The Economist Reviews 

Sad to see that a professional newspaper has such poor customer service;( newspaper delivered on Tuesdays while the paper is published on Thursdays, old news. Even worse customer service

This company is fraudulent. I tried to cancel a subscription online and they required me to talk to someone via chat. That person was making it difficult and I eventually lost track of the chat. When I tried to restart a chat 30 minutes later, new chats were disabled due to a "holiday". When I tried to reach out via the contact form, it wouldn't go through due to "maintenance". I am going to have to call them on another day in order to cancel a subscription I placed online. Now that I'm coming to this page, I'm seeing all of the similar experiences others are having and am dreading that experience. Don't engage with this company if you haven't already.

They need to improve their subscription cancelation process. They are deliberately making it difficult for customers to cancel. It was only when I said that I will make a complaint that all of a sudden it was easy to leave. Disappointing and unnecessary.

Very easy to sign up, very difficult to cancel. I signed up for the economist and the telegraph at the same time - cancelling was a very different experience. Cancelling the telegraph was simply a case of clicking on a couple of buttons. The economist requires you to enter into a long and rambling conversation with a live chat agent (possibly AI), during which time they will try multiple tactics to stop you cancelling as well as entering into irrelevant small talk about the weather. I would urge anyone to think very very carefully before signing up. The content was mediocre, but as other reviewers have stated, the cancellation process should be as simple as the signup - and it is the complete opposite. My suggestion with cancelling would be to just keep the chat bot conversation to a simple phrase of 'please cancel it'. You'll have to ask them multiple times, but this approach worked after almost half an hour.

Welcome to The Economist. Hi, this is Allan. How can I help you?

- As explained multiple times, I would like to cancel my subscription

Hi. I'm sorry to hear that you would like to cancel your subscription and I am now looking into it for you.

- I do not wish to enter into a discussion about how I am feeling, how I read the economist (which I don't), how the weather is. All previous chats have entered into irrelevant small talk

- I just want to cancel

I'm sorry if you feel that way and also if you got disconnected with the previous advisor's. Please, allow me a moment while I check your subscription details and help you.

- Thanks - please cancel it

Whilst I'm reviewing your account, I hope you're doing well this weekend and I see that you have the monthly Digital + Print subscription that renews on the 6th of July, 2024.

- Please cancel it

I understand. Based on your answer on the pre-chat question above is not enough time. I totally understand with time constraints, it can be a little hard to make full usage of the subscription. Specially maintaining a work life balance is what we all struggle with nowadays.

- Please cancel it

- Has my subscription been cancelled?

While I'm processing your request. I have a suggestion to you since time is a concern. We have subscription called Espresso from The Economist subscription. It provides you with an opportunity to experience a slimmer and cost effective version of award-winning journalism which comes with personalized audio articles according to your choice. This type of subscription is truly designed for time saving features and explicitly for our busy customers which suit more to you vs your tight schedule.

- Please cancel everything

- Please cancel it

- Please do not try and keep me as a customer. I have no interest in keeping any subscription

- Has it been cancelled?

I respect your decision and thanks for hearing my suggestions. Please, allow me a moment while I process your request.

- Thanks - has it been cancelled?

- Could you please confirm it has been cancelled?

Called this morning to cancel Espresso subscription which was sold to me last week. Spoke to renewals, the cancellation option went dead twice, they transferred me to cancellations and the line rang and went dead! Tried live chat and then that was ended. Just retried live chat but been waiting 10 minutes. Been a customer for 5 years….

Can only repeat other reviewers experiences when attempting to cancel a subscription. Chat refuses a straightforward request to cancel and continues to try to “sell” a subscription on reduced terms . After 30 mins I confess I gave up. The statement that you can manage the subscription through “My Account” is misleading and inaccurate making one wonder if the same applies to their journalism. Regulation is required to require the cancellation of subscriptions to be no more difficult than entering into them i.e if you can sign up online you must be able to cancel online without needing to “chat” or phone.

I have to agree with all other reviewers: The Economist seems determined to take renewal payments against the subscribers' will. I took out a 1-year subscription, I did not agree to continuous renewal and was not informed of any such term. A year later, a (much larger) payment was taken from my bank account, I did not notice at first and then when I complained they refused to refund it. I am now taking the matter up with my bank because this amounts to theft.
Unless you want to deal with a company that will help itself to your bank account without permission or notice then I suggest you steer clear.

UPDATE FOLLOWING REPLY FROM THE ECONOMIST POSTED BELOW 24 JUNE:
Thank you for your post below, asking me to email you. However I have already emailed you on 10th, 13th and 14th June and you have not replied to any of these.
I also called you and explained the complaint on 8th, 10th and 17th June and you have not resolved the situation on any of these calls. During the call on 8th June your colleague promised a call back within 3 to 5 days but no response was received. During the call on 17th June, the colleague promised a call back not later than 20th, again no call back has been received. I have concluded that any further attempt at resolution is useless. You may be interested in nice posts on Trustpilot, but you do not make any attempt to solve my problem.
I have now commenced a reclaim through my bank under the Direct Debit Guarantee.

