MagazinesUnlimited.com - Customer Service

When you encounter a login problem it is usually related to your browser security settings or your ISP is creating the problem. Try lowering your security settings and placing your order again. Also, if you are using Netscape Navigator or Firefox as your browser, we have found that, at times, they are incompatible with our website. Try switching to Internet Explorer.

If you are already using Internet Explorer and still continue to have problems, it may be that your browser it not up-to-date. Check with Microsoft's update website to see if there are updates for your browser. This has resolved the problems experienced by some customers.

To adjust your security settings in Internet Explorer follow these steps:

Open Internet Explorer.
Click on the "Tools" drop-menu and click on "Internet Options . . ."
When the Internet Options window has opened, click on the "Security" tab. This will bring up Internet Explorer's security options.
Click on the "Custom Level" button. Towards the bottom of the window, there will be a drop-down menu that says "Reset to:"
Click on this, and select "Medium." The Medium setting should be low enough to allow you to use our site effectively and still have adequate security on the internet.
Click on the "OK" button, and when the window disappears click on the next "OK" button. This should leave only your browser window open. Try again to navigate through our site.

If, after you have completed the above steps, you still continue to experience a problem placing your order, please send an e-mail to additionalsupport@magazinesunlimited.com noting the problem and we will be happy to contact you directly to assist you in placing your order. Please include a telephone number where you can be reached.

WHY DO I GET AN ERROR MESSAGE WHEN I TRY TO COMPLETE MY ORDER?

If you get a VB script error or a SQL error or a “page cannot be displayed” message then something has gone wrong with our site – in this case please call our Network Operations Control (only for this issue as they are not our customer service department) at 800-332-0278 to let us know. Usually, the problem is fixed within an hour or so.

WHY DID I FAIL TO RECEIVE AN EMAIL CONFIRMATION OF MY ORDER?

If you indicated an AOL e-mail address at the time of your order or creation of your user account, you may not receive your confirmation e-mail or any correspondence from Magazines Unlimited. To avoid this problem in the future, please update your user account with an e-mail address not associated with AOL.

If you ordered with a credit card and did not receive a confirmation e-mail then your confirmation e-mail may have been blocked by SPAM software/filtering. Please make sure Magazines Unlimited is added to your allowed list to avoid this problem on future orders. In some cases, your order may not have completed due to a technical error. Please check with your credit card company to see if a charge from Magazines Unlimited appears on your account (it can take 2-5 days to appear in your account). If you have confirmed that a charge does not exist, then please reorder. If you have a charge and provided us with a deliverable email address, then please send your ordering information including your complete name and address, the date of the order and the magazines you selected to additionalsupport@magazinesunlimited.com.

If you ordered using PayPal and received a PayPal confirmation but not a Magazines Unlimited confirmation your order may not have completed. However, this is not a problem--all we need to do is to enter your order manually. It will be entered as a new subscription, with a delivery time based on the new date of entry. If you have your PayPal confirmation, please forward it to us otherwise you will need to provide us with title(s) of the magazine(s) you ordered, the ship to name and address for each, the date of the PayPal payment, your transaction ID number, along with your name and address.

For future orders paid for by PayPal, please make sure that you receive a confirmation e-mail from both PayPal and Magazines Unlimited. If you do not receive both, please contact us immediately to avoid any delay in processing your order.

WHERE ARE MY MAGAZINES?

When you visited our website you were advised that it can take from 8 to 14 weeks for a subscription to start depending on the practices of the individual publisher. Typically, it can take between 6-14 weeks for the publisher to deliver your first issue. Most publishers will deliver in 8-12 weeks which is the industry standard – some are very slow as they hold back new subscriptions until they need them to meet a circulation guarantee for their advertisers. The time frame depends on the particular magazine you ordered and what processes that publisher has in place to see that your first issue is shipped. Delivery of your first issue will also depend on the number of issues published per year. If the title you have ordered is not a monthly magazine, delivery of your first issue will be delayed even more depending on the publishing schedule of the title you have ordered as some publishers do not send the current issue but wait until the new one is published.

The clearinghouse does not consider the order to be late until 14 weeks has passed. If this amount of time has passed and you have not received your first issue, please let our Customer Service Department know so we can have the clearinghouse look into your order. Please send your inquiry to additionalsupport@magazinesunlimited.com to receive priority attention.

