Remember my unhappiness that my December issue Burdastyle arrived completely sodden with water? I heard nothing from Abopress, the people in France who I subscribe through. Despite emails and sending messages through the helpdesk. Nothing.
Then the January issue arrived, also water damaged.
It was just after incredibly hot windy weather in Adelaide. Bushfires in the hills behind where I live. The weather conditions in the delivery location were not the reason for the water damage!
I was not happy. That is an understatement.
I sent another email to Abopress.
Said I wanted these issues replaced. Said I expected a response within 7 days. Said I’d cancel my subscription if they didn’t respond. In English and bad but probably amusing French.
They didn’t respond.
I felt extremely unimportant and frustrated. L
I had gone back to work after the 7 days ultimatum was up and hadn’t got around cancelling my subscription. Another problem was, of course, that the email I was not getting a response from was also the email I used for my subscription…
In turned out that procrastination was the right thing to do.
A new December issue arrived on Friday.
No note, no email to explain?? Crazy customer relations.
It is nice to have a glossy smooth copy though!
Now let’s hope they do the same for the January issue. I still don’t know if it was the email or the helpdesk message that worked though.
***UPDATE***
Response within 24hours of a message on their helpdesk!! A new January issue is coming my way. Isabelle at Abopress hopes it keep dry. Well done Abopress!
He Cooks... She Sews! 
Fortunately you have got the new isseu.
Still sometimes it is difficult to get over this feeling of frustration. I completly understand your feelings.
I have had a few issues with my Burda subscription over the years and have had terrible customer service with my efforts to resolve the problems. I then asked my very dear German friend who also subscribes to Burda to come over to my house at an appropriate time for phoning Burda in business hours in Germany, to call them and sort things out. It has worked perfectly. Do you have a fluent German speaking friend who could make a call for you??
I don’t, but I did seriously considering phoning Abopress, the french company handling my subscription. I just didn’t manage to sort out the time difference and get to it before the replacement issue arrived. It’s a very good suggestion though. Email ping-pong is not the best way to sort things out.
Sometimes the quickest way to get a response is to contact companies on a more public forum, like twitter or instagram. You don’t have to completely shame them, just post about your frustration and add their username and any relevant hashtags.
Glad they are sending you a replacement. Have you considered Newsstand.co.uk? They ship world wide, are based inthe UK and of course speak English.
http://www.newsstand.co.uk/247-Knitting-and-Crochet-Magazines/Subscriptions.aspx
Thanks. Thats an excellent backup plan. It looks like Abopress prices might be a bit better for Australia, even if the magazines do occasionally stop for a bath on the way here. I’ll check it out when I get my next subscription invoice from Abopress.
I would like to subscribe to Burda and have sent multiple emails through to Abo Press and haven’t had a reply. I’m also in Australia. When you subscribed, did they take long to answer your email or did you subscribe a different way?
I’ve been a subscriber for a long time and my initial contact was through fax. Last year I renewed my subscription by emailing a scanned renewal notice, with my payment details written in. I think the renewal notice probably came with my magazine. In previous years its been through an international bank transfer. Its always been a bit of a mystery and I’m relieved when my issue actually turns up. But the challenges are always worth it, because I get the issues so much sooner than the newsagents in Australia: usually by the third week of the month of that issue.
They didn’t answered any of my recent emails about the wet issues, but they did respond through the help desk, the second time. Perhaps give that a try: http://www.kiosqueadomicile.fr/contact.html
Good luck.
Thanks heaps for that, I’ll give it a go. I am just finishing a subscription through iSubscribe and the thought of getting the issue in the same month of print is nice. I only just got my December issue in the mail, in February! And the subscription was expensive too
I also use Newsstand from UK. Never have problem. 🙂 but yeah it’s frustrated to see the damaged magazine in the mail
My February issue of burda just arrived, all wet. I too will be hoping for a replacement issue. I recently had no response from multiple emails to them about my subscription so I don’t know how this will go. I hope your arrived dry.
February arrived dry for me. Phew. Sorry to hear yours is wet. I’m still waiting for my replacement January one.