Sunday Times subscription - Beware!

poppyfreckles

I signed up to a Sunday Times subscription 2 years ago - it was good value and got it delivered to my door. When I decided to stop the subscription a few weeks later, it was no problem at all.

Back in late September, I decided to subscribe to the Sunday Times again. A large part of the reason was because they had a 2 for 1 Sunday cinema tickets offer with the Times Plus. This time, there was no free delivery to the door - they just sent out vouchers which I had to bring to my closest shop and trade for a Sunday Times. This was frustrating for the following reasons: 1) Sometimes I was busy doing other things on a Sunday, and would forget that I had to go to the store to get it. 2) The Sunday Times gets sold out of the stores nearby pretty quickly, which would mean I didn't always get it and 3) Some stores wouldn't accept the vouchers. The subscription saves you 20p a week on the cover price.

Because of this, I decided to cancel - that's when not reading the small print came back to bite me in the !!!. It turns out, if you don't cancel after 3 months, you are stuck in a year's subscription with the Sunday Times. Because I was calling 3 months and 1 week in to the subscription, there was no way the Times would let us cancel.

The website advertises the subscription as "Subscribe to the Times on your terms" and only mentions the 'minimum 52 week subscription' in the small(ish) print on the very first page - which is below the 'Subscribe link', which means I didn't see it and just clicked on 'subscribe'. On the page where you fill in your details, they make you tick a box acknowledging that you have read the terms and conditions (which I did look through)- these conditions say nothing about the minimum subscription, and in fact say that you can cancel at anytime. However, I think this refers to the online content.

I feel it is set up to deliberately mislead people. I assumed it was the same as before when I cancelled when I wanted, and also because when you subscribe to a magazine or newspaper, it normally has the headline "A year's subscription to...". It also seems absurd to lock somebody into a subscription to something that they have to go and collect from a shop themselves, but maybe that's just me.

Apparently, if I hadn't subscribed online and called over the phone, they would have made the 52 week minimum subscription clear.

On top of this, they have since ended the 2 for 1 cinema offer, before I even managed to take advantage of it.

I guess not reading the small print on the first page was my fault, but I was wondering if anybody out there thinks there's anything we can do? By the end of it I will have ended up paying over £100 for something that I really don't want.

Azari

If your local newsagent will not accept the vouchers or allow you to reserve one, insist that they allow you to cancel as the vouchers are 'not fit for purpose'.

poppyfreckles

Thanks for the reply. I have sent them an email making a formal complaint.

I hope nobody else on this forum gets stuck in such a bad deal!

copa_feela

The "small print" is directly under the Subscribe button and in a size 12 font. This is a size 12 font - pretty difficult to miss.

poppyfreckles

Not too difficult to miss if you just scroll down as far as the subscribe button, which is what I did before ordering. There is no mention of the 52 week subscription on any page after that, including the terms and conditions that you click.

copa_feela

poppyfreckles wrote: »

Not too difficult to miss if you just scroll down as far as the subscribe button, which is what I did before ordering. There is no mention of the 52 week subscription on any page after that, including the terms and conditions that you click.

You could see that there was more written on the page though, you chose not to scroll down further.

poppyfreckles

I take full responsibility for that, I was stupid not to scroll down further to see those conditions. I still think they should be more clear though, especially since they only introduced the minimum period recently. I don't need you to tell me what I should have done, I already kicked myself about this when I found out.

copa_feela

poppyfreckles wrote: »

I take full responsibility for that, I was stupid not to scroll down further to see those conditions. I still think they should be more clear though, especially since they only introduced the minimum period recently. I don't need you to tell me what I should have done, I already kicked myself about this when I found out.

Where do you think they should put it, considering the following is directly below the Subscribe line:

Terms and conditions
General Terms: Offer available to UK residents (excluding Channel Islands), aged 18 or over, who are not existing subscribers. Minimum subscription period of 52 weeks applies.

Your scrolling must have been very precise to fail to go anywhere beneath the Subscribe line!

arcon5

Azari wrote: »

If your local newsagent will not accept the vouchers or allow you to reserve one, insist that they allow you to cancel as the vouchers are 'not fit for purpose'.

op said "some" stores, not all stores.

Azari

arcon5 wrote: »

op said "some" stores, not all stores.

Quite. And if the most local will not accept the voucher then it is not fit for purpose. If you subscribe to something on the basis that you receive a voucher that you have to redeem then unless they tell you at the outset where it can be redeemed you can reasonably expect to use it at an outlet of your choice (that carries the product).

If a newsagent will not accept the voucher the only likely explanation is that they will not get the full price from the publisher which means that you are being fobbed off with something that does not have the value that you can reasonably expect it to have.

arcon5

Azari wrote: »

Quite. And if the most local will not accept the voucher then it is not fit for purpose. If you subscribe to something on the basis that you receive a voucher that you have to redeem then unless they tell you at the outset where it can be redeemed you can reasonably expect to use it at an outlet of your choice (that carries the product).

If a newsagent will not accept the voucher the only likely explanation is that they will not get the full price from the publisher which means that you are being fobbed off with something that does not have the value that you can reasonably expect it to have.

op said "some", not most.

If arguing anything, then it would be on the grounds the stockists have a short supply and unable to fulfil the order, not on the grounds "some" of the newsagents don't take the voucher, that's a very weak argument when numerous places local to op DO accept the voucher.