Please include the following information:

Your name and address
Order date
Order number
Magazine you are inquiring about
Indicate if new or renewal order
Copy of your confirmation e-mail

Here's how the fulfillment process works:

When we receive your order it is forwarded to our clearinghouse which then forwards it to the individual publisher's fulfillment center. We do this on Friday.
The clearinghouse processes the orders checking for valid street addresses and zip codes. Depending on the clearinghouse this can take from three to seven days.
After checking to be sure that the subscription is in order, the clearinghouse sends orders from all of the subscription agents which are its clients to the fulfillment center for the publisher. These centers have hundreds of publishers as clients and assemble the electronic media received from clearinghouses and individual subscription agents for batch processing. The tapes and electronic files can remain in the fulfillment center's processing queue for anywhere from two or three days to 30 days or even more depending on their contract with the publisher. Some publishers want their file updated every week, others only once a month or even less frequently. For this reason, if you check with the publisher's toll free number which is answered by its fulfillment house calling center, you might not yet be on the file as your order may be resting on a shelf waiting to be merged into the publisher's master file.
Most publishers consider you as a valued customer for whom he creates editorial material for you to read and enjoy. Others consider their subscribers as commodities to sell to their advertisers. When they meet their circulation guarantee to their advertisers it is not unusual for them to hold new subscriptions until they need the new subscribers to replace subscribers who do not renew. If you think this is wrong, you might want to lodge a complaint with FTC. When our owner, Philip Seldon, published Vintage Magazine twenty years ago, new subscribers received their first issue in three to four weeks - and that was with a legacy computer that make the original IBM PC look like a speed demon. Some day, the magazine fulfillment process will equal the service Vintage Magazine provided in 1980!
Once the fulfillment center updates the publisher's file it has to print labels. Some publishers "back serve", that is, send you the issue just published. Others wait until the next issue is published which can add up to four weeks to the start of your subscription. Believe it or not, some publishers print two to four sets of labels for future months at one time to save a few pennies - this can result in a delay of your first issue up to four months.
Once the labels are printed, they have to be sent to the printer which can take a week or more. Then the printer has to get around to affixing the labels on to the magazine, sort them by zip code or delivery route, bundle and tie them and then deliver them to the post office. This can take several weeks with some publishers.
Then the magazines have to be delivered by the post office. Since most magazine publishers mail by Second Class Mail, the lowest postage rate, magazines can take several weeks to be delivered once delivered to the post office. Weekly and Daily publications get special treatment and are usually delivered as fast as First Class Mail.
If you think the publishing industry fulfillment procedures are in the stone age, you are not alone. As a subscription agent, we have no influence or control over the process. We do our part quickly, that is forwarding your orders to the clearinghouse on a timely basis.
Believe it or not, some of the fulfillment houses are still using the magnetic tape on reels like they did twenty years ago. And a few publishers insist that our electronic files be printed out on paper hard copies so that they can reinput them - don't ask why - it defies any rational or sensible explanation. In the three to four steps in getting the subscription you place with us to the final label, there is a lot of room for error with the possibility that an order can be lost. In some cases, automated programs to check addresses and correct errors in them actually make the address undeliverable. Sometimes an order simply gets rejected, particularly if the customer enters an incorrect zip code when he places his order. Fortunately, the error rate generated by our customers and the efficiency of the clearinghouses we selected to deal with results in a very high degree of accuracy. We have very few instances where we have to correct or resubmit an order.

WHY AM I MISSING ISSUES?

The cause of this problem is usually a glitch in the publisher’s computer system or a postal delivery problem. Since your subscription already started and you are now missing issues, you will need to contact the publisher directly to find out why your magazine is not being delivered. This can normally be corrected with a simple telephone call to the publisher – the publisher’s toll free number is usually found on one of the pages in the front of the magazine.

In addition to contacting the publisher you may want to contact your local post office and have them do a postal watch to determine where your magazine(s) are being delivered. Usually, you can find the publisher’s toll free number in the masthead of the magazine.

WHY AM I RECEIVING DUPLICATE ISSUES?

If you are receiving duplicate issues it may be because you ordered the magazine twice or that your renewal was processed as a new subscription by the publisher.

To rectify this situation, you should contact the publisher directly and request that the two subscriptions be combined into one. Also request credit for the duplicate issues you have received. The publisher’s information is usually found near the table of contents or on a page near it.

CAN I CANCEL MY ORDER?

Please check and verify your order before you complete the checkout process. Please be sure that you actually want the magazines you ordered. When you order through a link on another website (our affiliate) we pay a commission for which we cannot get a refund. Also, we cannot get refunds from the publishers.

