ME production problems, delivery problems or Canada post?

I just got issue 4583!

Clear plastic envelope, mailing "stamp" says Belgium on it.

I don't think the problem is all with Canada Post. I just received MEW 266. I still haven't received 265. I talked to a friend yesterday and he has missed 264 and 265 but just received 266.

The last subscription copy of ME that I received was 4576. As I indicated previously I have had email and telephone contact with secureorder. This has resulted in them sending some but not all of the replacement issues that I need. In spite of very clear emails to them they sent an issue that I already had but not others that were promised.

My last MEW was posted from Belgium but the inner mailer label was from Czech Republic. In the past mailing has been from several locations in a Europe.

It appears to me that the publishers are shopping around for the cheapest way to mail their magazines but service is suffering and in some cases is non-existent. Unless service improves I think subscriptions will fall off dramatically. Trying to save a few pennies on delivery costs may result in many lost subscribers.

Sounds familiar. So I don't think it's Canada Post (I'm in Oz.) Secureorder didn't mail me a renewal notice as in previous years, so was a week or so late renewing. But they assured me there would be no gap in delivery. Sure enough, issue 263 never arrived. Multiple, multiple emails and three months later, they had sent me duplicate copies of issues 262 and then 264 in two failed attempts to send the requested issue 263. By then, they got to the stage of, "Oh sorry sir, we are all out of issue 263". To their credit, they said they added two free issues onto the end of my subscription to make up for it.

But really, how hard can it be? In the end they seemed to be confused about what month was issue 263 for and had to ask me for that information. Like they were unable to look that up on their computer and figure it out. (And it's printed right there on the front page of the mag, both issue and month, for goodness' sake. In the end I sent them a net image of the front page of the mag I wanted them to send me!)

Luckily the local news agent shop here runs about three or four months behind with their display issues so will probably pick one up there. Hope so, as I want to build Graham Meek's Myford dog clutch and need the second installment of his series!

Not sure how widespread this sort of problem is. But if I were circulation manager, I'd be a bit concerned I reckon.

Edited By Hopper on 06/04/2018 02:46:42

Edited By Hopper on 06/04/2018 02:48:56

It seems that Ritetime publishing has subcontracted out all the services needed to deliver the magazines to the readership in a timely manner. UK incompetence on top of Canada Post incompetence?

Time to think carefully about renewing my subscription? Lack of response to this thread by senior Ritetime management indicates a lack of interest in solving the problem which is reflected by the subcontractor's staff we have to deal with. Lots of fluffy words no action.

Dave Taylor.

Neil has responded to earlier posts but is away for a few days so unable to respond to the posts from the last day or two.

J

John,
Both of those are American magazines. Unlike post from Europe and the UK, US post is sorted in Vancouver (actually Richmond) BC in a massive new sorting facility that went live in 2014. Other International post goes through Montreal or Toronto.

Everyone else,
I still firmly believe that the problem is Canada Post for the following reasons:

1. It is not only MytimeMedia publications that are not being received, I last received Engineering in Miniature published by Warners Group on the 3rd January.
2. During January and February I have had 9 items sent to me from different places in Europe and the UK. Six of these items have not arrived. One of the three items that did actually arrive took over 2 months for delivery AFTER ARRIVING IN CANADA.
3. Other than Hopper from Australia, so far the only people complaining about not receiving their magazines are Canadians.
4. Hopper's problem was different, he had very poor service in relation to his subscription from MytimeMedia, but it is not the same problem the rest of us on this thread are experiencing which is the non-arrival of regular subscription issues.
5. Unless we have subscribers from elsewhere complaining, we can probably assume then that the problem is only being experienced by Canadians which would indicate that the problem is Canada Post.

I have filed two complaints with Canada Post. The first on Feb 26, Two days later I received a voice message from a Canada Post employee asking me to call back. Which I did, leaving a message every day for two weeks, but the employee never returned my calls.
I subsequently discovered when filing my second complaint on March 14 that the first complaint had been closed as resolved 2 days after I filed it. Now three weeks later I am still not receiving my international mail, still missing 15 magazine (including the 4 replacement MEs that MytimeMedia sent out) and still missing six other important items of mail.

My chief concern is that if the problem is Canada Post, which I am convinced it is, magazine publishers are going to put a stop to Canadian subscriptions due to the cost and inconvenience of continually having to send out replacement issues.

