The Athletic HQ Reviews 264

same issues as below.

charged £59.99 with no forewarning. I made a point of it when I started my subscription to not auto-renew.

i didn't have enough money in my account but the payment was forced through and put me into my overdraft.

the payment was forced through after I had already sent a number of emails and received minimal support.

the most effort I recieved from customer support was "thankyou for your time with us at the athletic unfortunately we are not able to refund this payment." this was half a week after I had sent my first email.

not happy with this company and how they handle customer support and i am still chasing a full refund and my account cancelling.

I received notification from Paypal that my account was charged $59.99 for renewal. I immediately sent an email to Athletic stating that I did not want the renewal and to kindly backout the transactions and cancel the subscription. Within minutes I received and auto-reply:
"Thank you for reaching out to The Athletic Support team. We're sorry to hear you weren't aware of the upcoming charge. You can find all of your subscription info at "theathletic link" You can cancel your subscription to The Athletic at any time, and you will continue to have access to the Service for the remainder of your applicable billing cycle. However, there are no refunds for cancellation. You can read more about cancellations and refund in the links below."
Guess this happens a lot?

I responded:
"Most legitimate companies send an email alerting to the upcoming renewal.
You'd rather embezzle the $59.99 despite the fact that I sent this within minutes of seeing the charge.
I've never had this issue with any other vendor.
You're disgusting."

Wish I had seen these reviews beforehand which seem to mostly related to billing practices.

If you choose to signup and don't want auto renewal be sure you cancel right away.

I make it a practice to never sign up for any trials that involve giving payment information unless there is explicit information that I will be contacted before the trial ends to see if I wish to continue. I was never contacted regarding extending this subscription and I do not remember authorizing any future payments. I only read their emails occasionally during the trial period and I did not find that they provided any more that what is available in the LA Times or other baseball feeds that I receive. I will make an effort to share my disappointment regarding this business practices with as many people as I can via social media and any other opportunities I may have. I have already notified paypal that I wish to dispute this charge. This is not a good way the gain a favorable reputation.

I received a free year from my T-Mobile and it auto renewed. I caught this within 6 days and asked to cancel my subscription and they refused to refund the $50.

Useless organization, overpriced, limited content, don't notify you of renewals, no refunds AND NO ONE TO TALK TO. Do not subscribe. Corrupt scammers.

Signed up for a free trial then they just proceed to charge me 60 bucks with no email or warning they are charging me for a subscription. Found out a couple days later after looking at my bank statement. Shady business.

If I could give less than 1 star I would! Absolutely awful. Cancelled my subscription and they still took my money and don’t reply to emails. They should be shut down

This lousy company has a no refund policy that is the worse ever. their articles suck. their coverage sucks. DON'T SUBSCRIBE!!!!!!!!

I would put 0 starts if allowed. I have been billed two years in a row after repeatedly (over 10 times) asking them to cancel/shut down my account (even though I'd unsubscribed online). Not a single reply. Account not deactivated and cc not removed despite my best efforts. My bank had to intervene. I have started to approach their writers to let them know of this filthy practice and terrible approach to customer service.

I cancelled my subscription in May but they have continued to charge my back account in June and July and will not respond to any emails asking why. I've had to get my bank to put a block on them taking any more - terrible service

Absolute con artists. Take your money without permission with no refunds even though I have no intention of ever accessing their 'content'. Avoid at all costs

I stupidly signed up for the trial to read an article. Now they keep spamming me with emails. I have unsubscribed several times, but that does not stop them. Not worth the money, unless you want to pay to be inundated with spam emails for below average journalism.

Signed up for a subscription which they took my money out and login says I’m not subscribed. My bank receipt says differently. Was able to sign up evidently for $30 but cannot access any articles. Lovely business here.

Contact customer service (no phone number btw), we cannot find your account. Fascinating, but you gladly stole the $30 and won’t refund me or even give me anything to read that I paid for nor admit I even subscribed.

What lovely, mindless crooks you are. Customer service non-existent. Beyond atrocious experience. Shouldn’t be hard to give access on your site or app for what was already paid for that you so gladly took. Of course, that would mean you actually cared and did your jobs. Crooks.

The claimed charges on my credit card after I cancelled the subscription via apple, and then when I contacted customer support about it, they said they don’t issue refunds because it’s my fault I didn’t cancel the subscription. Ridiculous.

Thieves. You sign up for the free trial, then cancel and they still charge you. AVOID.

I have unsubscribed to their emails several times and yet they still inundate me with regular updates I do not want. Tried to contact them personally and I was ignored.

Took out a free 1 month trial and cancelled a few days before it was due to expire, Yet despite repeated emails they continue to try and take the annual subscription from my account, So far they have tried every day for a week. really inconveniant as i cannot add funds to my account in case they take the sub which apparently is non refundable. Disgraceful customer service

After being spammed with ads for about 2 weeks I decided to subscribe to unlock the article. I signed up with Apple, payed for the subscription and then to spent 20 minutes in a loop of logging in and out to get the article without success.

Looks like I’m not the only one giving a one star review, this company sucks, they take your money and they don’t have any customer service whatsoever, stay as far away from them as you possibly can! They send me emails with articles I want to read but I can’t click on them and no one will help you, I couldn’t be more disgusted with this company than I am‼️

Banned from commenting with no reason or warning. Absolute 0 response from any of my dozen emails and Facebook messages. I can’t stand these kind of companies where you can’t ever speak to anyone. Why do they even have an email address at this point??