782 total
APPALLING! Lure you in with free trial and YOU MUST cancel within 14 days of free trial period. Even if you cancel day 29, they still charge you £26 for next month. The worst and most inflexible customer service I have EVER encountered! STEER CLEAR!!!!! SHAME ON YOU Times.
Date of experience: April 30, 2024
Lure you in with a £1 trial to then revert to a full subscription after some time (4 months in my case)
Completely forget about it
Zero comms to say "your trial is ending" or "Payment coming soon" no just a charge for £25.99 on your card
Impossible to cancel online, have to call during working hours and speak to a human
One bonus is that was reasonably pain free, quickly answered and they don't push too hard on the "please stay" and cancelled within a few mins. When asked about why no comms there is no comment - its not the staff fault obviously
The whole approach just feels wrong, a button online to allow cancellations would of course be easier, but they want to make it difficult. Respectable companies will send a reminder/alert to say the trial is ending but again, they don't want to encourage that
Date of experience: April 30, 2024
Unbelievably terrible experience. I was subscribed from Ireland and the original subscription was £2. Then it goes up to £10 with no communication or email to tell you that that’s going to happen. There was something wrong with the app so I never even got any of the content I had paid for. I tried to cancel the subscription online -there is NO way to cancel online. I had to call a phone number while at work to speak to someone to ask to cancel it (which took 3 goes as they kept hanging up on me) while cancelling they took an extra 20 mins of my time to make me do a survey stating why I was cancelling. So mining my data because I was so desperate to cancel my subscription and they would not cancel it without making me do the phone survey first. I will never in my life subscribe to an online newspaper ever again purely BECAUSE of this experience. It is a trap that is designed to lock you in and take your money!!!
Date of experience: May 02, 2024
Terrible customer service. The cancellation service is designed to catch people out. There is no button to cancel and they make you call and hold. I saw a charge on my credit card and instantly called to cancel. But they refused to give me a refund. All other companies where this has happened to me instantly give a refund. They do not send notifications about the subscription renewal and apparently you need to cancel 2 days ahead. This is not normal practice for other companies. The whole thing is designed to catch people out. From reading other reviews I can see I am not the only one.
Date of experience: April 20, 2024
Dishonest with their free trials. Communicate the wrong dates to extract money. Had to get my credit card to recover money.
Date of experience: May 03, 2024
Disgusting customer device. I had two subscriptions going on at the same time, which I wasn’t aware of. I was only aware of my student subscription- the manager I spoke to didn’t even go out of her way to try and understand what had happened. Accusing me of lying. I called back again and a lovely lady named Davina found my student account. She explained that a refund wouldn’t be possible, so then I tried to speak to a manager and she was completely unsympathetic and unhelpful. All I wanted was a refund for the £14.99/month subscription which I wasn’t aware of and keep it student one. PLEASE DO NOT TAKE OUT A SUBSCRIPTION WITH THEM!
Date of experience: April 18, 2024
Calling up to cancel is a pisstake, they know exactly what they’re doing.
Make it as difficult as possible to cancel so they can make more money.
Don’t bother!
Date of experience: April 19, 2024
I couldnt find a way to cancel online, so I sent an email within a week of taking out the 30 day free trial, with the request please cancel my subscription, a completely clear statement. I did then forget about the subscription. When I was charged £26 for another month, I found a phone number for the times customer service, rang that and was told that they had replied to my email saying that I needed to phone them to cancel. The email had gone into spam and as a result I never saw it. When I explained this, along with the fact that I'd actually sent a request in writing and asked for a refund they refused saying that I hadn't cancelled in the correct way and there was no way they could refund my money as it was in the Ts and Cs. I spoke to 2 customer service reps and they were both as unhelpful and patronising as you can get. I question the legality of this situation but am I going to chase this through just for £26, of course not and that's what they bank on. A very, very poor practice.
Date of experience: April 20, 2024
Horrendous outfit. Like so many others, you sign up for the free trial and then have to phone up to cancel. Admittedly I left it until the final day, but I couldn't get through before the line closed. Payment taken the next day and they weren't sympathetic at all. Having to speak to a pompous weasel to try and cancel a subscription is not an enjoyable experience.
