,467 Karma: 3865860 Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Sweden Device: Kobo Libra2, Tolino Vision 6	I use Pulse as well! Love it! I wouldn't have known about it if it hadn't been preinstalled in the Galaxy Tab I bought for my daughter.

01-17-2013, 11:11 AM	#10
pidgeon92 Wizard Posts: 3,144 Karma: 8426142 Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Chicago, IL Device: Kindle PW2, Kindle Voyage, Kindle DXG, Boox M90, Kobo Aura HD	I have several subscriptions via Zinio, and the magazines show up immediately after order. I'm really surprised that the Discover website doesn't send you directly to Zinio for subscriptions. Probably because of the bundle. I also have a separate subscription to People. I had to get the physical magazine subscription to get the digital subscription at a decent rate. I give the physical magazines away, and just read the digital on my iPad.

01-17-2013, 11:23 AM	#11
tubemonkey monkey on the fringe Posts: 45,746 Karma: 158575914 Join Date: May 2010 Location: Seattle Metro Device: Moto E6, Echo Show	A really neat app to use in conjunction with these magazine apps is Pocket. You can save articles (and also videos and web pages) for later viewing when offline. It's integrated in quite a few apps, including Pulse and Flipboard.

01-17-2013, 12:38 PM	#13
HappyMartin Martin Kristiansen Posts: 1,546 Karma: 8480958 Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Johannesburg Device: Kindle International Ipad 2	I subscribe to Procycling through Zinio and have had no problems at all. I like the navigation options and the text option for reading the longer articles. Much prefer it to the paper version.

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