I placed an order for a renewal as well as a new order for 2 magazines. I have yet to receive either one and it's been 16 weeks. I sent in an inquiry at 12 weeks - the "normal" turnaround time they claim and received a form response. I have ordered magazines online from third parties in the past and have never waited so long.  
 
Sure you can save money, but if you never get the magazine, what's the point. I'll order directly from the magazine itself in the future.  
 
I smell scam. Just glad they didn't get me for a lot of $$$. Shame on them.

I received your reply to my review. I have no order number as I was not given one. And regardless of what you claim, I have never received any responses - just your standard form email response saying I'd get a response - which never came. But of course, you charged my credit card for the subscription right away. And, your 800 number rings and no one answers.

This review was modified by its author, notpleased, on 6/24/09 4:05 PM.

I agree with the majority of the reviewers stating that the service is extremely poor and slow. I placed an order on FEB 8, 2009 for TWO magazines I have not received to date. On 5/29/09 I called both publishers directly and they advised me that Best Deal had not placed an order with them for either magazine. We are now in June 2009 and I received an email today from a customer rep that my subscription wouldn't begin until August 2009!!!. For the one or two dollars savings I could have ordered them directly from the publisher and avoided the headaches. I don't like dealing with a company in which you have to leave a message and wait for a return call or email. THE ORDER NUMBER WAS 9F8VCEGT6P. (CONSUMER REPORTS ON HEALTH AND HEART & SOUL MAGAZINE) I have sent emails to Customer Service Managers, Lori Greene & Kelli Shirley requesting a refund but have not received a response. Going forward, I will not place any future orders with this company as they do not take care of their customers and do not want to give you a refund.  
In all fairness to Best Deals Mag, they responded to "some" of my emails but NOT the emails I sent to their Manager, Kelli Shirley on 5/29/09 & 6/1/09 requesting a refund since I was unhappy with their service as no orders had been placed on my behalf until I inquired on the status of my order initally placed on 2/8/09 until the end of May 2009. I just want all future buyers to be aware that if you purchase from Best Deals Magazine you may not get a REFUND as I have sent TWO REQUESTS for a refund and have NOT received a reply. I keep copies of all of my SENT emails so they can't say that they responded to "ALL" of my emails. This is my experience, perhaps others will have a different outcome.

This review was modified by its author, DSWEATT, on 6/3/09 5:25 PM.

Below, Best Deal Magazines has responded to my review. I stand by the review as a reflection of my experience with the company. I will reiterate that in my experience:  
 
1. You will eventually receive your magazines  
2. You will pay a bargain rate for these magazines  
 
However, in my experience:  
1. I experienced a severe delay in the receipt of the magazines (5 months)  
2. Customer service was poor  
 
Customer experiences may vary. This may be a systemic problem with the whole magazine subscription business, but I would point out that I have ordered magazines from diverse sources as Amazon, Publisher's Clearing House, using up expiring frequent flier mileage, and the magazine publishers themselves and have not experienced a five month delay.  
 
If the company would, at very least, improve communication with the customer or have a website where you could check order status I might be more likely to try this vendor out again.  
 
Once again, I believe that this is a basically honest company in that you will receive your magazines. However, the delays and poor customer service have decreased the value of ordering from this company for me. At this point, I'd rather pay a higher price and know when the magazines were coming...  
 
ORIGINAL REVIEW BELOW  
__________________________________  
 
On the bright side, you will eventually get your magazines. On the downside, it may take a long, long time and customer support doesn't seem to answer their emails.  
 
I bought a subscription to MacLife on 12/17/2008 and finally received the June edition on 5/14/2009. That is a nearly five month wait for a magazine. The store puts the onus on the magazine publishers and in their FAQ section tell you that it typically takes 6 to 14 weeks for fulfillment or even 8 to 12 weeks. It ended up taking roughly 20 weeks for my subscription.  
 
By that time, I was wondering if I had gotten snookered by a slick web site and a low price. I had tried to send emails to their customer support three times and never got an answer back. I tried to call once, but couldn't get through.  
 
All this translates into a poor customer experience. However, in the end I did get the magazine.  
 
To sum up the experience, you have to realize that when you buy from this vendor you will get a bargain rate. The price you will pay will be: 1) a severe delay in receiving your first magazine [five to six months] and 2)poor customer support/responsiveness. Given that I did, indeed, receive the subscription I have to conclude that they are basically honest. However, they are very slow and unresponsive to customers.  
 
My final conclusion is that I would be very unlikely to use this service in the future. For the extra 10 dollars, I could have ordered MacLife from Amazon.com and received my subscription within 6 weeks. I could order through the publisher itself for the extra 15 dollars and received both the paper and digital versions. Either way, I would have gotten the magazine more quickly and would have had more customer support should something have gone wrong.  
 
My guess is that Best Deal Magazines is able to sell subscriptions to customers at such a low price by allowing the publishers to fulfill these subscriptions when they need to hit the right circulation numbers for their advertisers. The subscriptions are held on to and only fulfilled when the magazine needs to beef up their numbers to hit the right goals for their advertisers. Until then, the customer has to wait. This is likely why people have such a varied experience with the company. If you are subscribing to a magazine that really needs the numbers, the subscription will go through quickly. If you are subscribing to a more popular magazine, you have to wait until the publisher feels that the loss that they take on your subscription will be balanced by the extra revenue from the ads that they sell.

This review was modified by its author, jojoleb, on 5/20/09 11:26 AM.

I ordered GameInformer on their ~$4 deal. I received my first issue in February (3 months later, but it was the January issue, I received the February issue a week after). I didn't care too much about the wait as long as I got the order. Thanks for the great prices! I'm thinking of ordering another from them soon.

I ordered back in December. To date, I have received nothing. I ordered three magazines. I have emailed about five times back and forth with them, and every time they fail entirely to answer my questions. They seem overwhelmed by the fact that my order included requests for multiple magazines.  
 
They always take a couple of days to get back to me and they never actually help.  
 
I am notifying American Express and trying to get my money back. They are awful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
 
UPDATED: To be clear, I have emailed them multiple times. Everytime, I have asked about all three orders, none of which ever have come. My response from them has only ever offered information about one magazine. It forces me to email again, asking about the other two.  
 
Their customer service department is arrogant and incredibly difficult to deal with! Avoid this company at all costs unless you want to waste money!  
 
Even though I am outside of the 14 week window which they claim it takes to begin receiving magazines, they are steadfastly refusing to give me a refund!

This review was modified by its author, tjpavlov, on 3/30/09 12:23 PM.

We ordered a 4-year gift subscription to Rolling Stone ($35.24) for our friends, and were embarrassed to learn that after 4 months, they had not received a single issue. In calling this company, Best Deal Magazines, they do not have a human answering the phone, just a message that tells you to interact with them from their website but does grudgingly allow you to leave a message. NOT HAPPY. They may have the best deals, but they have the all-time Lousiest Service.

Hello  
I just would like to save some frustration for you. I ordered a magazine in December. I have not recived an isue yet. First I called they rerfer to the wbpage. ok. so I wrote to them one, twice. asking fot my magazine. well on both ocasions I got a terrible insulting automatic response . They suggest I should read it carefully that it may have the answer for my question. Well simmply my question is why I do not have my magazine and the answer is gain an automatic response what I did wrong. Well if you want to save some time an effort STAY AWAY from this site. I am disputing it with my credi card company and try to reverse the charge. Very frustrating and disappointing costumer service.

It is now March 9, 2009 and I still have not recieved one issue of the magizines ordered and paid for back in July 4, 2008. This company has the worst personal skills in responding to inquires. Regardless how many Emails or attempts at resolving this issue I go ignored. I have yet to get a refund, even after asking for one six months ago. DON'T BUT ANYTHING FROM THIS MAGAZINE SUBSCRIBER UNLESS YOU HAVE MONEY TO WASTE!

I ordered two subscriptions from best deal magazines and never received my subscriptions.

Low prices, but definitely not worth the couple dollars you'll save. Unbelievably slow process... Their website clearly states "Please allow 8-14 weeks for your subscription to start. This is the industry standard." However, it is now 16 weeks after I placed my order and have yet to receive a single issue of either of the two I ordered. I emailed customer service, and finally got a response back after four days, saying that one of my magazines should be coming within the next "several weeks" and for the other one, an inquiry that will take two weeks has been sent to the clearinghouse.  
 
They really need to revise their time estimate to reflect a more accurate picture of the horribly slow process - regardless of whose fault it is, whether it is the clearinghouse, publisher, or theirs. I could understand a rare delay in the 8-14 week process, but it seems delays beyond the 14 week upper end are the norm.

I ordered a subscription for MacLife on Sept 10 and have emailed them twice. No magazines so far and only an automated response. Looks as if I had a 50/50 chance of getting the subscription from the previous reviews. Should have gone by instincts, if it's too good to be true, probably shouldn't have ordered it.

I ordered 3 magazines last December,2007.  
I only receive only one magazine with other 2 missings. I contacted and they said they will check and fix it, yet still receiving 1 by now.  
It's time to reorder,but definitely avoid this store in next time.  
 
------------------------------------------------  
Update: They contacted me after i left the feedback, and refunded money for the missings.  

This review was modified by its author, deraid, on 11/24/08 5:35 PM.

Tho' they may be a little slow, they are accurate and honest. There are many fly-by-night mag subscription services on the internet. Because of a really good BBB report on Best Deal, I tried it and am highly satisfied with the price and the accuracy.

Worked great for me. I renewed for 2 years of Maximumpc for less than the normal cost of a 1 year subscription.  
 
I ordered in April, and my new subscription wil start in August (per the Maximumpc website).  
 
This is the second time I have used them with good results,