Hello, everybody.

First of all, I'd like to apologize because I don't know in which forum this message should be posted. Well, I just only would like to know if there is any Autosport reader from outside UK here in in Atlas F1 Bulletin Board. If there is one, I'd like to know how long you have to wait to receive the issues in your home.

I make this question because since last February I'm an Autosport subscriber and until now just received 5th and 12h March issues here in Brazil, always with two weeks of delay. Is it normal or there's something wrong with my delivering time?

Thank you,

Alexandre Carvalho
São Paulo - Brazil

In the U.S.A I received the March 26 edition on April 4.

April 11?!?!?!?

But today is still April 9.

I guess he wanted to say April the 1st. Makes more sense to me, anyway. Or maybe he's talking about the last year.

Here is the drama between me and Autosport subscription department:

====================================================

For the God's sake!

It's the second time that you give me a non satisfatory answer like this. I told you once before that I don't need and don't accept apologies anymore!!! I JUST WANT A GOOD EXPLANATION for receiving my magazines later than the standard delivery time (7-14 working days) for Brazil subscribers!!!! Is it so difficult to you to understand it?

I've made a question to Haymarket subscription department in my previous e-mail (sent yesterday, 8th April), and you didn't answer me and gave me an stupid option to not continue my subscription, which I don't want to do... yet.

Is it the only answer that you can give to someone's complaining? BE PROFESSIONAL! Or is it difficult to you as well? Do something! Make a postal check, an "urgent priority mail" (always, every week) or anything else, but give me an explanation for this delay.

You at Haymarket staff always advise me that standard delivery time to Brazil is between 7 and 14 working days. And I told you that yesterday, 8th April, was the 14th one after publication of 19th March issue. And I didn't receive it, I don't know why and you simply don't give a solution for my problem!!! Now I'm almost sure that I have a missing issue in my collection...

Yesterday I received a letter from from Haymarket Subscriptions Department, confirming my subscription details. And I wonder: Why if I'm not receiving my magazines in the standard period of time (7-14)? Until now, I just received the first (5th March) and the second ones (12th March).

I'm asking you again, and I hope this is the last time: I want an explanation for my problem. It doesn't matter what you have to do. GIVE ME A GOOD EXPLANATION, and not one of your "standard apologies", or I will start to send you complaining messages every day, every hour.

That's all.

Alexandre Carvalho
acarvalho@gmail.com
São Paulo - Brazil
Tel: +55 11 9329-0909


> Dear Mr Carvalho,
> Subscription Reference Number: 01070809
>
> We are sorry to hear that you are not happy with the length of time for posting to Brazil.
>
> Unfortunately we are not able to improve the delivery time as this is standard. Should you no longer wish
> to continue with your subscription on this basis please let us know and a refund of the balance of your
> payment will be sent back to you.
>
> Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused in this matter.
>
> If we can be of any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us.
>

Edited original reply - sorry.

Thank you, jmorris.

It's simply incredible that Haymarket can send Autosport issues to you, that lives in USA (far from UK than Brazil), just 9 days after its publication, while they advise me that standard delivery time to Brazil is between 7 and 14 WORKING DAYS and I just have to wait for it. And today is the 15th working day after 19th March publication.

Simply incredible...

Is there someone here who lives in South America - or even in Europe - and have the same problem? I think I'm going to start a war with Haymarket subscription department.

Having lived in five countries in Europe and Africa, and taken Autosport subs in all of them, I can state categorically that postal services to various countries take varying lengths of time to reach the addressee, and in most instances its is the receiving country's sorting system that is to blame.

I''ll provide one example: once whilst in Australia I mailed a batch of 15 virtually identical post cards to friends/relatives across the globe. Those to Europe and the U States took less than a week; those to African countries took up to six weeks. Having been to the States and Brazil I have my suspicions as to which country has the better sorting system...

To suggest that Haymarket are somehow delaying postage to Brazil whilst expediting it to North America borders on the ridiculous. They have offered a full refund, if you don't wish to accept that mail to Brazil takes XXX days longer than elsewhere, then suffer the consequences!

Ridiculous? Come on!!!

I don't need and don't want a full refund, because all I want is to read the magazine that, for me, is the best one about motor racing. I don't have to accept the any consequences, once I'm paying for a service that promised me that I would receive the issues between 7 and 14 working days, as happened some weeks ago with my first issues, taking 11 days of delay.

This week I didn't receive my magazine, 15 working days after its publication, and other Atlas F1 members related the same problem in old posts, even in Europe. Don't try to make this case ridiculous, because Autosport subscription is too expensive, my problem can be the same of another subscribers too and that's a good reason for not be in silence. But now the case was taken by a DHL executive account and I hope she gives me a solution.

That's all.

I cancelled my subscription in UK for repeated late or non delivery a few years ago. Mag has gone downhill pretty fast these last few months and for the 1st time in about 30 years I have stopped buying it weekly. I find Motor Sport a far better read for my generation!

I live just north of Toronto Ontario Canada. I get my Autosport via a distributor in New Jersey (EWA). I pay for 1st class postage. As I understand it, the mags are air-freighted from the U.K. on Thursday night then mailed to subscribers on Friday. I usually get ny copy on the following Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. Second class postage would likely take another week.

Ted

The explanation that Felix gave is right on the money. I too have lived all over the planet and the mail being held up, usually is the fault of the incoming process not the out going.

What a rude reply to the subscriptions department. Do you expect them to fly on a plane to Brazil for every issue and then deliver it personally?

The problem will be in Brazil, now I doubt Haymarket have much clout when it comes to improving your country's postal infrastructure so what do you expect them to do? You have been given a choice of a refund or to put up with the delays, it seems perfectly reasonable to me.

