Cafeyn Reviews 378

I would give zero stars if I could.
I cancelled all of my Readly accounts in 2025 and considered the matter closed. Then, without my knowledge or permission, I discovered that I had started being charged again in May 2026 by Cafeyn after they took over Readly.
Trying to get this resolved has been one of the most frustrating customer service experiences I’ve ever had.
At first, Cafeyn told me they couldn’t even find an account for me, despite continuing to take money from my bank account. Later, they suddenly “found” an old account that had been cancelled and somehow restarted charging me following the takeover. What shambles!

I’ve repeatedly explained that I do not want a Cafeyn account, I do not want a Readly account, and I did not authorise any new subscription. Instead of actually addressing my complaint, customer services simply send the same scripted responses over and over again. They don’t appear to read what you’ve written, refuse to properly investigate the issue, and won’t escalate the complaint to a manager despite multiple requests.
To make matters worse, their solution was to offer me one free month of Readly. This completely misses the point. I have made it crystal clear that I don’t want any subscription whatsoever. Offering me a free month of something I’ve repeatedly asked to cancel is not customer service—it’s completely tone-deaf.
I have now asked them to cancel every account connected to me and to stop taking any further payments.
This company has demonstrated poor record-keeping, unauthorised billing following a takeover, and some of the most frustrating, unhelpful customer service I’ve experienced. Based on my experience, I would strongly advise anyone to check their bank statements carefully if they previously had a Readly subscription.
I have absolutely no confidence in Cafeyn and would never recommend them.

Like so many others, I'm a longtime Readly subscriber and will be cancelling. What a disastrous decision to go with Cafeyn.

I have a two month free subscription, which I want to cancel before the two months are up. It’s simply impossible. I follow the advice as to how to a cancel and it just sends me round in circles!

For several years I was a very satisfied subscriber to Readly. In fact it was the only app I paid for. Now they have completely ruined my enjoyment by making it unreadable on computers, laptops etc: just the small phone screen. This means it’s practically impossible to use. I have complained several times: they are ‘working on improving’. I can’t think why they changed it at all - and for the worse. Seriously considering giving up entirely.

I had a problem with 2 months free subscription for Readly.
In less than 1 day, they had fixed it.
I am very content

I have loved Readly and like others, bought my Kindle Fire so I could use the app. I can no longer use the app on my Kindle so no longer have access to any of my monthly magazines.I had no idea that Readly is now Cafeyn until they took money out of my account today. I shall be cancelling my subscription. Very sad and disappointed as Readly just worked.

I have been using Readly on my Amazon Fire tablet since 2017 and have found it great; however, since it moved to Cafeyn, they have discontinued the app that allows me to use it on my Amazon Fire tablet. Why should anyone be forced to buy a new device to be able to view the publications I once viewed?

I was most annoyed to find I had been enrolled into Cafeyn. I have not ordered it from you, I don’t want it and you’ve debited my bank with a £12.99 Charge.

I want this cancelling immediately and the return of the £12.99 you have taken from my bank account without my permission RM Picking

I’m reviewing Readly as recently taken over by Cafeyn.
I have been an enthusiastic user of Readly for some years, and, to be honest, I have found the new version takes some getting used to, hence the four stars.
However, the support provided by Cafeyn has been outstanding, I cannot fault their patience in responding to my various queries.
If you’ve not used Readly before then this won’t be an issue for you, and if you’ve have, then stick with it, it’s still great value for money.

Cafeyn have trashed Readly. It is now useless and I would not use it even if I got paid for doing so - the app is unusable.
I have unsubscribed and so far I have discovered that almost a dozen friends and family have done the same - including friends who I recommended it to.
I'm also annoyed that I paid for a whole month of rubbish - I feel ripped off and I will not be going back to Readly or anything to do with Cafeyn - they clearly have no respect for their customers.
The new app should have been tested before launch and that clearly has not happened - It feels like it was written and designed by a 4 year old.

