Smallformat - Be very careful what you are buying

[natxo]

a little help in defense of the publisher: I paid my first suscription to the magazine in autum 2006, I think. But I didn´t receive the magazine, so I wrote an email to the publishing staff, and quickly received excuses for the issue, and they sent me the first magazine plus some extra numbers. Until then, I haven´t got any problems with the magazine, and have received all the numbers. I also renewed my suscription by mail, because they didn´t do it automatically.

Don´t think is a language issue, read my poor english!

[alpha.tango]

Sorry to have stirred this up again ! I had missed earlier threads.

All I can say is that there was no reason to assume that the purchase of 6 copies was an order to extend beyond his.

Even now, going to the subscription link from this site offers - "The price for six issues is EUR 69/US-$ 79. I will get an invoice with my first copy and I can pay via PayPal or international bank transfer (IBAN/BIC)." Seems pretty clear with no mention of anything beyond this order.

There is then a comment " I acknowledge that I can revoke this order within 10 days by either letter to Fachverlag Schiele & Schön GmbH, Markgrafenstr. 11, 10969 Berlin, Germany, or e-mail to service@schiele-schoen.de"

Fine , but this clearly states THIS ORDER - not any future items.

Absolutely nothing further about continuation etc. or any other terms applying.

To answer other comments, there was no letter with the first copy and no indication at any stage that written notice of cancellation was required after a year.

All I can say now is that as far as I am concerned this has been cancelled by return of their first invoice, by facsimile and by e-mail and if the publishers are still insistent on legal action my defence will be that no ongoing contract existed and that any further copies were unsolicited goods.

My main concern was that no other forum member gets caught in this way.

I would finally comment that I have subscribed to many other magazines from the UK and USA and all of these have been on the basis of purchase of a one year subscription with no assumed continuation.

[Uppsala BildTeknik]

It is a very "usual" way of taking subscriptions. But it doesen´t mean I like it, or think it is OK.

I just thought that it might be interesting to hear that Smallformat and Germany are not the only ones doing this to their customers. At least two magazine subscriptions I have had were like this. They sent the next magazine with the subscription invoice, and I had to pay for the subscription or for the single copy of the magazine if I didn´t want to continue subscribing. That single copy suddenly got a lot more expensive than in normal shops.

Swedish magazines.

[marc]

Also very strange is this superior attitude with made-up arguments toward ways-of-doing in other countries which are standard there and in many other countries.
Likely the same people who speak loadly in english to locals when travelling through countries where english is not the national language
See how you like it when people start yelling spanish at you when travelling though California. And they are not from Barcelona.

BTW what 2nd posting what should that imply. How many subscribers does one think there are. This forum has some 25 posters and some 100 readers. Likely overestimated. Small-format has thousands. The german schmalfilm has a factor more.

OUCH! Anti-American sentiment! Where have I heard that before?!! 8O

[marc]

It's not US or England alone, I'm European too and shocked as well for this way to do things: One year subscription, should mean "one year subscrption", easy, isn't it?. Any other way to understand such a simple and clear statement sounds ridiculous to me.

Well, I feel better! A little understanding from the other side! Not all of America's complaints are based on it's inherent stupidity! :roll: