ME production problems, delivery problems or Canada post?

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Neil has responded to earlier posts but is away for a few days so unable to respond to the posts from the last day or two.

J

[clivelParticipant @clivel]

Posted by John Purdy on 05/04/2018 21:17:45:

To correct my last it was the May issue of Sky and Telescope I got on Tues. I got the April issue of Scientific American last week.

John

John,
Both of those are American magazines. Unlike post from Europe and the UK, US post is sorted in Vancouver (actually Richmond) BC in a massive new sorting facility that went live in 2014. Other International post goes through Montreal or Toronto.

Everyone else,
I still firmly believe that the problem is Canada Post for the following reasons:

1. It is not only MytimeMedia publications that are not being received, I last received Engineering in Miniature published by Warners Group on the 3rd January.
2. During January and February I have had 9 items sent to me from different places in Europe and the UK. Six of these items have not arrived. One of the three items that did actually arrive took over 2 months for delivery AFTER ARRIVING IN CANADA.
3. Other than Hopper from Australia, so far the only people complaining about not receiving their magazines are Canadians.
4. Hopper's problem was different, he had very poor service in relation to his subscription from MytimeMedia, but it is not the same problem the rest of us on this thread are experiencing which is the non-arrival of regular subscription issues.
5. Unless we have subscribers from elsewhere complaining, we can probably assume then that the problem is only being experienced by Canadians which would indicate that the problem is Canada Post.

I have filed two complaints with Canada Post. The first on Feb 26, Two days later I received a voice message from a Canada Post employee asking me to call back. Which I did, leaving a message every day for two weeks, but the employee never returned my calls.
I subsequently discovered when filing my second complaint on March 14 that the first complaint had been closed as resolved 2 days after I filed it. Now three weeks later I am still not receiving my international mail, still missing 15 magazine (including the 4 replacement MEs that MytimeMedia sent out) and still missing six other important items of mail.

My chief concern is that if the problem is Canada Post, which I am convinced it is, magazine publishers are going to put a stop to Canadian subscriptions due to the cost and inconvenience of continually having to send out replacement issues.

Clive

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Well, I'm glad I saw this thread this morning. It reminded me to check the newsagent shop when I was in town, and lo and behold, there was one lonely copy of MEW 263 on the shelf, which is now in my hot little hand. I see a screwcutting dog clutch in our ML7's future.

Sounds pretty bad for Canada Post there, with 15 mags missing plus other items. Aust Post is not great but at least not that bad! Although, in this day and age of internet shopping, Aust. Post is managing to lose money where other commercial package delivery services are making a fortune along the lines of UPS, Fedex etc. Possibly an example, in both Canada and Oz, of where the private sector efficiency beats government inefficiency hands down. But if we lose that government service, that will be the end of cheap deliveries as the others are much more pricey.

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

Maybe its an attitude problem with Canada Post? Letter mail seem to get there (Ottawa) to and from UK, OK .

Afterall it only a magazine, bit like a newspaper, does not matter if you miss one!

Get the impression though its not only Canada Post that does not work well over there???

[John PurdyParticipant @johnpurdy78347]

Just got an e-mail reply from My Time Media to my latest one to them. They are extending my subscriptions to account for my 13 missing issues but won't replace them. That's a lot of good for someone who is working on a project that is currently being described in these issues. I don't want my subscriptions extended I want the missing issues, I paid for them. This is getting ridiculous. Obviously they have no interest in their overseas customers.

John

[clivelParticipant @clivel]

John,
Being in a similar situation I can absolutely understand your frustration. However I think that you are being a little unfair on MyTime Media. From past experience I know that they are not always the most efficient of organisations, but given how many titles they publish they would have long been out of business if they were not able to meet the primary objective of fulfilling subscriptions – both local and overseas.

Also I suspect that after years of being in the magazine publishing business they probably have a very good idea of how many extra copies of each issue they need print in order to meet any contingencies such as magazines having gone astray etc.
However if an anomaly arises, such as a large number of Canadian subscribers not receiving their magazines, it is possible that they run out of extra copies, in which case other than giving a refund or extending a subscription I don't see what else they could do.

And given that all evidence points to the problem being Canada Post, then surely it should be Canada Post not MyTimeMedia taking the hit both financially and in bad publicity. In which case I suggest you do what I have done which is to file a complaint with Canada Post at 1-866-607-6301. They will offer to investigate and then do nothing, however you will need the service ticket number in order to escalate your complaint to the Obudsman: **LINK** along with a claim for compensation for the missing magazines. In response to my complaint I received the following in an email from the Obudsman yesterday:

We will complete a preliminary review of your concerns in the coming days and confirm the course of action. Please note that our current service level standard is 5 to 10 business days.
Your patience is appreciated.

I am not too hopeful, but if enough people complain maybe some high-up in Canada Post will eventually take notice and do something about it.

Clive

 

 

 

Edited By clivel on 06/04/2018 23:28:14

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Posted by John Purdy on 06/04/2018 18:32:45:

Just got an e-mail reply from My Time Media to my latest one to them. They are extending my subscriptions to account for my 13 missing issues but won't replace them. That's a lot of good for someone who is working on a project that is currently being described in these issues. I don't want my subscriptions extended I want the missing issues, I paid for them. This is getting ridiculous. Obviously they have no interest in their overseas customers.

John

Sounds like the same situation I had with issue MEW 263. They simply don't have any more copies so they can't send them. Nothing anyone can do about that at this stage.

Take the extended subscription and you can always buy back issues on Fleabay, or digital copies from MTM, Newsstand or Pocketmags websites etc if you need specific articles and drawings for a project series.

Sometimes you just have to go with the flow.

[Enough!Participant @enough]

Posted by John Purdy on 06/04/2018 18:32:45:

They are extending my subscriptions to account for my 13 missing issues but won't replace them. That's a lot of good for someone who is working on a project that is currently being described in these issues. I don't want my subscriptions extended I want the missing issues,

You could ask them if they will give you a digital subscription (here not PocketMags) instead. That would enable you to print the missing articles at least.

[Barry Solomon 2Participant @barrysolomon2]

I'm not convinced Canada Post is to blame. My Model Boats magazine from MyTimeMedia has been arriving OK. Engineering In Miniature from another publisher has been arriving on schedule. I have recently received mail orders from UK suppliers with no problem or delays. It is only ME since before Christmas and more recently MEW that has had problems delivering magazines. If Canada Post was the problem I would expect some of these other things would also be no shows.

Canada Post may not be great but I don't think we can totally blame them here. I can see one lost issue but not several in a row. I suspect there is some problem in the publishing / ordering / addressing chain before the magazines ever get turned over to Canada Post.

Why would a magazine published in the U.K. need to make a trip (according to the mailing labels) to the Czech Republic, be sent to Belgium and be relabelled before it finally gets mailed to me in Canada? That doesn't appear to be efficient to me.

Problems with magazine delivery to Australia have been reported here as well so let's not just blame Canada Post. There are other problems as well.

I would expect the publisher would be more concerned. ME and MEW are both excellent magazines. Other than the recent problems my MEW collection is complete from issue #1 and my ME collection is complete back to January 1946.

Hopefully MyTimeMedia can get the delivery issues resolved and we can reliably receive future copies of these first class publications.

[David Taylor 4Participant @davidtaylor4]

Barry Solomon is far too kind to Canada Post. Over many years of having a subscription to the Economist delivery problems have been endemic including lost issues. The paper has to be delivered from Vancouver to Fruitvale BC , about 600km. It some times takes three weeks. Some times a current issue arrives before it's predecessor.

Last week I received a "brown bag" ME replacement for a missing issue. It was sent "International Priority" and took twelve days to arrive.

I suspect that the magazines are shipped in bulk from the printers to the distributors. It may be that the printers have changed shipping company. This would be one explanation for the sudden delivery chaos beginning in January, (new contract starting in the new year).

My EIM is late this month. Usually get it a week prior to the month end. No show so far for April. Must be Canada Post.

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Posted by Barry Solomon 2 on 07/04/2018 02:46:33:

Why would a magazine published in the U.K. need to make a trip (according to the mailing labels) to the Czech Republic, be sent to Belgium and be relabelled before it finally gets mailed to me in Canada? That doesn't appear to be efficient to me.

It may be published in the UK, but the physical printing, binding and packaging may be done someplace cheaper, such as Czecho. Common practice today.

Or it could be the cheapest shipping is through a freight consolidator in Czecho who puts the mags in a container with a bunch of other unrelated freight going to the same destination.

