Zinio – Dreadful Service. Never again

OK, I make no bones about it, this is going to be a bit of a rant just to get this off my chest.

On the 25th of March, I signed up with Zinio and downloaded their Android app to allow me to buy and read digital version of magazines. I read a lot of magazines, both print and digital (the latter via Google Play, which works faultlessly).

Having signed up, I bought my first magazine. That in itself was probably a warning. The app said it was £2.99 but when I went to pay, it said £3.49. I went back and forth, yep, totaly disparity. Anyway, I went ahead. On the 27th, a voucher arrived for $10 against other purchases as a welcome gift. Nice I thought and bought two more magazines. All 3 downloaded fine. My credit card had 2 payments on it, the original full price magazine and the balance of the other two less the $10 I got. So far so good.

When I went back to the app to read them it just hung. I could see lots of people complaining about this in the Play feedback and someone said they got back in by clearing the cache and reinstalling. I did that and happily, I was back in. However, no magazines. I logged into the web site, which alarmingly said the same, no purchases recorded

I emailed support on the 3rd April and got a reply saying they’d get back in 24-48 hours. After 9 days, I gave up and emailed again on the 12th. Still nothing so I tried again. On the 16th I finally got a reply asking which magazines. I replied it was so far back I couldn’t remember (I do buy/read a lot) but gave them the dates and amounts from the credit card.

And today, 18th, another email, sorry, need to know the magazines you bought.

I give up, I’m writing off the money and I’ll never use Zinio again. If they can’t write software that doesn’t lock up, can’t tell who bought what from them, have customer support so piss poor they can’t reply for over a week or track purchases used via their own coupons, I don’t want to do business with them. Sorry Google Play for ever doubting you. Zinio, never again.