Hearst Magazines UKArvostelua 

No heads up on auto renewal and now cannot get through to their customer service. Apparently they will respond in 2 days, 14 days later.........

Subscribed and never received any magazines. Had to complain several times and argue before they agreed to send a copy again after threatening a chargeback. Therefore cancelled my subscription, not through disliking the magazine (if I ever got it) but just from their shambles of customer service.

Do not get involved with these people. Cancel anytime? Nonsense. They auto-renewed my subscription by taking £49.99 from my credit card on 31 January, a Saturday. Customer servicr is not open at weekends. Phoned them on 2 February. Waited 20 minutes for an answer before they cut me off. Sent an email asking to cancel and they replied saying they aim to contact me within 2 days. A week later they wrote to say I could cancel but not get a refund as it has to be requested within 2 days of the renewal date (which is not to be found anywhere in the account details). Nor is this requirement in the terms and conditions. Bunch of sly jokers.

Customer service is terrible. I have tried to cancel my subscription but no one replies despite saying they will respond in 2 days. Feels like they ignore you in order to get more money whilst you wait!

Auto renew my.membership at £54.99 no heads up or contact I couldn't even login didn't recognize my email so I thought it must be password but when i did reset password I didn't get email not even in spam absolutely pathetic I can't afford 54.99 I'm currently without a job

Like so many I have been hit with an auto renewal charge I turned off. Trying to log into my account to follow their cancellation process kept failing until the payment was taken. I fail to see how stealing £12 is worth it for them when I will then write this review, never use them again and proactively warn others. I want my subscription CANCELLED, my card details DELETED and a refund. Thieves.

Whilst the delivery of my chosen magazine has never been a problem, it’s the customer service and promise of certain things. I temporarily cancelled my subscription. I was promptly sent an incentive email to sign up again for a good price but that I would also receive a £10 m and s voucher. I was sent my voucher a week after but it had no credit on it when there should have been £10. I got in touch. Took a good week to reply. The person that responded was polite and promised a replacement and it would take another week or so. Fair enough. It arrived today. £0 on the replacement voucher. Whilst I’m not that bothered about the voucher, if you’re going make incentives or lure your customers back do it well! Just seems kind of scam like.

I am so upset with this company, I do not believe they are operating in line with UK consumer law. I found a £37.50 charge from them on my credit card (initially I thought it was a fraudulent transaction as I had not bought anything from Hearst recently). I checked my online account with Hearst and it did not show any current or previous subscriptions. I then called customer services who said it was an auto-renewal for a magazine subscription I knew nothing about. As the charge had only just gone out of my account I asked for a refund and to cancel the subscription, but they said no this was not possible, and auto-renewal was in the small print of the original deal I signed up for. There was no transparency though as I received no email warning me of the auto-renewal, the extremely long cancellation period required, and my subscription was also not showing on my online account so there was literally no way for me to be aware of any auto-renewals, or any dates by which I had to cancel. I also believe according to UK consumer law I am entitled to a 14 day cooling off period - however, after a long phone call to customer services this morning I was told they would not refund me. This is completely unacceptable and I want a full refund. I can't believe all these 1 star reviews on Trust pilot from people who have all been scammed like me - does Hearst not take customer feedback seriously? Avoid this company at all costs.

Extremely unclear and misleading renewal practices.

I purchased a 12-month gift subscription in December 2024. The confirmation email stated it would “renew every 12 months”, and the company’s own website says renewal payments are taken “after 12 months”.

Despite this, Hearst took a renewal payment of £54.99 from my account on 3 November 2025, before the 12-month period had ended. No clear renewal reminder was provided beforehand, and the timing was completely unexpected.

Customer service hid behind small-print, issue-based wording rather than acknowledging how misleading this is for a gift buyer. The lack of transparency around renewal dates feels deliberate.

I would strongly advise anyone considering a subscription — especially as a gift — to be extremely cautious and cancel well in advance.

I purchased a subscription from Hearst on Black Friday, with the promise of a £10 John Lewis voucher to be delivered within 28 days. It is now two months later and I still haven't received this. Having contacted customer services a fortnight ago, I was told the voucher would be issued within 7 working days. It is significantly longer now and I still haven't received it. I have had to chase up once again which seems like a waste of time and energy. If I don't receive it soon, I will be reporting to Trading Standards as this is false advertising and, judging by the below reviews, I am certainly not alone in being misled in this way. I would not recommend purchasing from this company; they are lax and dishonest and their business practices need to be reconsidered.

