So I did not receive my magazine this month and thought I would check into things. Logged into my account and saw it was expired even though my renewal cycle starts/ends in May and is automatic. The email on my account somehow had changed and all history was gone (ei subscription renewal dates etc). Called customer service and apparently it is now on me to provide proof of the goof. Goodbye fine woodworking, it was a fun ride but things got too bumpy for me.
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Replies
What I don't appreciate is that I am also signed up for automatic renewal, yet I get a notice with my hardcopy magazine saying I need to renew.
It won't be much comfort, but I suspect that the customer service part of this is outsourced, i.e., it's probably not FW staff dealing with subscribers. I've had problems signing in on the iOS app lately, and it's a third party running that ship, with a different person involved each time.
It was indeed outsourced. I was seeing charges on my AMEX from a company I had never heard of. I called and got - naturally - recordings. The only options for leaving messages were for HR and customer service. Never got a call back. Learned much later, after calling AMEX, etc., that this was the outsource company. A lot of wasted time and frustration.
That was several years back. Things are still very bumpy.
Folks, it's irrelevant whether customer service has been outsourced or not. Many large corporations outsource some of their services and have been doing so for years because quality service can be provided by outside entities and is therefore a good business practice. The issue here is that something may have gone wrong with the system that manages the subscription function and not that customer service personnel have done anything wrong. I suspect that due to the magnitude of the issue the customer service personnel are swamped. In fact, a customer service rep told me that FWW switched this system and not all data transferred correctly. My all-access subscription was also cancelled, but I contacted customer service, and they successfully reactivated my account, and I just received the one issue of the hard-copy magazine that I was missing. Thanks Ben!
FWW is by far the best woodworking magazine around, and I for one will not cancel my subscription.
This started last August. One would expect there to be some rough spots when there is a big change over but it's not acceptable for six months!
There is a process for dealing with people you hire who obviously are not up to the task.
If this were Amazon and the best they could do Bezos would be living in Victorville in a doublewide driving an 86 Honda!
I canceled out a while back waiting to hear when it's all fixed then maybe I reup. Apparently not yet!
Technology is being abused by all businesses.
Add greed and it's a recipe for disaster.
No such thing as customer loyalty.
I get that this is annoying. However, I am just glad that FWW still exists. My wife is a graphic designer for the newspapers (25+ years). When the advertising dollars shifted away, newspapers suffered. She has literally had one raise in 12 years. I only point this out because I am sure FWW has had similar challenges. For what it's worth, my dad gives me every year a Christmas gift to FWW, I then end up doing the online all access. Likely paying more than I could. So be it.
I don't think people are complaining about paying for the service. Paying for the service and then not actually getting it or a broken version seems to be the problem. Customer service just ends up wasting a lot of your time and is a dead end. You get your problem fixed and then in a few days it happens again. After a couple of trips around the block I figured it's just easier to cancel out and come back sometime when someone finally decides to fix stuff.
Like others, I have had a series of issues over the past several months, mostly lost or non-renewals. That said, a call to customer service has always managed to get things sorted out.
Thanks both for the clarification. The joys of "technology." Poor Ben is probably banging his head against his desk as he reads this thread (and he had nothing to do with any of the decisions or implementations).
I had a somewhat similar problem. Called customer service and the phone rep was literally talking to someone else while I was explaining my problem. I think she was actually working from home based on the conversation that I could overhear. When I asked her to pay attention to me she got p****d. I was not happy but she did eventually solve my problem. This is not the FWW that I have loved since the late 1970's but it is still the best publication woodworking publication, print or electronic.
But hey, isn't any trouble, time, or expense worth it when you can get articles on...a "Baby Yoda Rattle"?! After all people, everyone's favorite is Grogu!
I actually was thining this past week how much I liked the visor slit of the Mandalorian's helmet and wondering how I could incorporate that design into a piece of furniture. Maybe Frank Lloyd Wright style chair or front of a storage cabinet isn't fully covering the items inside or some sort of Art Deco project (on my 2024 to build styles in 2024).
We published one 3 sentence blog a year ago and you didn't like it. Noted.
I am in the process of moving house and I have made 3 requests to FWW to change my my PRINT subscription address.
The online account process does not allow the ZIP (Australian Postcode) to be entered to my PRINT subscription address.
I am becoming very frustrated with FWW customer service's inability to add my ZIP CODE details. Without a ZIP code it is unlikely i will ever receive my printed magazine again.