I had a two-month free subscription that ended on April 22nd. Since I am not really using it, I didn't want it to continue.

And then I found out that, while they claim you can cancel a subscription at any moment, you just can't.

Maybe it's because they've been working on their systems, but the fact is that I've been trying to do so since April 17th.

They made it impossible by removing the option from the website, stating it was currently not possible. This lasted for about a week. So I created a helpdesk ticket and now they are delaying my request.

Today I received a response that they will cancel the subscription on April 25th, while I requested this on April 17th, the day I first asked.

I've reported this to ACM ConsuWijzer (the Dutch consumer authority's official reporting portal) for misleading customers with this false claim.

Excellent service. Very quick, friendly and professional.

Along with many other UK Readly users, the move to Cafeyn has resulted in problems.
There are technical performance issues of the new application/website and poor and limited functionality of this new service compared to the one previously provided by Readly.
But unfortunately the Support service is atrocious at Cafeyn, they seem to use Zendesk for support which doesn't seem to have any intelligent humans and seems to default to stupid, useless incompetent chatbot responses that seem to guess at the problem based on keywords rather than any ability to read or understand the full text of a complaint.
The data transfer from Readly to Cafeyn to update account details such as names, email addresses and notification preferences (a basic requirement) seems to have gone terribly wrong, but with the incompetent responses from Support, resolution seems to be very far away.
I wonder at which point this zendesk AI slop will actually pass me to a human being or if Cafeyn even bother having some sort of tool to identify that their chatbot is spouting rubbish...

I loved Readly, and had bought an Amazon device specifically for using it. Since the switch to Cafeyn, I was very unhappy to find I can't use it anymore, and trying to contact customer service is utterly pointless. I requested a refund for the months subscription and that was ignored. It might have helped if Readly had advised in advance that support was being dropped for Amazon devices but there was no warning. I've now had to 'hack' my Amazon Fire to get it working so I don't lose out as I don't want to have to buy another device.
The format and layout of the Cafeyn app is also not as good as Ready was, so I don't understand why they've allowed it - less functionality all round. As a previously happy Readly customer, this is appalling and I'd advise that if you don't already have a Cafeyn subscription, that you save yourself the time and money and don't get one.

I’ve had READLY app since 2019 and it was brilliant. On 15 April it was taken over by Cafeyn. On the same day my monthly subscription was taken.
Lo and behold I cannot access the new app, despite rebooting, reloading, contacting “ customer service” blah blah blah. I’m absolutely fuming. WTAF????

Cannot download new app because of the age of my phone yet they still took money for this month. Got an email from them telling me to use another device that I do not have. They said they the new app doesn't work on some old phones and they don't give refunds. So basically they have stole a months subscription and I can't even get on the Readly website to see the saved magazines. They jokingly said that there are always problems with changing apps buy they still stole my money and haven't given any options for me to have what I have paid for. Note all the one star reviews on Readly trustpilot site. Will be contacting the bank to cancel direct debit. The company doesn't give a toss about customers, like myself who have subscribed for years. Plus they seemed to keep on raising the subscription cost. It's cheaper to buy the magazines I read from a newsagents if I want what is in that issue. Gives the human ran shop a chance to survive plus I can physically order copies from them that they don't have in stock. Thanks Readly for getting people to consider going back to purchasing from a good old fashioned shop.

I have been a long time user of readly, since the merger and new format nothing will download and no one answers emails, you would expect that when making changes there would be more than a mon-fri technical support. I really hope this gets sorted soon as I will cancel my subscription

AVOID THESE FRAUDSTERS
These people ruined the Readly app. They removed the option to cancel. They are committing FRAUD. Removed the ability to cancel payment. That's illegal. Stay away from these FRAUDSTERS
They always reply with AI slop to insult us further. See below reply from them.

Service très efficace de la part de Rachida et rapidité d’intervention.
Excellent !

OK selection of magazines but suddenly stop publication of a magazine with no notice or explanation.