Hearst Avis 54

Content is cut and paste AI crap and then make it very difficult to cancel and put you on hold long enough to do 4 bad reviews on various website. Hearst is a monopoly controlling your access to the truth. Cancel them.

I'm 4 plus emails in, plus tried phoning, in order to cancel my subscription. I got an initial email saying "before we cancel, please advise why you wish to cancel ...." I went back with a reply promptly. I'm still waiting for confirmation that this has been done, 2 weeks later. Should be able to do this online. Not jump through bloody hoops.

Not impressed with being charged for renewal subscription despite phoning to cancel last year. Then they made it very difficult to actually cancel - however, finally got through by phone to a very nice lady- Anna - who managed to sort the situation and get me a refund.

Onrechtmatige verlenging van een abonnement dat slechts voor 12 nummers genomen was op National Geographic Historia. Een duidelijke afbakening dus. Er ging ongewild opnieuw een bedrag van mijn rekening. Nu blijf ik aanmaningen tot betaling krijgen, en er wordt gedreigd met incassobureau. Heb inmiddels al enkele mails gestuurd waarop ik geen antwoord krijg. Maffia-praktijken!

Third time M&S voucher sent with NO FUNDS on it. What a completely shambolic company.

Same issue as everyone else. Subscription auto renewed without warning and hearst refused to refund for unsent magazines. Best call them to turn off auto renewal as soon as order placed. Personally I wouldn't deal with them again.

Hearst verlengt zonder overleg abonnementen! Als je belt met de klantenservice zeggen ze dat ze dat altijd doen “bij tweede opzegging”. Medewerker geeft toe dat dit misschien wel een beetje onduidelijk is. Hoezo, misschien? Vervolgens krijg je, als je aangeeft, geen doorlopende overeenkomst met hen te hebben, alsnog een hele goedkope aanbieding om toch maar door te gaan. Dit is de werkwijze van Hearst. Ze speculeren op mensen die niet alert zijn op hun brutale incasso’s. Klantenservice heeft beloofd om het geïncasseerde geld terug te storten nadat ik heb aangegeven dat ik geen zaken doe met bedrijven die zo niet-transparant werken. Ik heb mijn bank ook al opdracht gegeven om de incasso van Hearst terug te halen omdat ik betwijfel of Hearst dit echt gaat doen. Jammer, ze hebben best leuke bladen maar als bedrijf zijn ze echt niet oké!

Extremely underhand. They make trying to cancel a magazine subscription is extremely difficult. When you try to log in, they say the password is not correct (even though it is). So you hit the 'forgot your password button'. Which then theoretically instigates an email. But that never arrives. So in effect you are unable to log into your account to cancel any future payments. Even tried a link from their own email acknowledgement - the link didnt work !!
Only way is to cancel it from your bank

Don’t enter into an automatic renewal subscription with these guys, impossible to get out of, they ignore e mails and messages and do everything possible to make sure they don’t cancel the subscription. Absolute scammers.

When checking my bank statement, I discovered I had been charged £49.99 for a subscription to Men's Health. I have bought this every year for my son in law as part of his Christmas presents I have always paid £24.99.
I have just spoken to Customer Services who claim I was emailed about the increase. I have checked my emails and I have no such email. I've been bombarded with other emails from them but nothing about the increase. There was no apology.
Needless to say, I will.not renew for next year and have told them to cancel the subscription.
Be very careful if you subscribe to this company.

Hearst via Motor Trend magazine bombs me with email though I’ve cancel all subscriptions. I have unsubscribed/sent to spam 50 times yet somehow the emails come through! I see Hearst has a 1.5 rating So I don’t expect any help and am simply piling on because it seems they deserve it.

I will never, ever use this company because they hired a man named Dante Bastian who celebrated the death of two National Guardsmen/women. 😡😡😡

They should get no stars but they made me put one. These people are not only crooks but they employ anti-Americans who are celebrating the death of our national guard online! So if you wanna be ripped off by anti-American creeps use this company

Update: I'm changing my review from 2 stars to 1 star. They never sent the clings we paid for and refused to respond to our emails.

TLDR: They will try and nickle and dime you for everything, and will try and sneak a recurring charge into your invoice.

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We recently were voted Best Gym in Austin through Hearst Media's Community Choice Awards.

During the voting you can pay to have Hearst promote you on the voting website with packages ranging in the thousands of dollars.

You also can pay in the thousands of dollars to go to the awards Gala.

Once you have won, you can pay to thank everyone for voting for you. You can also pay to receive the award that brought high amounts of traffic to their website.

When you pay for said award, you will automatically be enrolled in a recurring fee for "Digital Marketing Services Products" unless you click the small opt out box that they don't mention in the email.

To me, this feels like intentional phishing to get people to unknowingly sign up for a recurring charge that they didn't agree to, which is absurd given that you are trying to pay for an award you won.

