The Economist Reviews 

It takes 30 minutes of stupid questions to unsubscribe from a subscription. I'm looking for other places to leave bad reviews, so far I've only found the play/app store

Regarding a post on X, about the death of a Portuguese elderly citizen.
Your title was and I’m quoting.
“Celeste Caeiro’s gesture named a revolution”.
Did you know that the very same lady DIED WAITING FOR AN AMBULANCE, in the same country?
Do you have any idea of how hard is to get by on a daily bases for a Portuguese citizen, with the minimum wage of €700/mount?
Get of your offices, go to Portugal and ask around how much was her retirement pension.
Instead of writing pointless headlines with a copy paste picture.

newspaper is good but I do enjoy the irony of reading their journalists harp on how un-ethical so many people around the world are and then putting me through 10 minutes of chat to unsubscribe! ethics?

As with everyone else the cancellation process is ridiculous. But I've learned over the years how to do it. But worse this time they've not refunded me my money, despite me cancelling within a few days of renewal.

This review was edited because of later developments - please read to the bottom. It got even worse.
Original: Horrendous/ridiculous cancellation process. Just like most other reviewers, I am appalled at the cancellation process that I had to endure. To be honest, this was so dishonest and unhelpful that I wonder if it is even legal. I asked three times to cancel and three times they came back with some offer that I do not want or need. Up until the point, that I asked point blank if they were refusing to honour my request and then they finally complied (Edit - they didn't, please see below). I have taken screenshots and was ready to lodge a complaint with my credit card company for predatory credit card (renewal) practices. To be honest what they do is so bad that credit card companies should start banning The Economist. The fact that the company acts like this really puts into question their corporate values because this is very deliberate and shows complete disrespect for its customers.
Edit - When I checked my subscription page some days later, it became clear that the first "support person" had not cancelled the subscription, but merely cancelled the autorenewal. (remember, I have screenshots to prove that that was not my request) I guess that trick allowed him/her/the AI in the contact center to manipulate his statistics and trick the Economist into believing that he managed to salvage the subscription.
As a consequence, I had to contact the Economist again to ask them to cancel that subscription - again - and go through the same messaging hell.
Since a week had passed, they only refunded me partially "for the remaining portion of the sub". This is so dishonest. It was clearly not a misunderstanding and a deliberate action by the contact center operator.
I am making this edit for two reasons: One, to warn people about the degree of dishonesty that is at play. In a despicable way, this is very smart. People think the matter is resolved and will only realise some time later that it actually wasn't. In that period, The Economist lets the subscription run and you pay...
The second reason for this is edited review is more important: If this is more than a "honest mistake" and there is a pattern of systematic customer abuse, then I want my case to be in the public domain. Please feel free to contact me. I will gladly provide the screenshots to help to prove that this was not a "honest mistake", but in fact a pattern... Given that there is a clear economic motive, I doubt that this was a "honest mistake".
Last point - please make screenshots of your interactions with The Economist. They do not deserve your trust

The joke of trying to cancel your subscription. As described below it is not easy. They force you to speak to someone and it can take almost 30 minutes to do that. The next joke is that they put a standard reply to this review that thanks you for your comment and they will take notice. But they obviously do not . Terrible customer service which is totally out of synch with the quality of the journalism

Would rank 0 if this was an option

Terrible customer service. Nearly impossible to cancel subscription and stop being charged.

Dealt with a live chat four times. They were zero help, directed me to Apple, who then advised me the subscription was definitely with The Economist not them.

After spending at least an hour on live chat etc they finally cancelled my subscription and "gave" me a months free Espresso .... which I have now been charged for.

This would be impossible for an elderly person to navigate.

I would not recommend the online subscription to anyone.

worst cancellation process ever - takes 20 minutes.

Economist Magazine wrote to me pretending that they had confired my educator status 75% Discounted. Today they took the full balance out of my account. Despite confirming with them several weeks ago and receiving a confirmation from someone called 'Max B' they have failed to deliver on the 75% discount. I will be cancelling in FULL and not purchasing this journal anymore. What a waste of my time and money. Avoid signing up to this organisation. +

At 0647 this morning, Friday 16 November 2024, the latency problem seems to have been resolved. The website is working like all other websites.
How about adopting a policy of transparency and honesty rather than denial? Follow the example of good Economist journalism.

