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Business Profile

Subscription Agents

Foreign Policy Magazine

This business is NOT BBB Accredited.

Find BBB Accredited Businesses in Subscription Agents.

Complaints

Customer Complaints Summary

  • 4 total complaints in the last 3 years.
  • 3 complaints closed in the last 12 months.

If you've experienced an issue

Submit a Complaint

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

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Complaint status

Complaint type

  • Initial Complaint

    Date:03/10/2025

    Type:Product Issues
    Status:
    Unanswered
    Resolved:
    The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.
    Unresolved:
    The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.
    Answered:
    The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.
    Unanswered:
    The business failed to respond to the dispute.
    Unpursuable:
    BBB is unable to locate the business.
    Subscription from Foreign Policy was set to auto renew. Purchased at discount but renewed at full price. No email informing of update and no email once renewed with receipt. Only found out after checking statement a few days later. Refused to grant email because said needs to be within 48 hours after purchase. However, no way of knowing since never communicated either before or after.

  • Initial Complaint

    Date:01/21/2025

    Type:Delivery Issues
    Status:
    Resolved
    Resolved:
    The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.
    Unresolved:
    The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.
    Answered:
    The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.
    Unanswered:
    The business failed to respond to the dispute.
    Unpursuable:
    BBB is unable to locate the business.
    We purchased a magazine on December 7th, 2024 (amount $24.95), however we have not received the magazine yet. We have tried to contact the business about this issue in several ways (Email, phone calls). For instance, on Dec. 22, 2024, the business agent (***** ******) responded saying the magazine was shipped on Dec. 17, 2024. But we did not receive it even after 35 days. We request the magazine to be delivered to us as soon as possible. ********************

  • Initial Complaint

    Date:12/03/2024

    Type:Service or Repair Issues
    Status:
    Answered
    Resolved:
    The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.
    Unresolved:
    The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.
    Answered:
    The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.
    Unanswered:
    The business failed to respond to the dispute.
    Unpursuable:
    BBB is unable to locate the business.
    I subscribed to Foreign Policy in Jan/Feb 2024. In June, I sent a message to customer service that I hadn't received any issues yet (it's a quarterly publication). Despite much time-consuming back-and-forth and promises to remedy the situation by ** customer service, it is now December and I have only finally just received a single issue (Fall 2024) in late November. Previously, customer service claimed to have fixed an issue with my mailing address in their system and to then have sent me the missed issues, which was months ago with no package of back issues ever received. Considering the cost of a FP subscription, that's one single issue that cost me $99. At this point, I'm sick of wasting my time asking for the correct number of issues and would like to just get a refund and be removed from all FP's mailing lists. This has been a thoroughly disappointing experience. I subscribe to a number of magazines and journals and this is the only problematic one.

    Business Response

    Date: 12/10/2024

    Ms ****,

    We are sorry you had a bad experience with our magazine. We aren't sure why you didn't receive the back issues we sent, but either way, we have issued a refund. Please accept our apologies.

    ******

  • Initial Complaint

    Date:02/21/2024

    Type:Product Issues
    Status:
    Answered
    Resolved:
    The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.
    Unresolved:
    The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.
    Answered:
    The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.
    Unanswered:
    The business failed to respond to the dispute.
    Unpursuable:
    BBB is unable to locate the business.
    Dear BBB,My complaint is as follows:Two years ago, my wife and I bought a gift subscription to Foreign Policy Magazine. My daughter lost access to her subscription after the first year, presumably because it expired. Now, two years later I am being charged $149.99 for a renewed subscription that neither I nor my daughter can even access. To make matters worse, the support number provided on my credit card bill doesn't appear to be working. When I go to the foreign policy magazine web site, no phone number is provided, only an email address. When I used that email address, the response comes days or weeks later. Initially, they were unable to find the subscription at all, when they finally do find it under my daughter's old high school email address, they inform me that it is too late to cancel, that I must cancel 48 hours before billing, and that I am stuck with the subscription until 12/25/2024. I am given no recourse or way to escalate the matter and then I am stonewalled in my further e-mails.This is an extremely unethical way of doing business. I have no way of resolving disputes, and when I reach out I am ignored, or the support number does not work. Neither my daughter, nor I, nor my wife have accessed this magazine in years.

    Customer Answer

    Date: 02/26/2024

    Dear Better Business Bureau,

    I received a message from you that the business for which I filed a complaint was no longer at the address I provided.  Could you kindly re-open the complaint and try this address instead (just retrieved from their web site):

    Foreign Policy

     ***********************************

    **************, 20005

     

    Thank you very much,

    *****************************

    Business Response

    Date: 03/14/2024

    Our systems show that we refunded the credit card associated with ***************************************** Foreign Policy account in full. A PDF receipt is attached. We can only refund the credit cards we are given and we can only pull up accounts with the email addresses we are given, and we did not choose **************************** daughter's email address or the credit card used to pay for our products/services. 

    The transaction ID associated with this refund is UP9UB8SI83EB, and the payment method was a **** ending in 2997.

    We are in the process of implementing fixes to our customer service systems to make it easier for our customers to contact an employee when they need to.

    We have no intention of charging anyone who doesn't want to retain access to our content, and we hope this settles the matter.

    Best regards,

    ******

Foreign Policy Magazine is NOT a BBB Accredited Business.

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