(Almost) every year MEW subscription

A couple of weeks ago I got a nice letter from Mytimemedia to renew my MEW subscription.

Unfortunately I misplaced this letter, but that shouldn't be a problem I thought.
Took out my confirmation letter from 2017, where I found my subscription number
(but unfortunately no specification up to which number this subscription runs).
So I went ahead in this secureorder mess, filled out all forms to the best of my knowledge (choosing Continuous credit/debit card),
and finally was greeted with the following message:

"Sorry, we are currently unable to complete your order because either we don't ship to your country
or you have products with mixed payment types in your basket."

As neither of this is true, and I am not able to clear these problems by telephone, I wrote an email to
[email protected].
I received - only a couple of days later - an answer from a Ms. Buckley, which wrote
firstly about a ME subscription (which I don't have), and secondly gave the following advice:

"Subscription xxxxxxxxxx for Model Engineer Workshop was set up as a continuous credit card but unfortunately this was declined on the 5/9 if you
can please call us with new card details we will be happy to put this through for you."

Now it is true that I use a new credit card, but found no way to delete the old number.
So I wrote back to Ms. Buckley, stating that I can't do that by phone, and gave her the correct credit card number.
Should all work now I thought... Again some days later Mms Buckley answered with that remarkable statement:

"Dear Subscriber,
Thank you for your recent email.
If there is anything else that I can help you with please don’t hesitate to contact me."...

So that's going full circle now, and unnecessary to say that nothing works. When I try to open "Myaccount", I'm asked if I hhve a password.

I mark the button 'no', but on the next page I have to enter a password.

In my desperation I tried to buy a new subscription, even if then I get some issues twice.
But this also does not work:

"Not possible to register [email protected]. Maybe you have registered already previously?"

So somewhere in the big data mess my email is registered in all eternity.
I seem to remember that some years ago I already went through the same hell.
Now I see only the following possibilities:
- Neil can come to the rescue and clear this mess.
- I use another name/account from my household (SWMBO), but use my credit card.
- I use one of my Gmail accounts (which I don't really use...)
- I use a throw-away email account. Possibly the best, so all further mails from MTM land in the big bit bucket.

Regards, grumpy Hans.

P.S. I've just seen another thread about similar problems, and Neil's answer is exemplary: Just make a telephone call....

Is it so difficult to understand that it's not possible for everybody on the whole earth to make a telephone call, when both parties understand possibly 30% what the other side says...

Edited By Versaboss on 02/10/2018 13:30:11

Edited By Versaboss on 02/10/2018 13:30:50

I had a similar problem and got the message about not shipping to your country , from memory it was something to do with not filling out the shipping to rest of world bit even though my subs are digital only . . The time before that I got charged twice and it took a few weeks to get my money back ! I have subs for a few different mags published from different countries and this one is by far the hardest to renew , others are simply log in, fill out cc details and hit the pay button . One thing I never do is set up continuous payments I want to be the one that sets the payment not someone else dipping in when they feel like it .

Hi Hans,

Sorry to hear of your problems; I think in have an idea what's happened.

I will try my best to explain...

In summary, I think your problem is two-fold:

1. You need to select 'Europe' at the beginning of the process.
2. You have set up an account already and you need to recover the password which should make everything a lot easier.

If you email me at [email protected] with as many details as you can give me, I will pass them on to someone who will check exactly what the situation is and check if the subscription with the new credit card details has gone through OK.

Neil

I've also gone through the login process and put your email into the 'I've forgotten my password' link.

Please check for this (check your spam folder) and see if you can log in using it with your email at:

**LINK**

If this works, please explore it and let me know what subscriptions (if any) are associated with the account when you email me (I can't access that data).

Thanks

Nneil

Ah, it's not so easy...

Yes I got an email with a link for resetting a password (if I have one, what's not so sure). but I was away from home last week ant the email had a terribly small time window of 6 hours...

Now I'm in fear to loose MEW 273, as this has not arrived here and I don't know when my subscription ends.

I'm trying now to get a new subscription with a Gmail address.

Kind regards,

Hans

I repeat: it's not so easy!

When I use the link from MEW272, page 53, I only come to a subscription page for Model Engineer. What has happened with the one for MEW!!! The link contains the letters 'mew'...

Slowly I'm getting really grumpy!

Hans

Hi Hans,

Try the subscribe link above:

www.model-engineer.co.uk/editorial/page.asp?p=695

If that fails, then as I wrote above:

If you email me at [email protected] with as many details as you can give me, I will pass them on to someone who will check exactly what the situation is and check if the subscription with the new credit card details has gone through OK.

If you can't get it sorted yourself, I CAN get someone to sort it out for you if you email me your details (but not card numbers etc).

Neil

With Neil's link above, and using another email address, I could (successfully???) start a new subscription.

Setting up an account (to check at which time the subs starts) was not possible, though. The 'Thank you' email gives no information about this. So I wait with bated breath if the issue 273 lands in my letterbox. If no, then I would need the help of a good-natured soul who would buy it and send it to me. All expenses covered via PayPal...

Regards,

Hans

Hi Hans,

Print copies of MEW 273 got stuck at the printers for a day or two and are arriving a little late. UK ones should have arrived now.

Go to:

**LINK**

If this goes to a page about your subscriptions and it say 'LOG OUT' at the top, you are still in the system.

If it goes to a page with subscription offers, you need to click 'YOUR ACCOUNT' at the top and sign in.

You should be able to use either email address to sign in.

For the first email, use the password that I got sent to you, or click 'forgotten your password'.

This should show you the status of your old subscriptions.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

For the email you used to set up a new subscription you may not have set up a password yet.

• Enter the new email
• Click the 'I haven't got a password' box
• Follow the instructions to access your new subs account

If it tells you that the user is already on the system, you must have entered a password when taking out the new subscription, so either use it or click 'forgotten your password'

This should show you the status of the new subscription.

If you can't get in to both of these, PLEASE send me an email with the two email addresses and details of which titles and subscription packages so I can get someone to check them for you.

Neil

All ok now (I believe...), could even have a look into my account. The mail addr I used for the subscription did not work for the account, strange but I can live with that.

Many thanks for the help

,Hans

OK Hans,

I'm still happy to get someone to check your subscriptions are correct, if you want to email mne the dtetails above.

Neil

I am very sorry having to add a new chapter to this endless story.
After clearing the issues with my subscription and account I waited for getting the next issues of MEW, but nothing happened. So around the end of October I contacted MTM via the answer form in the account. Quite fast I received a email from a Ms. Buckley with the following statements:

>> I am sorry to hear that you have not received issue 273 I have reordered this again for you today.
>> please allow up to 14 days for delivery to Europe.
>> If there is anything else that I can help you with please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Well, 14 days, ok maybe they send it by horse coach, but better than never.
So after almost less than 14 days I found an envelope in my letterbox, which pleased me no end. But not until I opened it: They managed to send me issue 272 a second time, and not a hint of 273 and 274 (which I believe is already in circulation too).

So I sent another email to Ms. Buckley, which I copy here too:

>> Dear Ms. Buckley,I was very pleased to find an envelope from MTM in my letterbox. But unfortunately I
> was not much pleased when I found out that I received MEW issue 272 instead of 273.
>> I'm very sorry to ask you again to send me issue 273.
>> I take this opportunity also to report that I also have not got issue 274. I have to suppose that there
>> is a big mess with ma subscription.
>> Thank you very much for your help in these matters.

Now I will see what happens after the next two weeks, but I slowly get the feeling that my subscription is for the foxes as we say here.

Kind regards,
Hans

Hans,

I have offered to make sure this gets sorted out, but you still haven't emailed me with the information I've asked for.

It is clear the subscription bureau have got confused, I must admit I am finding it hard to follw what exactly has happened from your posts here.

If you can please send me the details I have asked for I WILL make sure that things are put right.

If you don't let me have that information, I remain unable to help.

Thanks,

Neil

Hello all,
I'm glad to report that almost exactly after two months I can hold my missed MEW issue 273 in my hands.
All OK for now, at least until next autumn when my subscription is due again.

Many thanks for all who helped (especially Neil).

Kind regards
Hans

Thanks Hans,

Neil