I had a subscription for 1 year. The journalism is generally good, including the writing and some of the podcasts, though keeping to fewer articles of higher quality would be better. Often the same stories are rehashed in several formats.
The app and website are fine, but could definitely be better. They’re slow, poorly organised, and difficult to navigate. Finding a story on the app that you’ve seen elsewhere (e.g. social media) is difficult, the search is poor.
However the cancellation process is heinous. They give every indication of allowing cancellations through the website, taking you through a journey of feedback and offers, before telling you to get in touch with live chat or phone. This is a well known dark pattern used to aid retention, but in 2024 it’s completely transparent and absolutely deplorable. Any company employing these tactics cannot be trusted at all.

Terrible and predaroty cancellation procedure. They make it seem like you can cancel it yourself on their website, but no, you have to get in contact with customer service manually to do this. Really not okay to fool people into believing they cancelled. And really a bad business decision, most readers would probably return at some point, but I can not recommond this great journalism to anyone, because of bad customer service that doesn't even reach the bare minimum. Did not expect this from a great paper like this.

Delivery is erratic and when you contact customer service all you get is "if it happens again we will escalate the issue". Great journalism, paired with horrible customer service. For a magazine pretending to know about business, they sure don't demonstrate how to treat customers.
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A week later, and of course it happened again. "We will escalate". Sure.
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A week later, and another bullshit mail asking me to provide the same information I already provided several times "so we can look into this further". In other words, total refusal to do something constructive, just stalling until I give up. Well, I give up supporting such mala fide business practices with my money. What a shame.

The response time, latency of the website is still unacceptably high. No change from my last review.
It is still broken.

I can't cancel a subscription unless I call and spend an hour being passed between a bunch of different agents. Terrible customer experience, would not recommend.

The Economist is a great magazine, some of the best journalism there is.

Their customer service is such a disgrace that it seems almost comical. It's hard to reconcile how these things come from the same company.

Cancelling one's subscription is not a normal 21st century approach where you click a few buttons and done. You first need to click a few buttons and then additionally need to either chat with a customer service agent or call them.

The chat (with not waiting time) took over 20!!! minutes. In which I multiple times stated I want to cancel and instead of a confirmation got multiple counter offers.
I essentially had to get rude in all caps because pleasant conversation got me nowhere. What kind of organisation forces their customer agents into such a ridiculous script?

Shame on you Economist. Even if I have time again in the future to read your excellent journalism, I will probably go elsewhere.

Terrible customer service. Make it difficult to cancel a subscription. It was not like this is the past. The economist have recently unable users to cancel subscriptions them selfs. Instead we have to go to a live chat and be met with customer service representative that will test your patience and make you wait 20 min to cancel. I believe in the hope we give up and continue paying £29 per month. This should be looked at by the FCA and user reimbursed. I can see by the comments on here this is systematic and a bit issue to address. They made this on purpose to make it difficult for user to cancel subscriptions.

Terrible new app. Font size cannot be changed.

All I can do is add to the list here of a bad experience on the subscription. I tried to cancel online, all OK said it was cancelled. Then when I was checking my account the payment had gone through. I spoke to them and they were just not interested. Essentially calling me a liar. Just wanted me to renew at a lower price. Would not accept that I had tried to cancel. System is clearly flawed as I definitely cancelled. So two learnings (i) always cancel by calling them, do not trust the online option and (ii) always call them and say you are cancelling every year then you get offered discounts. Just like insurance companies do not care about existing customers and will continue to charge the high price as long as you do not try to cancel. Very disappointing for such a big "brand".

Terrible subscription experience.
Similar to all of the one star ratings I have read, may I add my one star ( wish I could give zero).
Two weeks ago, I responded to an email from the Economist requesting that I update my credit card details.
I did this over the phone, and they verified it by taking one euro from my account.
I have received further emails saying this never happened! When I rang again today and forwarded a copy of my credit card statement, the call centre person was unhelpful, and simply disconnected the call, as I was explaining that my new credit card details were already in their possession.
Why has the Economist such a terrible reputation worldwide? Such a shame.