This post has been viewed 15402 times.
Technology: Don’t get fooled by Magzter
Magzter sent me a pitch that seemed great: For $49 a year, I could get access to thousands of magazines and articles and share those articles and magazines with up to four total family members. I had subscribed to several magazines from Magzter in the past but this sounded great, especially since I looked at all the magazine covers they offered.
By Ray Hanania
If it sounds too good to be true, it is too good to be true.
This morning I received an email from Magzter, the online magazine subscription service. I had purchased magazines through them in the past but always found it difficult and cumbersome.
But the new email claimed that for only $49 a year, I could access get a “Gold” subscription and access thousands of great magazines and articles. The email had images of the front covers of some of the major magazines like Time, Rolling Stone, Newsweek, Campaign Middle East and Rolling Stone magazine.
It sounded great. It seemed clear and I subscribed.
And that’s when I discovered it wasn’t great and it wasn’t clear.
Companies that don’t care about the public do this often. They mislead you in order to hook you. In this case, they put the covers of all the great magazines in the pitch.
Magzter App Image. Only magazines with the little Gold circle and/or the Gold “m” on the bottom right of the cover are available to “Gold” subscribers. If you knew that, you wouldn’t subscribe to their pitch.
But, as it turns out, those great magazines are out of your reach as a “Gold” subscriber. You have to pay extra for them. What you get is the garbage subscriptions, a lot of worthless magazines that together might be worth $49 a year.
Worse is that it said I could share the “Gold” subscription with my family. That sounded great. I wanted to share the service with my wife and son, but every time I tried to “Share,” it led me to a dead page that said I am a subscriber.
So, I did reach out to Magzter through their online customer service button at the bottom of the website, only to be told that in order to “share” with your family, as promised, I would have to pay $10 more.
Of course, THAT was nowhere to be found in the email pitch or online at their website at Magzter.com.
When I explained that I was having problems accessing several of the Free Magazines, like Rolling Stone, Time, Newsweek, Wired, and Campaign Middle East, she explained that I could ONLY access magazines that had the little gold circle at the bottom right of the magazine cover image, something that also was not easily explained anywhere on their website.
The customer service rep was quick to ask if I wanted to pay $10 more to add my family members to the crappy list of “Gold” magazines, I declined. Although she definitely was willing to help me with that.
I asked if I could cancel the subscription, and of course, she said no. It’s “not allowed” according to their terms of their agreement.
Yea. I get it. You’re a misleading scam. I don’t like to be scammed and I think that people should know up front what they are getting and what they are not getting BEFORE they turn over their hard earned cash. In other words, stop misleading people just to grab a quick $49 profit.
Are they ashamed of their limited offering? Is that why they mislead people?
Magzter. Share with your family. Right! You pay extra for it.
Fortunately, I am not poor. There are other ways to subscribe and not be misled and, in my opinion, cheated.
I could subscribe to the magazines I want, for an additional monthly or yearly fee through Magzter but I realize that anyone who is going to take my $49 by misleading me, isn’t worth doing any business with ever.
I can always go to Magazines.com and subscribe to individual magazines there. At least they didn’t lie to me.
My suggestion is to avoid Magzter until they decided to be a little more open and honest about what they offer.
(Ray Hanania is an award winning columnist, author and former Chicago City Hall reporter. Email him at rghanania@gmail.com.)
This post has been viewed 15402 times.
rayhanania
Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
"I write about three topics, the Middle East, politics and life in general. I often take my life experiences and offer them in an entertaining way to readers, and I take on the toughest topics like the Israel-Palestine conflict and don't pull any punches about what I feel is fair. But, my priority is always about writing the good story."
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992. Hanania began writing in 1975 when he published The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper which was distributed through 12,500 Middle East food stores in 48 American States (2004-2007).
Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues for the Arab News in Saudi Arabia at www.ArabNews.com, and at www.TheArabDailyNews.com, www.TheDailyHookah.com and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has also published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday Newspaper in New York, the Orlando Sentinel Newspapers, and the Arlington Heights Daily Herald.
Palestinian, American Arab and Christian, Hanania’s parents originate from Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.
The managing editor of Suburban Chicagoland Online News website www.SuburbanChicagoland.com, Hanania's columns also appear in the Southwest News Newspaper Group of 8 newspapers.
Click here to send Ray Hanania and email.
His Facebook Page is Facebook.com/rghanania
Visit this link to read Ray's column archive at the ArabNews,com ArabNews.com/taxonomy/term/10906
Latest posts by rayhanania (see all)
- Arab community mourns passing of Salameh Zanayed - May 20, 2018
- Christians should honor their close ties to Muslims this Ramadan - May 17, 2018
- Seven journalists injured by Israeli snipers in siege of Gaza - May 14, 2018