Our Terms and Conditions page on our website regarding cancellations are as follows:

Cancellations can only be made if we have not yet submitted the order to our clearinghouse. Orders are processed on Friday. Once your order is submitted to our clearinghouse it is paid for in full and we cannot get a refund. We, therefore, cannot cancel and refund your order after it has been submitted to the clearinghouse.

Please order carefully. If you have ordered a magazine and decide that you no longer wish to receive it, most publishers will redirect the order to another individual at your request. If you do not have anyone in mind to transfer your subscription to, please consider transferring the subscription to a waiting room of your local hospital's emergency room where there will be many appreciative readers. In order to do this simply call the publisher and request a change of address and recipient.

WHY AM I RECEIVING INVOICES or COLLECTION NOTICES?

If you have received an invoice demanding payment for your subscription, this is not from Magazines Unlimited and did not result from your order from us. You may have ordered the same magazine directly from the publisher or another subscription agent who has a “bill me later” service or you may be victim of one of a number of scam operations that send out such notices to intimidate the public to pay for magazines they did not order.

Some publishers disguise a new subscription in an “invoice” format. The "invoice" you have received from the publisher may simply be a new subscriber solicitation or as stated above, it may be an invoice from an order you placed from some other subscription agent or the publisher prior to ordering through us.

All orders placed with Magazines Unlimited are submitted as fully paid and there is never a balance due which requires sending an invoice. You should contact the publisher and explain to them that you ordered through us as your subscription agent and paid in advance. Also, if it has been less than eight (8) weeks since your order, any magazines you have received are, most likely, not a result of your order through Magazines Unlimited and may be the result of having ordered your subscription from another source.

WHY WAS MY CREDIT CARD CHARGED BEFORE MY SUBSCRIPTION STARTED?

Your credit card is charged at the time you order by an automated process from our server. This is standard practice in the magazine subscription industry.

DO YOU OFFER GIFT CARDS?

We do not have the ability to send a gift card to your gift recipient. You will need to send your own gift card. When doing so, please be sure to inform your recipient that it can take from 8 to 14 weeks for a subscription to start depending on the practices of the publisher.

DO YOU SHIP TO INTERNATIONAL AND MILITARY ADDRESSES?

Unfortunately our clearinghouse will not ship orders outside of the United States or to military addresses. To place an order you must have a valid US address.

DO YOU AUTOMATICALLY RENEW MY MAGAZINES?

We do not automatically renew subscriptions as they expire like most publishers and other subscription agents do. We do not provide your credit card information to the publisher so they cannot charge your credit card for a renewal even if they wanted to. Some publishers will automatically renew you by sending a “renewal invoice”. When you receive this and do not want to renew or to renew at the price on the invoice, simply ignore it or write “do not renew” on the invoice and mail it back to the publisher.

In order to renew a subscription from us visit our website, www.magazinesunlimited.com , select the magazine you wish to renew and click on add to cart. On the next screen change Order Type to "renewal". You need to have your name and address exactly as it appears on your label. To accomplish this, “spoof” our system if it is different than what you have registered in your account by selecting “yes” for the question "is this a gift." This will permit you to enter your shipping information to what appears on your magazine label. The next page will then be a screen where you can exactly match your current shipping label on the magazine you wish to renew. Then just continue through the order process.

If you begin to receive duplicate issues, call the publisher at their subscriber services/customer service number listed in the magazine and ask that the two subscriptions be combined into one and request credit for the duplicate issue.

HOW DO I UPDATE MY ACCOUNT INFORMATION?

If you have changes which need to be made to your account (address change, e-mail update, telephone number change, etc.) you can make these changes as follows:

Go to the website, www.magazinesunlimited.com
Log in
On the next screen, click on update
Log in again as requested
Your account information now appears and you can make any necessary changes
Click on "update account" when you are done making your changes
Log out and close your browser for the changes to take effect

I JUST RECEIVED MY CONFIRMATION E-MAIL, AND THERE IS AN ERROR IN MY ORDER. WHAT SHOULD I DO?

Errors in recent orders are easily fixed. Send a copy of your confirmation e-mail (in the body of the e-mail, and not as an attachment) to additionalsupport@magazinesunlimited.com and include at the top of the e-mail your complete correct information as you think it should appear. The sooner you notify our Customer Service Department of the error, the easier it will be for them to fix the error before the order is sent to the clearinghouse. Once the order is sent, it can take several weeks for the correct information to be processed.

