[Resolved]  Femina Magazine — Non receipt of subscription copy

Address:

Mumbai Suburban, Maharashtra

Firstly I would like to ask as to why does subscribe to a magazine which they like? One of the many reasons is so that they receive the copies well in time before it hits the stands and also they can rest assured that they will get all the copies without fail. This is the agreement made between the company and the subscriber and the subscriber pays the entire money for the copies in advance. It is the onus of the company to ensure that the subscriber receives the copies regularly and promptly if he has given the proper address. When this basic requirement is not met then there is some error happening somewhere and it needs to be checked and corrected. But when this error is repeated regularly then it speaks a lot of the quality of the service given by the company.
I had subscribed to Femina, Good Homes and Topgear magazines in the month of April 2010. My subscription was to begin from the month of June. I received my Good Homes and Top Gear copies for the month of June but did not receive any copies of Femina. When I called up the customer care somewhere in mid- July to enquire about my subscription copies, they promised to send me the June copies in the month of July....(although these would be of no use to me as they had become old copies). I told the customer care that since they had not sent me the copies in June let my subscription for Femina begin from July as I started receiving the Femina copies from the month of July. This was a very fair demand by me to which the officials refused to accept. Instead they kept asking me if they could send me complimentary copies of Filmfare or Gracia. This was not accepted by me since I am not interested in those magazines. So after a lot of follow up by me for 2-3 months finally they agreed to extend my subscription, meaning now my subscription would end in the month of June 2011, along with a promise that henceforth I would receive my copies in time. All was well till December 2010. Then in the month of Jan I did not receive my Jan 16 copy by the 8th of Jan as is the normal case. I waited for it for a couple of days more, still I did not receive. So I informed the customer care officials about it and they promised to send the copy immediately. I waited and waited but the copy never came despite my several reminders to your officials. It is then that I really got agitated and started complaining instead of requesting/reminding. Then when I escalated this to the floor manager it is then that she sent me the copy in the last week of Feb 2011, delayed by almost 8 weeks!! Due to the fact that I had to remind the officials so many times for my subscribed copy I told the official that as a penalty, my subscription should be increased by one more copy, to which the official flatly refused saying that we have given in once to your demands as a special case and that we cannot do it again. This is highly unprofessional since it was not my mistake but entirely their error. My demand I feel is completely justified and fair by all means. While I was following up on this with the officials, again I did not receive my Feb 23rd and March 16th copies of Femina and my March month copies of Top Gear and Good Homes. I have already bought this to the notice of the officials somewhere on Mar 10th to which they promised to send me the copies immediately......not surprisingly I received the Goodhomes and Topgear Copies today on 19th mar i.e, after 10 days of complaining and am yet to receive the Femina copies and I don’t know how many more days will it take to receive the same.
I can understand if there is a delay once in a while but when the same mistake is repeated regularly it talks a lot of the service quality.
Hence I would like to ask here that when the offence is repeated again and again, what is the penalty going to be borne by the company and what is the compensation going to be given to me who has not been given poor service.
Bhavna Raut
Cust ID 315323