Magazines Direct Reviews 810

Ordered Woman & Home magazine as a gift for my wife in September. An initial £6 for 6 copies. apart from emails to sign up for online magazines and after endless emails asking when a magazine would be delivered I cancelled the order.
I have received £5 back from the £6 paid with a promise that a copy of the magazine will be sent. I guess that was the £1 deduction. To date nothing has arrived.
Avoid the company at all costs

A subscription of 6 issues for a pound? To date I have not received anything and it seems they can’t lift a finger to write an email. I shall be contacting my bank to have them blocked, must be a scam.

Update: the same auto-apology from "Nathan" and then a ridiculous message saying the magazine will be received 2 days after publication. What an apalling waste of time.

I have a yearly subscription with Magazines Direct for Country Life magazine. I have not received an issue since 8th October. I've emailed with my query but so far have not received a response. This problem with delivery has happened before, and to be fair to Magazines Direct, once I rang them it was sorted. I would ask them, please respond to my email. And by the way, its not the fault of our postal service here in Ireland, ive checked with them.

I signed up for a promotion to retro gamer 4 months ago for there 3 issues for £1,they took my £1 back in september and as yet still no magazine recieved,and everytime i send an email to query it all they say is theres been a glitch in the system...ive had enough now as its just a scam..they take your £1 and hope you forget about it,not happy.

I emailed a query about my subscription and the response did not help at all so my review would have been negative along with most of the others on here.
However, a quick phone call sorted out the problem so I am happy to give positive feedback 😊

Retro Gamer UK #274 ordered 7/8/25 and still note received almost 3 months later!!!

Looks like a joke, but it's not: one wrong number sent, 3 "missing" deliveries with never arrived replacements and several email exchanges with a ridiculous customer support, it's simply unacceptable that a website that sells magazines cannot do its job.

You simply cannot buy the magazine you like from its offical website - ridiculous.

Something is really wrong with magazines direct.

Order number 39981491 to Portugal.

I informed them that 2 issues of Womans Weekly had not been delivered and recieved
"We regret that we are unable to make the requested changes to this subscription until we receive confirmation to do so from the payee themselves."
A do NOT require any changes and I am the Payee as they will soon discover since I have cancelled my Subscription

I ordered Metal Hammer issue 402 from Magazines Direct back in July 2025, and three months later, I still haven’t received it.

I initially had a 3-month trial subscription with them, which at the time advertised issue 402, but 403 was the first issue sent. No biggy, I'll just ordere 402 on its own and keep the trail subscirption for the time being and see how we go.

Instead of the issue I actually paid for, I was sent later editions (403, 404, 405) — in duplicate with my trial subscription— while my paid-for issue 402 was “lost in the post” multiple times. Each time I contacted customer service, I was told replacements had been dispatched or that there was a “system error.” None ever arrived.

To make matters worse, my one-time order for issue 402 was somehow turned into a second subscription I never agreed to, and I was charged full price twice. After weeks of chasing, they said they refunded those duplicate payments - but this was lie, I have recieved no refund and they still haven’t managed to send the single issue I originally bought.

I’ve been polite and patient through endless back-and-forth emails with multiple agents, but it’s now October, and I’ve been promised this same magazine three separate times. Still nothing.

It’s astonishing how a company can mess up something so simple, offer no tracking, and recycle the same template responses without actually resolving anything.

I’ve cancelled everything with them and have raised this formally with Future Publishing, since Magazines Direct clearly cannot handle orders or customer service properly.

Avoid Magazines Direct unless you enjoy wasting time chasing your own money and undelivered magazines.

Ordered an e-edition of practical boat owner to read on the train. A day later, nothing. I should have read the reviews. Avoid. Magazines direct seem fraudulent now

Terrible customer service. I can't get access to my digital subscription and the call centre were unable to help. They also became cleary irritated when I went to the wrong link. When I then didn't agree to purchase a further subscription they couldn't get me off the line quick enough. Really bad. I have now emailed them and await an answer, though they state that it can take up to 2 working days to get a response.

I ordered a subscription for a magazine in May and now it is almost October with no magazine. I have made several attempts to reach out to customer service with no success.

Issue 405 not sent due to system error, Was informed by customer service that magazine was out of stock so actioned a credit to my subscription but went to have a look on their website to see if it could still be ordered and Iron Maiden premium issue 405 is still in stock for £8.99. So why credit when mag is available to buy, Have sent messages to them.

If i could rate lower i would. Ordered a single issue in July, its now September and its a constant back and forth of it not being delivered then being "sent again"
This issue is important for me and its the only place i can seem to get one

Ordered the special edition Ozzy Osbourne metal hammer. Never turned up and they say its just been lost in post.

Now the magazines are on ebay for 4x the price so i will miss out. Not happy at all

Ordered a single issue of a magazine - it never arrived. DONT even think about doing business with Magazines Direct, they don't deliver and they don't get back om customer service requests.
I have demanded a refund.

I ordered and it said you would receive an email after 48 hrs. I have nothing, I contacted support, no reply either. So now I have no item and I've lost my money. How do I get my item or my my money back? DO NOT buy from this website!

Hi
We have now for almost 2 months been in mail and phone contact with support.
Original subscription for Country Life Magazine was made with autorenewal, but stopped after 3 months at the end of July.
Support claimed that subscription was cancelled, but they were not able to provide evidence of that.
At least notification mail should be sent to inform about that – but no mail.

So new subscription was made, which after some more escalations finally was visible on the account.
But despite still more mails support are still not able to tell us when the magazines already dispatched under the new subscription are expected to arrive in DK.
They are not offering tracking, so there is no way I can check where magazine is stuck between UK and DK.

I cancelled my recent subscription 6 months before the renewal date and I received written confirmation of cancellation. I have this month been charged for the renewal. The series of exchanges with magazinesdirect have included:
- Advising them via email that I have been charged and requesting a refund (I included their confirmation message to me). I was told the sub was cancelled and I should provide proof of payment.
- I them emailed proof the charge on my credit card. Their response was to confirm I had an active subscription. No reference to my original request (whilst ignoring the obviously contradictory information).
- I have been completely ghosted on my subsequent two messages.
Unfortunately it seems I will have to raise a chargeback through my credit card provider. I'm typically pragmatic when leaving reviews but I felt it prudent to share my experience because it seems evident that this behaviour is part of their business model (hey, I'm sure many people wouldn't even question/notice the payment).

In the sea of negative comments I have to say positive experience. I ordered 5 magazines of country life. I got them after 50 days (im in Serbia ) . I had communication with them all the time.

They send the magazines in branded easily tearing envolopes. After receiving my latest subscription, It was completely torn. DO NOT SUBSCRIBE TO THEM