Reviews

There is no option to cancel auto renew for a subscription online. When chatting with an agent they tried so hard to sell me on an additional subscription that they cancelled my entire subscription instead of the auto renewal. When I asked for the mistake to be resolved they stated “The refund will be given back to you within 3-5 working days Sorry for it “ Terribly operated business. You just lost a subscriber.

I can see I'm not the only one with this issue. I started the free trial and found it impossible to cancel the subscription. When I went to My Account and opted to cancel, it navigated me to a screen asking if I was sure while reminding me of all I was getting with my subscription. I made sure to click the correct button to continue with the cancellation. At that point, it navigates you to a page where they express disappointment that you're trying to cancel, and they suggest you Chat with someone or call them on the phone. The first attempt, the chat kept me waiting and then what I would assume was a bot, checked in and left me hanging and didn't cancel because I got changed $22 in December! Today I spent approximately 1 hour waiting on the Chat. **** - maybe a bot, I don't know - finally chatted his way to canceling, but that was only after I was insistent and had to sit and wait for him to tell me why I shouldn't cancel because I was receiving all these great benefits. Sorry, but I expected better from The Economist! Why are the ** laws better and why do ** companies get to operate differently with US customers? This is ridiculous and I can't help believing that if I resided in the **, I would be sitting here with $22 more in my account right now...DO BETTER!

Signed up for free trial. Nearly impossible to cancel. Finally had to call my bank and ask them not to let any charges go through because the chat bot kept running me in circles asking how my day was and if I’d like to extend for a free month. No. I just want to cancel.

Easy tomaign up, incredibly difficult to cancel. It took me 35 minutes on chat where the main words out of my mouth were "cancel my subscription". This was after it took them 7 minutes to find ky account even though I gave them the email and address associated with the account. After saying I wanted to cancel, I was met with "I can offer you an additionaly free month". Terrible customer service and super difficult to cancel.

They are deceptive in their cancellation process. Like any company, when attempting to cancel through their website, they off you perks/special offers and ask multiple times if you are sure. Fair enough. After getting through that and confirming that I would like to cancel, it takes you to a landing page with phone numbers and an opportunity to chat. I thought I had canceled the subscription months ago, only to realize today that I have been continually charged for months. Extremely deceptive. I explained to the person via chat that I had canceled months ago and asked that they review my activity to see that I hadn't logged in in months, but of course they couldn't do that. I can't stand shady practices like that. I understand confirming multiple times and making offers before cancelling. Every company does that, but making it appear as if you have canceled is downright unethical.

Welcome to The Economist. Hi, this is ******. How can I help you? Please cancel my subscription renewal Please allow me a moment to go through your subscription and help you. In the meantime, I would like to know how are you doing today? Hi! I am sorry to see that you're looking to cancel your subscription, I will certainly look into this for you. Thank you. my subscription expires in Jan 2025, I'd like to cancel my subscription beyond that I will surely help you with the best, I see that you have an active annual Digital Only subscription until Jan 16, 2025. May I know how is your experience been with the subscription apart from the price? If I may know do you like the app, audio or the website to access the articles? it's been OK, but I don't wish to continue Can you please take care of it and send a confirmation please? Please allow me a moment. via email As our valued subscriber I would love to offer you a 50% discount on your current subscription and you will receive a refund of $113.28 within 3 to 5 working days as well have our Digital Only subscription till Jan 16, 2025. With unlimited access to our articles, journals, audio and podcasts! Here you are paying for 6 months and having the subscription for 12 months! I would love to see you stay and take full advantage of this offer! I don't think you are hearing me May I proceed in adding the 50% discount on your current subscription? Can you please send me a contact email where I can notify? After that I will notify my bank You're wasting my time Here I would like to let you know that you will be notified 2 weeks prior to your renewal as well I am offering you a 50% discount on your current subscription.Sounds good?Please cancel End of discussion If I don't hear from you, I'm going to contact Better Business Bureau I apologies. May I add the offer on your upcoming renewal, Imteaz? And you will be charged on Jan 16, 2025. No Stop wasting my time I'm going to file an official complaint

It was easy to sign up for a trial subscription but needlessly difficult to cancel. It took me 25 minutes including logging in to my account, starting a chat, starting another chat when the first one closed after a few minutes. Then I said No, please cancel now at least a few times to a series of offers that I knew from the start I was not interested in. This is really bad behavior on The Economists part, and it makes cancellation needlessly difficult and time consuming. My advice: Dont even think about subscribing !

Canceling my subscription took more than 20 minutes navigating website, then live chat (edited, below).(07:44:42 PM) (System) said : How can I help you?(07:44:53 PM) (ME) said : I'd like to cancel my subscription (07:46:05 PM) (******) said : While I am working on it, may I know how your day is so far?(07:47:40 PM) (ME) said : fine (07:48:46 PM) (******) said : I'm glad to hear that your day is fine. (07:49:08 PM) (******) said : May I know how your experience with us has been so far?(07:49:57 PM) (ME) said : Good I don't believe in auto renewal. If I want again will purchase after a year and as far as i can tell this process is the only way to turn off auto renewal so I'm cancelling (07:50:58 PM) (******) said : I understand that you do not wish to renew your subscription, you wish to cancel due to price, am I correct?(07:52:35 PM) (ME) said : no i just don't know it i'll be reading it in a year still (07:55:12 PM) (******) said : we actually have a cost effective product which may be of interest - Espresso from The Economist for only $7.90 a month (07:55:47 PM) (ME) said : I'm sorry I can't spare any more time for discussion. Cancel my subscription. Please confirm.(07:55:58 PM) (******) said : I can go ahead and apply Monthly Espresso from today where you will receive a refund of $83.91. (07:58:33 PM) (ME) said : If you are unable to confirm cancelling my subscription with next text I am going to file a formal complaint.(08:00:12 PM) (******) said : just before I proceed with cancellation, I would like to offer you a 50% discount on your renewal which will lower your cost from $222.27 to $111.135 (08:04:22 PM) (ME) said : It's wrong what you are doing ******. It is like extortion to not allow someone who has repeatedly requested a cancelation to cancel.(08:04:27 PM) (******) said : I respect your decision and I apologies (08:04:51 PM) (******) said : I've successfully cancelled your subscription and your access

The writing is as good as the customer & technical support is bad. They have various technical issues between ****** and their account. If you sign up through ****** Economist says you dont have a subscription. You can't download audio files for offline listening. Madening Their customer service is horrible and very unhelpful. They make you go through all kinds of steps that dont solve the problem. There are economist.com pages that don't work and then they say 'oh yeah they were supposed to deactivate that one but I guess didnt'. Its that kind of sloppy attitude that makes things a mess After wasting a bunch of time to get a simple account I paid for to work they need to escalate the issue. Asking for a supervisor? 'We dont have those available.