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Hi there,
one year ago there was a lot of discussion about reliability of issues delivery to Europe and other non-american places. After a heated debate, and promises of improving delivery, things turned out quite well: each month ( a few days earlier or later ) my Dungeon and Dragon issues arrived - until I prolonged my subscription last month:
1. After prolonging subscription, subscription reminder mails kept on bugging me - just a coincidence according to customer hotline.
2. Dragon Issue #339 was sent on 11.29.. Today is the evening before christmas, i.e. almost one month since delivery (?). Today was when I visited my flgs and found issue #339, evily smiling at me.
My questions:
Got things confused again?
Does your website subscription info know different things than your administration?
Will I ever get Dragon issue #339?
Will the current Dungeon issue which was supposed to be sent on december 20 ever reach me?
(Getting polemical:) Do I have to pay more money for european subscription in order to receive less service? (140.-$$ for a Dragon/ Dungeon combo subscription!).
I do not expect more than what I paid for.
Both Dragon and Dungeon increased so tremendously under Erik's "reign". Why does delivery make up for this again and again in the worst imaginable way?!
A VERY annoyed Günther
Cologne, Germany
Gunther -
If it makes you feel any better, i ran into similar problems here State-side. I actually switched my subscription from Dragon to Dungeon and two problems occurred.
1) October edition of Dungeon was never sent, but my subscription info indicated that I should have received it - one email to coustomer service cleared it up and they credited my account with the missing issue by adding a month on the back end of my subscription.
2) The November issue of Dungeon was excessively late - over 3 weeks from the posted ship date. It did come, but i had already sent a frustrated email to coustomer service.
Have faith and patience, Paizo will get it straight!
And BTW, if any Paizo employees read this, thanks for your help in straightening out my account!
As ever,
ACE
Has it occured to you that the movement from Paizo, on the west coast of the US, through the US Postal Service, to Germany, through the German Postal Service, and to you might take a while? I know it takes 2-3 weeks for me to get mine in California. Maybe it is not entirely Paizo's fault. Maybe they are fine, but the multiple countries and postal services hinder the service you receive. Also, as you may or may not know, it costs more money to send things to Europe than to the US, and that is likely the main reason for the cost increase.
There is a possibility that you will just have to wait, not that they are out to get you. Also, most stores and flgs recieve magazines through a magazine company, not form the publisher directly.
Guennarr,
First off, we are sorry that delivery is slower than you'd like.
I don't have your data in front of me because it's Christmas Eve and I'm at home, but I'll do my best to answer your questions.
1. After prolonging subscription, subscription reminder mails kept on bugging me - just a coincidence according to customer hotline.
If you renewed online and continued to receive renewal emails, then we had you in the system as two different subscribers. customer.service@paizo.com can take care of that for you. Sounds like you've already spoken to them, so you would have been straightened out already.
If you renewed by mail, it takes time for us to receive your renewal and enter it (just like it takes time to receive your magazine). In this case, additional renewals will almost certainly be sent out before your renewal gets processed. Obviously, that's anoying and we try to avoid it.
2. Dragon Issue #339 was sent on 11.29.. Today is the evening before christmas, i.e. almost one month since delivery (?). Today was when I visited my flgs and found issue #339, evily smiling at me.
You can check to see if #339 was sent for your subscription in particular by checking:
https://secure.paizo.com/paizo/account/subscriptionsIf not, contact customer.service@paizo.com and we'll send it from our offices.
If #339 was sent...
Overseas, 25 days is not outside of our expectations. If you haven't received the issue by the end of the year, contact customer service and we will send a replacement copy.
Granted, it's quite frustrating to find an issue in the store before the subscription copy has come. As others have pointed out, that is a result of the differing delivery methods and distrubution channels of individual copies and store copies.
My questions:
Got things confused again?
We'll double check, but everything seems to be running smoothly for our European customers overall.
Does your website subscription info know different things than your administration?
Nope. Same data.
Will I ever get Dragon issue #339?
Certainly! If you don't have it by the end of the year, shoot an email to customer.service@paizo.com and we'll send you are replacement copy from our offices.
Will the current Dungeon issue which was supposed to be sent on december 20 ever reach me?
Likewise.
(Getting polemical:) Do I have to pay more money for european subscription in order to receive less service? (140.-$$ for a Dragon/ Dungeon combo subscription!).
First of all, nice word choice. Sometimes Germans speak English better than Americans!
Secondly, while I understand your frustration, the reason you pay more money for a European sub is because we are on the other side of the ocean and the nature of the international postal infrastructure demands a higher price. The cost of any subscription is almost entirely the cost of postage.
I'll double check your subscription data the next time I'm in the office, just to be sure we've got you set up properly.