Then Belgium is a major hub for international air freight. Major numbers of flights out of Belgium going to North America, Australia etc means cheaper flights and rates. Often with economy mail, it will be sent to a major hub such as Leiges or Antwerp and sit there until there is excess empty space on a flight to the right destination, within a certain timeframe. This means the airlines never fly with empty space, so economy/profit is maximized.

That's globalization for ya.

Edited By Hopper on 07/04/2018 03:41:18

[David Taylor 4Participant @davidtaylor4]

Today I received two MEs, 4583,(30 March -12 April) sent from Belgium and 4582,(16-19 March) sent from Hungary. May be I was unfair to Canada Post and the problem does lie with Mytime publishing and their attempts to save money on postage.

When will a Mytime executive add to this thread with some assurances about restoring reliable and acceptable, to the subscribers, delivery times?

Dave Taylor

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Hello, I'm back now.

All overseas subscription issues are, and have have been for many years, sent using Air Business, a subsidiary of Irish Post.

http://www.airbusiness.com/about#about-air-business

Naturally once we ship to Air Business, it is their job to sort the bundles by country find an efficient route to each one.

It is perfectly normal for them to go to a European centre for grouping before transatlantic shipment. The countries used will change with fluctuations in the overall volumes being transported for Air Business. We don't change month to month looking to save a few pennies!

The great majority of our overseas delivery problems arise after the shipment gets transferred to the destination country's postal service. In the last two years we have had issues with the Phillipines, occasionally (but less frequently) Australia, and (ironically) Belgium and it now seems Canada is taking a turn.

We once had 9 months of magazines in various sorting offices across South Africa following a postal strike, but it seems most of them eventually reached their destinations.

Where an individual repeatedly has non-delivery, it can be because someone in the local postal chain is looking out for the magazine, we have solved this in the past by 'brown bag' shipping.

Wider issues, such as those apparently happening in Canada are more intractable. There really isn't an alternative to transhipping deliveries to the in-country delivery service.

We will send replacements for missed issues, as long as a reasonable time has been given to allow for late arrival. Unfortunately, we do hold limited back issue stocks and regrettably this can lead to us having to offer an extension to subscription.

I don't have access to people's full account details (I can only check if you have a valid sub, when it expires etc.) or have a role in distribution. If you have problems with delivery it is important to use the contact details here first:

http://www.model-engineer.co.uk/editorial/page.asp?p=908

One good reason is that if multiple complains come by different route it is harder to pick up a recurring problem quickly. Plus, we are paying those contacts to do the job of sorting your problems out quickly and efficiently.

If you do not get a satisfactory solution, the best route is to email me with full details, including who you have contacted about the issue. I can then escalate it to our subscription manager.

My email is neil.wyatt@mytimemedia.com.

Neil

[clivelParticipant @clivel]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 10/04/2018 08:44:43:

If you have problems with delivery it is important to use the contact details here first:

http://www.model-engineer.co.uk/editorial/page.asp?p=908

Neil,
Thanks for the clear explanation. As you correctly imply the problem is with Canada Post.

For example I received the January Issue of Engineering In Miniature on January 3rd, and nothing since, After contacting them they mailed out a replacement February issue on March 5th. This has also not arrived. EIM is of course published by a completely different company from ME and MEW.

So along with contacting the subscription department at the link you posted, it would also be very helpful if the Canadian customers who are experiencing problems also filed a complaint with Canada Post. Otherwise the problem will persist.

Clive

[Raymond Sanderson 2Participant @raymondsanderson2]

Seems the problem has reached Australia at least South East QLD Yesterday I received ME 5482 today 4583.
The previous ME 4 issues all over the place for arrival.
MEW was no different the last 2 issues arriving with in 2 weeks of each other.

This can't be a Canada Postal issue if mine are coming to Australia but it maybe it could be LOL..

[John PurdyParticipant @johnpurdy78347]

I also received ME 4582 and 4583 together in yesterdays mail. No sign of 77,78, or 81 yet. Nor any sign of MEW 263 or 264, received 266 on the fourth.

John

[clivelParticipant @clivel]

Yesterday I also received ME issues 4582 and 4583 together. No sign of 76,77,78,79, or 81 yet. I also received MEW 266 at the beginning of the week, but still no sign of 264 or 265.