This probably won't be much use to you as I live in Germany, but my magazine usually turns up on Friday, and if not then Saturday (ie 2 days after it comes out).

There have been occasions (although not recently) when it hasn't arrived until Monday or Tuesday, and that is very annoying as I don't want to read previews for races that I have watched 1 or 2 days before.

Having said that it is a completely different ball-park to waiting 7-14 days as you do, and would probably get Motor Sport instead in that case. But in contrast to the poster above I actually think the magazine has improved in recent weeks. I still miss Nigel Roebuck but at least I can read his articles on the Motor Sport website

Well I live in Belgium,
normally I receive my copy on friday (in a normal week without holidays)
that was in the beginning,
when there's a holiday in the week, I receive it mostly on monday.

Stupid ofcourse because the previews are useless then...
Now it's monday the 8th of june and still didn't received the issue of the 4th of june...

I think it's normal sometimes that there are delays.. but why sometimes it all goes well and sometimes it seemed that you have to wait another day....??? or will not receive it??
It's not always in Haymarket hands...

I do think even in Belgium that Autosport is the best out there!

Jedi - I feel for you, cos I have the same problem in the same country ... but only since CVC Partners, who gobbled up F1's commercial rights from Bernie, bought 50% of Belgische Post! Since that happened the service has gone DOWN and prices gone UP! I now wait up to a week for a paercel from the UK and two weeks ago paid EU20 to mail three recorded delivery (but standard size) letters to the UK! You're right when you say it is outside Haymarket's control.

Hi, Alexandre. Just forget about it and take the refund while you can. I endured the same pain a few years ago when I tried to became a subscriber. If you speak italian, try Austosprint instead ( I subscribed directly from Conti Editore, and usually it took no longer than a week for the issues to arrive in São Paulo ). To be really honest with you, I see no point in subscribing to a paper magazine anymore ( and coming from someone like me, who used to collect weekly magazines like Autosprint and Autosport for over 25 years, you can be sure it's no biased information ). I feel like I can get virtually all the info I need from Autosport.com/FORIX and the likes these days, without the delays and paying a lot less for it. Of course, it's your decision, but Haymarket can't do anything about it, I'm afraid ( except for the refund ... )



Fabio Fernandes

São Paulo, Brasil

What's happened to Haymarket subscriptions recently? The level of anything resembling a service has taken a nose-dive, well for me it has at least.

Not a single email I have sent to them has been answered in the past three weeks and the Subscriber Extra section hasn't been working for about a month either.

The past five issues of Autosport have either vanished into thin air or have arrived up to 10 days late. I fully understand they are at the mercy of the Royal Mail, but they are at an obligation to sort this out or offer some form of compensation surely?

So I make my second call of the week, after the first attempt resulted in a "the manager is in a meeting and will call you back" to today's "he's on his lunch..." and seemingly nobody gives a damn.

The person I spoke to admitted that they had recently taken over the subscriptions for Haymarket, which could well be the reason why I've encountered numerous problems in both receiving my issues and receiving anything resembling good customer service. I also find out that my subscription reference number (quite a vital piece of information) has also been changed without being informed.

So now I wait once again for someone to contact me. Fun this.

Edit: just realised this thread was more to do with subscribers outside the UK. But still...

I am in the USA and have had trouble with getting my magazines it takes a week after the printing date to get mine. But I have had trouble getting somtimes.

Something has changed for the worse lately in news stands in the USA as well. The mag comes out Thursday in the UK and used to come out on Saturday's in Los Angeles. Since at least 1998 this has been the norm 80% of the time. Now it comes out on Tuesdays; 3 days later then it used to. Why? Oh, and the price went up as well. Apparently, the news stand's percentage went from 20% down to 10% so some news stands had to raise the price of the mag from $7.75 to $8.99. So, now we are asked to pay an increase of almost $2.00 a copy from a year ago and receive it 3-days later. Makes perfect sense. Suffice to say, I've bought considerably less issues this year then previous. So far I've only bought 5 issues; Brawn GP, F1 preview, Le Mans, Belgium GP and Brazilian GP compared with 25 issues in 2005, 22 issues in 2006, 27 issues in 2007 and 31 issues in 2008. What's the deal, I thought things were supposed to improve over time?

Just saw this posting and I wanted to comment how the delivery has gotten worse in the last year for me. I paid for 1st class and it was not to bad, delivered about a week after it was printed. I was told it worked this way for the US. It went out on Tuesday, hit the US on Wednesday. It was bagged and mailed on Thursday arriving to my house on Saturday or Monday. David Letterman got his FedExed to his home and office so he had it fro the weeknd. Now in the magazine goes to a differnt mailing service andit takes 2 weeks for delivery. So I was playing for class delivery and getting it in 2nd class time. So I dropped to 2nd class rate. At this rate I may drop Autosport. I like the full stories but the internet has breaking stories.

Me too. I live near Toronto, Ontario. Autosport used to be handled by EWA in New Jersey. The mags were air-frefghted to him on Thursday night and mailed out to subscribers on Friday. With 1st class postage, I normally received my copy on Tuesday or Wednesday of the folloeing week.

The arrangement with EWA was discontinued last year for some reason and service has progressively worsened. To wit, I received the December 17-24 issue last week, on January 14. Appalling service for a long-time customer.

Ted

My experience: I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Got a subscription in 1994. Those days, the mag issued every Thrusday arrived to my door the following Tuesday. Five days were regularly an acceptable date, although weekend previews weren't useful.

But the situation got worse from 2006 onwards. The mags stopped to come every week, got delays of almost two weeks, and last year they came in "quantums", two o three issues together, every two or three weeks. A mess.

As the subscription ended last year, I declined to renew it.