I am extremely disappointed with the level of service I received. I contacted the company via the website a week before the £59 payment was due to be taken, clearly outlining my personal circumstances.

When I later spoke with a representative named Sam, I was accused of being untruthful, despite providing the reference number from my original enquiry. She insisted that the company had emailed me, yet when she asked for my email address, she stated she could not locate it on the system. This raises a serious question as to how any email could have been sent in the first place.

Throughout the conversation, Sam repeatedly referred to “terms and conditions,” demonstrating a complete lack of empathy, poor customer service skills, and an overreliance on scripted responses. At no point did I feel that my situation was understood or handled with any degree of professionalism or care.

I have never encountered a company that shows such little respect for its customers—prioritising payment above service, support, or basic courtesy.

I strongly advise others to avoid this company

I’m finding it impossible to get a reply email from this company I’m trying to g to cancel a subscription!!!! 😡

Recently purchased a subscription but was charged twice. Emailed customer service and was asked to send proof which I sent on (copies of bank statements and order confirmation email) well over a month ago. Keep being promised an update and that this is being looked into but surprise surprise no update and no refund. I'm £60 out of pocked for a magazine that hasn't turned up - and waiting on my refund for half of that! Should have read these reviews before purchasing - absolutely appalling customer service and I've a right mind to report to trading standards.

Shocking company to deal with. As with a lot of these sheisters its v easy to sign up for special offers then impossible to cancel once the offer period is up. ❌Avoid ❌

for several years I have given a subscription of Good Housekeeping to my daughter in law. Every year I manually renewed the subscription. This last Christmas 2025 my daughter in law asked for Prima instead . I ordered Prima I did not order Good Housekeeping.When I discovered that on the 3rd January Hearst had taken a £59.95 out of my account I ws amazed and shocked.I contacted Hearst and asked that they sent no more magazines and they would refund.. They replied that it was company policy not to give refunds..
it was then I learnt about their auto renewal policy so I am now in the process of cancelling the auto renewal for Prima..I contacted Hearst again on the 12th January but have not heard from them. This is why I feel that it is a shabby dishonest company.
auto renewal of subscription that ones doesn't want.
obviously desperate for money and could not care about customer satisfaction
do not buy from this company

Hearst have resolved all my concerns and I am very grateful

bridget

Sent the advertised M&S voucher; it had NOTHING on it. Zero. They haven't responded to three emails.

I’ve been chasing Hearst for over a month as my subscription payment in September was obviously not allocated to my account as no issues of the magazine have been delivered. They have proof of payment by a copy of my bank statement but will still not refund my money, I have been passed to several different customer service employees but still nothing has been sorted out, they are supposedly investigating. My payment is clearly somewhere in their system but trying to get a refund due to their gross error is proving impossible.

My mother in law renewed my subscription to Red magazine last year and I have not received any copies as they have allocated the payment to a completely different account. She has been trying to get a refund for over a month but all the customer service staff have been extremely unhelpful and rude. The issue still has not been resolved and she has not received a refund. Customer service agents have told her that the payment has been misallocated but they will not sort out a refund. She has wasted hours trying to sort this out unsuccessfully - this is a disgraceful way to treat a pensioner and take her money without providing a magazine or a refund. We are still battling them to get the refund so my advice would be not to use them.

Terrible advertisement.
Was promised John Lewis voucher with the subscription. Chased a number of times and was given awful excuses by the customer service. I used to subscribe very often to Home Beautiful, but have now cancelled and will never do it again. Cannot stand awful customer service where they are lying to customers and providing fake advertisement. Awful!

I generally like the Hearst magazines, Women's Health, Elle, etc, so took a Black Friday offer which included a £10 John Lewis giftcard. Handy for Xmas was my thinking.

It was supposed to arrive within 10 days. I chased and chased and finally got them on January 13th. If I hadn't chased I don't think I would have got them.

The customer service was so poor and so vague about how and when I was going to get what I'd signed up for that in the end I just cancelled all my subscriptions. I figured if anything goes wrong, e.g. a magazine doesn't arrive, I'll just spend my life chasing them for what I paid for.