Date of experience: April 04, 2024
Happy subscriber for many years but the "classic" app launched in 2023 was a disaster. Upgraded my device and then on advice from the Times switched to a higher cost subscription - neither worked.
Then fell foul to experience expressed by others on trying to cancel the subscription. The IT is incompetent, customer advice is misleading and dishonest. They don't care about their customers.
Why would I trust their news coverage?
Date of experience: March 22, 2024
I should have read the reviews here. Yes, I also fell into the TRAP of the free first-month subscription. There is no way to cancel it unless you call them by phone.
I marked my own schedule with the last date of the subscription. Being very busy, I called to cancel on that day. However, I was already charged £14.99 without any advance notification.
The customer service argued that I agreed to the terms for auto-payment (in fact, I was given no other option during the subscription). They refused a refund regardless of whose fault it was.
I was initially attracted by the UK Universities materials, but I found them to be quite shallow. Donating to Wikipedia could be more worthwhile.
Date of experience: April 04, 2024
The Times’ downward spiral seems to be accelerating and it is no longer my first choice newspaper. The continuous repetition of articles is insulting; we can always go back to previous days’ articles if we wish. It’s just a cheap way to create volume. And the endless lists; the 100 best this, the 25 best that. No journalism or analysis involved, presumably one just pays marketing companies for this content. It is so poor, that even the editors must notice, and be ashamed of bringing down this once great newspaper.
Date of experience: March 23, 2024
Makes it impossible to cancel. No way to cancel online, so sent an email to customer services with all information needed to cancel. Still they emailed back insisting I had to call. Waited in queue and they spent ages asking questions before I got through to them. Not good enough.
Date of experience: April 01, 2024
Absolutely horrible experience. Their website is terrible. Tried unsubscribing as i subscribed for a one month free trial and couldn’t cancel my subscription online. Called them up to tell them to cancel my subscription yet they still took £26 for a month. Ridiculous amount of money to be charged for a single month subscription. Girl who was speaking on behalf of customer service bobby just appalling attitude.
Date of experience: March 19, 2024
90% discount for 6 months NO!
It stopped without notice after 2 months. Told subscription was cancelled after 2 month as they couldn't collect my payment and it can't be reinstated! The following day subscription was taken by Direct Debit!!!!! Customer Service are totally negative and unhelpful, not even reading what the problem is, just say "have a nice day". Don't waste time trying to cancel by phone, just stop your Direct Debit. SHOULD BE 0 STARS.
Date of experience: March 06, 2024
Even when I was misadvised by one of their team on how to cancel and the evidence is on their own recording of the call they have failed to offer me any form of refund. Steer clear!
Date of experience: April 02, 2024
If it was possible to give 0 stars I would. We have not received a newspaper for over a year. Both my husband and I thought the other had cancelled. When I called I was told to look again as they cld see that the courier had been to a street somewhere near mine. Really? I first started complaining in January. I have yet to receive a newspaper or compensation. Or indeed a phone call or email from them - I always gave to call.
DONT SUBSCRIBE WHATEVER YIU DO
Date of experience: March 24, 2024
The times is the only on Saturday times I buy. Have I said before your paying for a newspaper that is full of it's sponsors adverts. Almost all the weekend section is almost entirely full of ads nearly 40 pages out of 70 pages. Not only that it is a "woke" newspaper like so many now. So you going to get a kind of weak political political commentary because it wants sitting on the fence. It reminds me of hello magazine with a "special" diet every issue.
Date of experience: February 17, 2024
Same as everyone else. Locked in with no digital cancellation.
Date of experience: April 23, 2024
Such pain to cancel, even just a trial...Wish I checked here before subscribing, I would never even wanted to try them. Can't even cancel over online chat, a phone call is required, I don't know if they have to follow certain protocols to ask for reasons and offer a bunch of other options, I appreciate the effort of the person, but not the protocols...complete waste of time, if they just made it easier to cancel, and save the energy of their staff too.
Date of experience: January 16, 2024