Clive

Well, I'm glad I saw this thread this morning. It reminded me to check the newsagent shop when I was in town, and lo and behold, there was one lonely copy of MEW 263 on the shelf, which is now in my hot little hand. I see a screwcutting dog clutch in our ML7's future.

Sounds pretty bad for Canada Post there, with 15 mags missing plus other items. Aust Post is not great but at least not that bad! Although, in this day and age of internet shopping, Aust. Post is managing to lose money where other commercial package delivery services are making a fortune along the lines of UPS, Fedex etc. Possibly an example, in both Canada and Oz, of where the private sector efficiency beats government inefficiency hands down. But if we lose that government service, that will be the end of cheap deliveries as the others are much more pricey.

Maybe its an attitude problem with Canada Post? Letter mail seem to get there (Ottawa) to and from UK, OK .

Afterall it only a magazine, bit like a newspaper, does not matter if you miss one!

Get the impression though its not only Canada Post that does not work well over there???

Just got an e-mail reply from My Time Media to my latest one to them. They are extending my subscriptions to account for my 13 missing issues but won't replace them. That's a lot of good for someone who is working on a project that is currently being described in these issues. I don't want my subscriptions extended I want the missing issues, I paid for them. This is getting ridiculous. Obviously they have no interest in their overseas customers.

John

John,
Being in a similar situation I can absolutely understand your frustration. However I think that you are being a little unfair on MyTime Media. From past experience I know that they are not always the most efficient of organisations, but given how many titles they publish they would have long been out of business if they were not able to meet the primary objective of fulfilling subscriptions - both local and overseas.

Also I suspect that after years of being in the magazine publishing business they probably have a very good idea of how many extra copies of each issue they need print in order to meet any contingencies such as magazines having gone astray etc.
However if an anomaly arises, such as a large number of Canadian subscribers not receiving their magazines, it is possible that they run out of extra copies, in which case other than giving a refund or extending a subscription I don't see what else they could do.

And given that all evidence points to the problem being Canada Post, then surely it should be Canada Post not MyTimeMedia taking the hit both financially and in bad publicity. In which case I suggest you do what I have done which is to file a complaint with Canada Post at 1-866-607-6301. They will offer to investigate and then do nothing, however you will need the service ticket number in order to escalate your complaint to the Obudsman: **LINK** along with a claim for compensation for the missing magazines. In response to my complaint I received the following in an email from the Obudsman yesterday:

We will complete a preliminary review of your concerns in the coming days and confirm the course of action. Please note that our current service level standard is 5 to 10 business days.
Your patience is appreciated.

I am not too hopeful, but if enough people complain maybe some high-up in Canada Post will eventually take notice and do something about it.

Clive

Edited By clivel on 06/04/2018 23:28:14

Sounds like the same situation I had with issue MEW 263. They simply don't have any more copies so they can't send them. Nothing anyone can do about that at this stage.

Take the extended subscription and you can always buy back issues on Fleabay, or digital copies from MTM, Newsstand or Pocketmags websites etc if you need specific articles and drawings for a project series.

Sometimes you just have to go with the flow.

You could ask them if they will give you a digital subscription (here not PocketMags) instead. That would enable you to print the missing articles at least.

I'm not convinced Canada Post is to blame. My Model Boats magazine from MyTimeMedia has been arriving OK. Engineering In Miniature from another publisher has been arriving on schedule. I have recently received mail orders from UK suppliers with no problem or delays. It is only ME since before Christmas and more recently MEW that has had problems delivering magazines. If Canada Post was the problem I would expect some of these other things would also be no shows.

Canada Post may not be great but I don't think we can totally blame them here. I can see one lost issue but not several in a row. I suspect there is some problem in the publishing / ordering / addressing chain before the magazines ever get turned over to Canada Post.

Why would a magazine published in the U.K. need to make a trip (according to the mailing labels) to the Czech Republic, be sent to Belgium and be relabelled before it finally gets mailed to me in Canada? That doesn't appear to be efficient to me.

Problems with magazine delivery to Australia have been reported here as well so let's not just blame Canada Post. There are other problems as well.

I would expect the publisher would be more concerned. ME and MEW are both excellent magazines. Other than the recent problems my MEW collection is complete from issue #1 and my ME collection is complete back to January 1946.

Hopefully MyTimeMedia can get the delivery issues resolved and we can reliably receive future copies of these first class publications.

Barry Solomon is far too kind to Canada Post. Over many years of having a subscription to the Economist delivery problems have been endemic including lost issues. The paper has to be delivered from Vancouver to Fruitvale BC , about 600km. It some times takes three weeks. Some times a current issue arrives before it's predecessor.