I NEED TO CHANGE MY ADDRESS. HOW DO I MAKE SURE I STILL RECEIVE MY MAGAZINES?

In this case, several situations may occur:

1: I am already receiving my magazines and I need to change the address.

In this situation, it is best to first notify the publisher of your address change by calling the number listed (usually near the Table of Contents) or visiting the magazine's website if the website has a Customer Service section. Once you have successfully changed your address with the publisher, log into your account on our website and update your address with us. To do this, follow the instructions under the question: HOW DO I UPDATE MY ACCOUNT INFORMATION?

2. I am not yet receiving my magazines and I need to change the address.

In this situation, call the publisher of the magazine to find out if your order is in their file. If it is, follow the instructions listed under Situation #1. If your order is not in their file, do not worry; it takes some publishers quite a while to process orders. Please e-mail our Customer Service Department at additionalsupport@magazinesunlimited.com explaining the situation. Be sure to include your old address, new address, and the titles of the magazines you ordered (if known) so that we can send a change of address request to our clearinghouse. Please be advised that once we send the request, it can take the publisher 4-12 weeks to update your subscription information depending on their practices and procedures. Once you have successfully changed your address with the publisher, log into your account on our website and update your address with us--to do this, follow the instructions under the question: HOW DO I UPDATE MY ACCOUNT INFORMATION?

3. I just placed an order and my address is incorrect on my confirmation e-mail.

Please see the answer for the question: I JUST RECEIVED MY CONFIRMATION E-MAIL AND THERE IS AN ERROR IN MY ORDER. WHAT SHOULD I DO?

If you are moving or have moved, please file a Change of Address form with the United States Postal Service. The form can be found online at www.usps.com/moversnet/coa.html or at any post office. Your magazines will be forwarded for 60 days. You should also ask your mailman if your magazines will be forwarded. If the mailman won't do it, you should write a letter of complaint to: Postmaster, Your City, Your Zip Code.

CAN I SWITCH MAGAZINES AFTER I PLACE MY ORDER?

Once we have submitted your subscription to the publisher we cannot change it to another magazine and cannot cancel it as we have paid the publisher. Be certain that you want the magazine you order before ordering it. If you do not wish to continue to receive the magazine you have ordered, we suggest that you redirect the subscription to someone else - most publishers will permit you to change the person the subscription is sent to - to do this contact the publisher directly from the information published in the magazine.

I SENT AN E-MAIL AND DID NOT RECEIVE A RESPONSE.

If you are using an AOL e-mail address, you may not receive the response sent from our Customer Service Department. To avoid this problem, please use an e-mail address not associated with AOL to send correspondence to Magazines Unlimited.

When ordering and/or communicating with Magazines Unlimited, please make sure our e-mail addresses are added to your "allowed" list if you or your ISP subscribe to SPAM software/filtering. If you do not add Magazines Unlimited to your allowed list you will not receive your order confirmations and/or responses to your customer service inquiries.

NONE OF THE ABOVE APPLIES TO MY SITUATION - TELL ME WHAT TO DO:

Please submit your inquiry to (do not use an AOL address): additionalsupport@magazinesunlimited.com.

When we receive your inquiry we will do our best to resolve your issue within a day or two - at most no longer than a week. This expedited service is possible now that we do not have to provide individual responses to inquiries that can be handled with the FAQ's above. You will receive an acknowledgement for your inquiry the day it is received.

Please be sure to include all the information pertaining to your order including your name, address approximate date of your order, price paid and the titles of the magazines involved.

If you still have the confirmation e-mail you received at the time of your order, simply "Forward" that e-mail to us to the address above with your request above the confirmation text.

MY MAIL TO YOU BOUNCES BACK - WHAT SHOULD I DO?

If you sent your mail to support@magazinesunlimited.com or additionalsupport@magazinesunlimited.com or any other email address with magazinesunlimited.com as the domain name and it is returned as undeliverable, the mail server may not be working correctly - try sending your mail later in the day or the next day - we monitor our email accounts regularly and if there is a problem we are on top of it.

Due to the nature of the Internet with all its viruses, there are occasional problems with the e-mail hosting companies servers which are beyond everyone's control. We apologize for this - hopefully some day when the jails are filled with the perpetrators of viruses, people bent on this kind of behavior will devote their efforts to more constructive endeavors.