Lastly Joshua B has been the contact person for my account and only responded to an email after 3 follow up emails. He has promised to deliver the plaque that we paid for, but has yet to do so. He did not mention the window clings that we also paid for in the same order.

Why these would not be shipped through a mail carrier like any other business, I'm not sure, but all I can say is that my experience with Hearst has been nothing short of disappointing.

Save yourself the time, headache, and money and go anywhere else.

Absolutely the worst company to deal with. Despite cancelling they have again taken the money off my credit card. £54! I’m finding it really hard to cancel a recurring payment with Barclaycard.

I took out a 6 month subscription with Hearst for Good housekeeping magazine last year. I did not wish this to continue passed the 6 months and I emailed this company last year to tell them I wished to cancel and they replied to inform me thay they had arranged for no more payments to be deducted. £29.99 was deducted from.my account last month.and I emailed them again. They had obviously not bothered to read the email trail where I had already requested cancellation and instead told me that because the payment had already been deducted they couldn't refund. Utter nonsense and appalling. Next step will be seeking monies back from my CC company and reporting them under the Trading and Consumers Protection Acts.

To Whom It May Concern (Good Housekeeping Subscription),

How heartless can your organization be?

My wife passed away on 27 September 2024. We told you this — clearly and painfully — last September. You offered your condolences, promised to stop all further mailings, and assured us you would issue a refund.

You did none of those things.

Instead, you reneged on every word. The emails keep coming. Her name keeps appearing. And with every email, you reopen a wound that has never healed.

What you are doing is not just insensitive — it is cruel. It is abuse, plain and simple.

You were given the chance to do the right thing. You were told. You knew. And yet, here we are — still being harassed, still being reminded, still being hurt.

Your company’s complete failure to honour even the most basic commitment — to stop writing to someone who has died — reveals an inhumanity that is staggering. Do you understand what this does to someone who is grieving? Or do you simply not care?

Let this be a warning to anyone thinking of subscribing: if you ever stop reading this magazine — even because you’ve died — they will not stop.

They will follow you past death, into your family’s mourning, through the silence of the grave, and keep pushing their marketing as though your loss were just an inconvenient address change.

Enough is enough.

Stop.

You are doing harm.

And you should be ashamed.

Another one this morning :

Just to make it clear - Jane is dead !

Subject: Re: I AM DEAD ... Please stop sending emails or trying to contact dead people

Date: Fri 11 Jul 2025, 08:31

Dear Jane,

Thank you for your email.

I’m truly sorry to hear how frustrated you’re feeling — it’s clear this situation has caused you a great deal of upset, and I understand the urgency of your request.

I have passed on your request to be removed from our mailing lists to the relevant department. Please allow a few working days for your request to be processed and for your removal from our lists to take effect.

We appreciate your feedback and apologise for any inconvenience caused. If you have any further questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Kind Regards,

Matette

Hearst Magazines UK Customer Services Team

OMG, why do I always forget to check trust pilot? I subscribed to a Hearst magazine (digital and print combo) but the subscription did not activate. I started an online chat to resolve the issue. The only way to proceed to resolve the issue was to give my credit card info. Text said I would be charged $1 and that it would be refundable. So why charge at all, right? Because it is a swindle! Finer print says I will be enrolling in a support service and will be charged $46 a month for it. I am so mad!! Are they really trying to charge me more money to provide a service that I’ve already paid them for? My advice to them is either provide the service you offer or don’t offer it. Part of offering a digital service is offering support for when that service is not working. … additionally, I could no longer comment or converse in the chat until I gave them money. I could not go back and start a new chat. And I could not get back in and talk to whoever or whatever I was talking to. So, that was pretty ridiculous. I guess I will have to go old school after this and call the phone number. ?? But my point is if you don’t offer chat support then don’t pretend to offer chat support. And maybe don’t try to bilk your customers with some weird service scheme. … And don’t get me started on automatic renewal. I dream of living in a world where one day that is illegal. And I’m doing everything I can to get that legislation enacted.

This appears to be a permanent renewal - must we cancel every year instead of just once? Just found the automatic renewal for Food Magazine ($49.97). Problem is we cancelled the subscription last year and received only 1 promotional issue. Customer service was able to cancel the current $49.97. They were not able to refund the prior year which we didn't receive. Can someone help us get a refund for issues not received and confirm it is permanently cancelled?

Magazine werd stopgezet en overgezet op een ander magazine, zonder enige inspraak. Na opzegging abonnement, bleek het bedrag toch van de rekening te zijn gegaan. Dit pas na een tijd ontdekt omdat we edities bleven ontvangen.
Opnieuw opgezegd. Geen edities meer maar wel een brief van de deurwaarder omdat we niet tijdig opgezegd zouden hebben en we nog extra edities moeten betalen bovenop het bedrag van een jaarabonnement.