Last week I received a "brown bag" ME replacement for a missing issue. It was sent "International Priority" and took twelve days to arrive.

I suspect that the magazines are shipped in bulk from the printers to the distributors. It may be that the printers have changed shipping company. This would be one explanation for the sudden delivery chaos beginning in January, (new contract starting in the new year).

My EIM is late this month. Usually get it a week prior to the month end. No show so far for April. Must be Canada Post.

It may be published in the UK, but the physical printing, binding and packaging may be done someplace cheaper, such as Czecho. Common practice today.

Or it could be the cheapest shipping is through a freight consolidator in Czecho who puts the mags in a container with a bunch of other unrelated freight going to the same destination.

Then Belgium is a major hub for international air freight. Major numbers of flights out of Belgium going to North America, Australia etc means cheaper flights and rates. Often with economy mail, it will be sent to a major hub such as Leiges or Antwerp and sit there until there is excess empty space on a flight to the right destination, within a certain timeframe. This means the airlines never fly with empty space, so economy/profit is maximized.

That's globalization for ya.

Edited By Hopper on 07/04/2018 03:41:18

Today I received two MEs, 4583,(30 March -12 April) sent from Belgium and 4582,(16-19 March) sent from Hungary. May be I was unfair to Canada Post and the problem does lie with Mytime publishing and their attempts to save money on postage.

When will a Mytime executive add to this thread with some assurances about restoring reliable and acceptable, to the subscribers, delivery times?

Dave Taylor

Hello, I'm back now.

All overseas subscription issues are, and have have been for many years, sent using Air Business, a subsidiary of Irish Post.

www.airbusiness.com/about#about-air-business

Naturally once we ship to Air Business, it is their job to sort the bundles by country find an efficient route to each one.

It is perfectly normal for them to go to a European centre for grouping before transatlantic shipment. The countries used will change with fluctuations in the overall volumes being transported for Air Business. We don't change month to month looking to save a few pennies!

The great majority of our overseas delivery problems arise after the shipment gets transferred to the destination country's postal service. In the last two years we have had issues with the Phillipines, occasionally (but less frequently) Australia, and (ironically) Belgium and it now seems Canada is taking a turn.

We once had 9 months of magazines in various sorting offices across South Africa following a postal strike, but it seems most of them eventually reached their destinations.

Where an individual repeatedly has non-delivery, it can be because someone in the local postal chain is looking out for the magazine, we have solved this in the past by 'brown bag' shipping.

Wider issues, such as those apparently happening in Canada are more intractable. There really isn't an alternative to transhipping deliveries to the in-country delivery service.

We will send replacements for missed issues, as long as a reasonable time has been given to allow for late arrival. Unfortunately, we do hold limited back issue stocks and regrettably this can lead to us having to offer an extension to subscription.

I don't have access to people's full account details (I can only check if you have a valid sub, when it expires etc.) or have a role in distribution. If you have problems with delivery it is important to use the contact details here first:

www.model-engineer.co.uk/editorial/page.asp?p=908

One good reason is that if multiple complains come by different route it is harder to pick up a recurring problem quickly. Plus, we are paying those contacts to do the job of sorting your problems out quickly and efficiently.

If you do not get a satisfactory solution, the best route is to email me with full details, including who you have contacted about the issue. I can then escalate it to our subscription manager.

My email is [email protected].

Neil

Neil,
Thanks for the clear explanation. As you correctly imply the problem is with Canada Post.

For example I received the January Issue of Engineering In Miniature on January 3rd, and nothing since, After contacting them they mailed out a replacement February issue on March 5th. This has also not arrived. EIM is of course published by a completely different company from ME and MEW.

So along with contacting the subscription department at the link you posted, it would also be very helpful if the Canadian customers who are experiencing problems also filed a complaint with Canada Post. Otherwise the problem will persist.

Clive

Seems the problem has reached Australia at least South East QLD Yesterday I received ME 5482 today 4583.
The previous ME 4 issues all over the place for arrival.
MEW was no different the last 2 issues arriving with in 2 weeks of each other.

This can't be a Canada Postal issue if mine are coming to Australia but it maybe it could be LOL..

I also received ME 4582 and 4583 together in yesterdays mail. No sign of 77,78, or 81 yet. Nor any sign of MEW 263 or 264, received 266 on the fourth.

John