I also have not yet received the ME replacement issues 4576,77,78 & 79 that were sent on March 14th but hopefully those will get here soon.

It is odd that both John and myself in Canada and Raymond in Australia all received issues 4582 and 4583 simultaneously and on the same day, this would indicate that there is some sort of problem on the MyTime Media side.

On the other hand I have not received any issues of EIM since the 5th of Jan, not even the replacement issue that they sent me on March 5th. Which would indicate a problem with Canada Post unless of course EIM also use Air Business for their overseas fulfillment in which case we can point the finger of blame directly at Air Business.

Either way Canada Post are not blameless, because neither MyTime-Media nor Air-Business have had anything to do with the now 7 items of mail I am still missing from various places in Europe.

So, it seems to me, that Canadian subscribers have been hit by the unfortunate coincidence of problems at MyTime-Media/Air-Business and Canada Post simultaneously.
It is frustrating.
Clive

[Barry Solomon 2Participant @barrysolomon2]

I received ME 4583 yesterday and 4582 today. Still no sign of 77, 78, 79, 80, or 81.

MEW 266 arrived yesterday. Still no 265.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Just a note to say we have long been aware of the problems Raymond has had. Although we occasionally get reports of missing issues for other Australian readers, it doesn't seem to be an Australia-wide problem.

Clearly there is a problem with Canada post and I have 'escalated it'.

Can I encourage everyone with a problem to email a list of missing issues to customer services and copy it to me using the email I gave above.

Thanks

Neil

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

On a brighter note, the April issue of MEW arrived here in North Queensland on Monday April 9, two weeks ahead of the average delivery time over the past couple of years. I was quite impressed they got it to me before the pointers to the next month's edition have been posted on this website. Makes me feel like I'm reading the "current" edition. Usually when the new pointers are posted online I know it's time to start looking out for the previous issue to arrive.

Quite enjoyed the article on building full size locos. Nice work if you can get it!

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

I've had a reply – it seems that a number of our other titles have had problems with Canadian distribution as well.

Air Business have in turn responded to MyTimeMedia that the issue is a problem with Canada Post.

We are somewhat at a loss about what to do as there isn't really a practical alternative.

Neil

I know Google result numbers are unreliable evidence but:

Canada Post delivery problems – 3,680,000 hits

Royal Mail delivery problems – 888,000 hits

Hmm…

[David Taylor 4Participant @davidtaylor4]

I am still missing issues 4577, 4579, 4581. In addition an EIM is in arrears.

The good thought is that the erstwhile boss of Canada Post is now in charge at the Royal Mail. What hope for our deliveries if she brings the Royal Mail to Canada post standards?

DaveT

[Enough!Participant @enough]

Posted by David Taylor 4 on 13/04/2018 16:27:13:

The good thought is that the erstwhile boss of Canada Post is now in charge at the Royal Mail. What hope for our deliveries if she brings the Royal Mail to Canada post standards?

That's pretty old news actually. Moya Greene went to Royal Mail in 2010. Canada Post wasn't bad during her reign …. not bad at all in fact. All their current problems stem from the guy (Chopra) who took over from her and it's been a steady slide downhill ever since. Particularly for home-delivery …. it seems apparent that his aim is to get rid of it altogether.

[Jeff DaymanParticipant @jeffdayman43397]

I have two friends that work for Canada Post, one works in a local post office and the other works in a massive sorting plant in Toronto. Neither know each other. They both tell exactly the same stories about Mr Chopra. Short version is that no one likes him personally as he is extremely pushy and harsh with staff in private, and does not seem to care about people, also that he speaks a continuous stream of bla bla bla from the top with no concrete instructions or meaningful messages to anybody. In front of TV cameras he's Mr Nice Guy. Not much wonder motivation of staff is as low as possible. No excuse for iffy postal service though. I've worked in lots of firms in industry where management was iffy but what got done in the toolroom and in the factory was top notch work that made good profits for many years. Everyone under management level were real professionals, right down to the guys sweeping the floors.

[Jeff DaymanParticipant @jeffdayman43397]

Neil – maybe you should get on the blower to Mr Chopra and tune him in, especially since your 3,680,000 ME and MEW subscribers/readers in Canada have complained already…..

Or maybe all 200 ME and MEW subscribers/readers in Canada complained 18,400 times each……

I'll get my coat and toque now…..

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