To start, the customer service is trash. I wanted to cancel. No cancel button, you are forced to speak with a representative either on the phone or through chat to cancel. During this process, they treid to keep me as a subscriber by a secondary offer that included a refund. I rejected and canceled. No refund after canceling? You only get the refund if you stay a subscriber? How does that make sense? They also DO NOT warn you there is no refund before you cancel. It's a rip off publication that is nothing but a liberal mouthpiece. Right, left, I don't care, but the analysis should be unbiased. The analysis is not economical at all. For example, recent content included an 8 paragraph analysis of why Trump shouldn't be backed by billionaires. One of the reasons was Trump would cut taxes which would be an issue. That makes sense on the surface, but that would be a fault of Congress not the President. Congress should budget with the revenues they have. Spending and revenues are not a function of the President in the US. If you want a publication that re-enforces biased views, this one is for you.

I went through what I thought was the cancellation process in January 2023 only to find out in May that I had continued to be charged for the previous 5 months. After spending hours on hold and on live chat I eventually got through to someone who while she said she understood my concern, insisted she was only able to offer a refund for the final month. The process was extremely painful, disrespectful and showed all the signs of a a business acting in bad faith to "keep" customers against their will. One would usually be surprised at a rating as low as 1.3 stars on Trustpilot but in this case I was actually surprised it was this high. I'm sure if 0 stars was an option, it wouldn't be close to the dizzying heights of their 1.3 star rating.

Appalling customer service.
The difficulties I have had in cancelling my online subscription are in line with other reviewers. It is insanely difficult, time consuming and insulting. My eventual cancellation on live chat was on the day of renewal for 12 months. I was refused a refund of the whole amount, only a discount. I declined and was given no option for any refund. I have had to go through my bank. What a waste of time.

Don't even try to subscribe, it's a trap. There's NO WAY you can "cancel anytime". Cancel button leads to the chat. I had to talk to 3 people, spend 45min and i'm not even sure that my request has been answered...

Why can’t we give a no star review? Just ended a live chat session with The Economist to cancel my subscription. I have subscribed to the magazine since 2016 - the fee kept rising every year and the quality of customer service is appalling. I was forced to engage in livechat just to end my subscription. I was offered a £90 discount to persuade me to stay. I think they should have offered me a £299 discount. Be warned, there is no button or link to press for cancelling subscription. They have made it so time-consuming that one just can’t be asked to go through the process especially if it is an institutional subscription. It was noted that when I said I’d be reviewing The Economist’s cancellation process on Trustpilot, the renewal cancellation was subsequently executed in lightning speed! Thanks Trustpilot! Bye bye The Economist!

Used to love the economist - my wife bought me a year subscription.
The customer service is probably the worst that i have ever experienced. It was so hard to try and continue the subscription that i had to phone them (and pay for the privilege of speaking to someone) to sort out.
Then it transpires that i have had two subscriptions all along randomly renewing.
Complete pain and waste of 2hrs typing on bloody chat box!!!
What a load of S**T!!

Apparently the paywall now prevents subscribers from saving articles outside their apps which was useful if you don't like reading in sunlight but not on a phone. This change wasn't announced and radically reduces the value I get from my subscription. In short, they sold me a dud. It is proving impossible to get a timely and constructive response from their customer 'service'.
.......beyond that the mag is good if you avoid the silly leaders and can swallow the price.
........shortly after this review was first posted (now May 20th) I got an emollient email, from someone (orAI?) who clearly hadn't bothered to check the exchanges, offered nothing new and said that support were on the case. Since then nothing. Wasting my time.

The articles are good. However, the customer service and tech issues are dire. Its only an online news site. How hard can it be. I had logging in issues.

As per other posts, it is nearly impossible to cancel. Very very poor service for what is considered to be a leading brand in journalism.

Operational disaster. I tried to become a print subscriber but it was too bad of an experience. Customer service reps were telling me different things with regards to when can I expect the first issue to arrive. Apparently it takes 3 weeks, but it took 4 and the issue I received was 2 weeks old. All issues I received during 7-week period of being a print subscriber were either a week or two-weeks old. Two issues I didn't receive at all. I was checking mailbox everyday and was getting disappointed every time I was opening it. It takes 20-25 mins of a phone call to tell your story and hope things will improve as I was being asked to be patient. Delivery team sent me an e-mail and also asked to be patient "I suggest that you monitor future deliveries of your print edition for the next few weeks and let us know if the issue persists." If I had to wait several more weeks it would take ~3 months to start getting subscription on time (hopefully?) and even then it would be 4 days old at best because "The scheduled day of delivery for Spain is a Tuesday+". I love how a '+' was added which basically means they can't know or guarantee shipping. I wish they could just provide .pdf of print version so I can just print the issue at home. I'm not sure why they even offer print subscription in Spain if at best if you wait for 2-3 months your best hope is to get an issue in your mailbox that's 4 days old. Had I have known this I would have never attempted to be a print subscriber. So conveniently left out... never again

Great product - delivered weekly to my door

Make sure you get a special offer when you subscribe

The app is a ton of manure. Shows me the wrong edition as the current edition. One weeks ago. Their customer service reps have basic basic English.
They have written back to me. Supposedly I'm to contact them a third time. I don't work for free. Do they? I will email them the transcript if they make it worth my while. But I don't work for free
The problem ain't with my phone. The app is terrible.