Holiday Cheer!
Best regards,
Robert Head
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Hello Robert,
thank you for your answer (even more so for the time when you wrote it)! Let me follow your answer pattern:
If you renewed online and continued to receive renewal emails, then we had you in the system as two different subscribers. customer.service@paizo.com can take care of that for you. Sounds like you've already spoken to them, so you would have been straightened out already.
Yes, you are right: I already called your customers service and was informed that this was just a coincidence. Even so I do not mind that much to receive one more letter (although you can reach me by mail, too. Actually I get lots of Paizo ad that way and you could save quite some postage, reducing subscription costs? ;-) ).
If you renewed by mail, it takes time for us to receive your renewal and enter it (just like it takes time to receive your magazine). In this case, additional renewals will almost certainly be sent out before your renewal gets processed. Obviously, that's anoying and we try to avoid it.
I prolonged via your web site. So actually my prolongation should have been instantly in your systems, should it not?
You can check to see if #339 was sent for your subscription in particular by checking:
https://secure.paizo.com/paizo/account/subscriptions
Actually I did just that. I quoted the delivery date from the account subscription site.
If #339 was sent...
Overseas, 25 days is not outside of our expectations. If you haven't received the issue by the end of the year, contact customer service and we will send a replacement copy.
I do not mind the delivery time, but one month is really somewhat out of the normal delivery rhythm. Remeber: I prolonged my subscription. So Dragon should have arrived about roughly the same time as each month, should it not? After the delivery problems at the start of my previous subscription I kept notes about delivery times... this time it was really late, though.
Nevertheless, as said before: thanks, that you took your time to answer me at this time. Actually I did not expect to receive any answer before today. I hope that christmas stayed untainted with subscription problems.
Happy New Year!
Guenther
P.S.
... and thanks for buttering me up for my english skills... ;-)
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Has it occured to you that the movement from Paizo, on the west coast of the US, through the US Postal Service, to Germany, through the German Postal Service, and to you might take a while? I know it takes 2-3 weeks for me to get mine in California. Maybe it is not entirely Paizo's fault. Maybe they are fine, but the multiple countries and postal services hinder the service you receive. Also, as you may or may not know, it costs more money to send things to Europe than to the US, and that is likely the main reason for the cost increase.
There is a possibility that you will just have to wait, not that they are out to get you. Also, most stores and flgs recieve magazines through a magazine company, not form the publisher directly.
Hello Luke,
thanks for your comment.
As I wrote in my answer to Robert: This is not my first subscription, and I am used to waiting for my issue to arrive. I know as well, that delivery takes some time. From my previous subscription experience delivery took longer than usual, though.
Regarding my last comment: I wrote on purpose the word "polemical" ;-)
Günther
I'm still not back at work to check the data (my wife just had a baby on Monday morning), but I can answer some of your questions.
I prolonged via your web site. So actually my prolongation should have been instantly in your systems, should it not?
Correct, our website should have known that your new subscription was a renewal of your existing subscription, assuming you subscribed under the same name and address. If the system failed to recognize that your order was a renewal, that is a problem I'll look at.
I'll ask the customer service guys to double-check your renewal to make sure it is set up correctly.
cheers,
- rob
Everything checks out with your account. As Rob said, European subsciptions can take a while to arrive - if you still haven't seen it next week, just email customer.service@paizo.com and we'll get a replacement copy out to you. Thanks!
-James
Congratulations Robert!
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I'm still not back at work to check the data (my wife just had a baby on Monday morning), but I can answer some of your questions.
Congratulations from me, too!
I understand that there are more urgent topics on your mind right now!Hhhhmm... your child will not love her/ his birthday, though... ;-)
Just for your information (when you are back in office!):
- During the whole first subscription year delivery took never longer than about two weeks after the delivery date on your website.
- My flgst's owner told me today that a co-player of mine kept on bugging him about these Dragon issues. He felt annoyed because I as a private subscriber received my Dragon issues earlier than he did! Dragon issue #339 arrived at his shop more than two weeks ago. Thus this issue would be overdue by about three weeks...
As I told you above, I never had to wait THAT long (apart from those times at the beginning of my subscription when several factors combined seemed to increase delivery times up to three months - factors which were overcome in the meantime, see all the debates and board discussions about one year ago).
Thank you very much for your effort!
I will keep on trying to reach someone in office (a phone call can be that much easier than an endless exchange of e-mails)...
Just one more question: I did wait for some time before I finally decided that the more secure way would be to purchase the last remaining issue of Dragon #339 in shop. Is it possible to consider issue #339 as being "missing in delivery", and just to prolong my subscription by one issue?
Happy New Year and a great time with your family!
Günther