Can anyone suggest a solution, or have FWW just given up on customer service?
Have you tried emailing or calling customer service? Shoot me an email at [email protected].
I think it is called circling the drain. I wonder why Ben S. has not poked into this thread with some answers. He is prompt to say something when one of his rules is broken like posting a public email address in public. For the past year I have been wondering if I should keep my subscription as I am now finding that I am disappointed with what is in the magazine. The only reason I keep subscribing now is to be able to look up articles and materials from past years.
I didn't see it until the next morning. I spend most of my time making content for the site.
Ooof. I find it so hard to relate with these critiques. You may not agree, but the issue at hand of lack of customer support due to off shoring.. well ever considered capitalism run amuck? A FWW staff member being held accountable for responding here as damage control? No offense, but they aren't retirement age moderators of member supported ww forums. Cut em some slack, this unfortunately is the outcome of the bad experiment called "free market capitalism". You've come to expect more than is viable in today's economy.
As for the lack of good content I keep reading here, that is just ludicrous. Peter Galbert's words on wood grain and how to rive parts that are superior functionally as well as aesthetically is worth the years subscription alone. Mary May as a ultra bonus? Shut the door! Shall I pull last issue? Did it have the Ming piece? That was next level.
Sorry but anyone not able to understand this is grossly out of touch.
-signed full time solo wood slicer and gluer
I too have had my subscription expire with no autorenewal and no notification. Something similar occurred at my previous renewal.
I subscribe to more magazines than would a sane person, and FWW is by far the worse at routine subscription maintenance.
Bruce Stewart
As with the original poster, I promise you we tried to send a notice and it either didn't get to you or you missed it. Either is entirely possible and understandable.
The notion that we wouldn't want to actually take your money is a little outside the realm of plausibility. We like money, it helps us feed our families. We like keeping subscribers because that's how we make the moneys.
Email to omeda.com appears to have solved my problem, I am glad to report.
Ben, I certainly did not mean to imply that you all wouldn’t want my subscription. I wanted you to know that the folks who administer subscriptions seemed to do less than they might have to retain mine, (and perhaps I wanted to vent a bit.) I’m sorry I was rude.
Send me an email and I'll get it in front of someone. [email protected].
I just got off the phone with customer service. It took a while to get through but they fixed my problems.
Same issues as others, credit card changed, auto-renewal failed, can't change credit card online (wouldn't finish process or wouldn't take information), tried just paying but since it doesn't show an amount due it wouldn't take my payment.
I ended up giving card over phone and customer service took care of it. Problem fixed, it just took some effort to get there. (more effort than it would have been if the online systems were working)
Before you sign off from FWW, I've had the same problem. The customer service rep. told me that they have recently changed computer systems for the subscription service [at least], and that some date didn't transfer correctly from the old to the new. Credit card numbers failed to transfer; hence the cancellation of subscriptions. I've been promised the hard copy of the most recent FWW magazine, but it's been two weeks, and I'm still waiting for it. They are probably swamped due to the idiotic IT department/consultants. Give them a chance to recover. There is no better magazine on woodworking. I wish they'd admit this snafoo on their website so we'd all understand what's going on. JEMTZ - Flyingsawdust is my main product. The rest suck.
My vote goes in the "Plus" column. I've been reading FWW since 1988 and it has taught me the majority of what I know and enjoy about woodworking. These days, more than ever, I'm stunned by the sheer amount and high quality of the content that the small FWW staff produces for both the magazine and the website. How do they do it!? I've had zero subscription issues and look forward to another year of Ultimate membership. Well done!
I've had a couple of problems with Customer Service at Taunton/Fine Woodworking a couple of years ago, but within the past year things have improved greatly. There are things on the FWW website that I do find annoying but they are the same things that I find annoying on all other websites; popup ads, solicitations to enroll in classes, offerings (related and non-related) to FWW, etc.
While it would be nice to not see these, it seems that this has become the way of business for online companies and the criticism of FWW is the criticism of all online companies at this point.
I have found the FWW (or whoever is providing it now) to be responsive and helpful. In general, the content on FWW accessed via Unlimited is what I'm after so I put up with some issues. If I can't do that, the alternative might be just to do no business online. That might be desirable but impractical.
Don't throw your paper mags out.
Yea. I would never depend on anything you buy to last. Not in this country.