Investors Chronicle Reviews 

The magazine is a good read and articles are technically sound and thought provoking for investors. Notwithstanding the Royal mail strike action the customer service is poor. I have rung to cancel my subscription today and there was no attempt to talk me out of it. I have not had a magazine delivery for 8 weeks and have been advised by them that they stopped doing so as Royal mail returned one undelivered. No evidence of that at all can be produced and I have had no other mail issues. Could they have not emailed me to check - apparently not - " we don't do that I'm afraid". They are now going to send me the back issues missed but obviously out of date. The lady I spoke to couldn't have given a monkeys.

Simon Thompson is a writer for IC. he does many good in depth articles and share recommendations. although i have not counted them, my guess is around 100 at the moment.
i do not begrudge him leave, but he has had around 2 of the last 3 months off, leaving his followers without guidance. IC or Simon do not provide satisfactory advice during these holidays and the FT Chief executive and the IC editor do not respond to any of the many emails questioning this. i believe they have been delivered

About as useful as a chocolate teapot. Don’t waste your money

I tried the free trial for four weeks. You submit your credit details but, so long as you cancel within the four weeks, it's free... allegedly. I cancelled, I ask them to cancel my Direct Debit. They told me they could not cancel my direct debit and I would have to do it with my bank. My bank didn't yet have the direct debit as the money had not yet been requested. Impossible to resolve.

Customer service then told me they don't do refunds under any circumstances (so, even if they are in the wrong). I have emailed several times and asked for it to be escalated... They told me it has but two weeks later no further response.

For a reputable brand, as part of the FT, this is shoddy and basically a bit of a scam! Would never subscribe again or use any of their services.

Been a subscriber for years and have to say i'm not really impressed with the customer service.
I tried the alpha which i think is a rip off. After subscribing to alpha i had no access so phoned them. They re-did the sub, but didn't remove the intial sub. and so I was charged twice for the initial payment. I had to phone up again to get it removed. When I realised I had been charged twice I phoned again and they told me they had no record of it and I needed to email them proof. This I did but they did not reply. I emailed a second time and still no response. Daylight robbery and poor service. Avoid.

The website search engine is very poor as it produces thousands of hits to a company name or ticker. Many or indeed most of the hits seem to be totally irrelevant to the search topic.

I have been subscribing for several years and find the website search engine atrocious. The rag is ok although there are conflicting writer views when it comes to passive, active, trusts, OEIC's. Little consistency of view as to whether global tracker with bond / alts ETF's is any better than an equivalent Investment Trust asset allocation over the long term etc.

Really disappointed with IC. In my opinion its aimed at those with time on their hands who will read the magazine every week. What I want are clear portfolio suggestions that are updated regularly and with an obvious cadence so I know when to expect updates. Instead I get contributions from portfolio "experts" at seemingly random points in the year..... good luck trying to track changes. Many of these experts are selling access to their own portfolio services (eg John Barron). I tried Alpha in the hope of it being better..... no such luck. They advertise Alpha "screens" but what you get are a bunch of pdf reports with limited context and no background information about how to interpret or use them (mis-selling imo). It's laughable how these so-called "screens" contain tables seemingly copied and pasted from excel into a Word doc and exported as pdf. The website is also atrocious but reading between the lines, the technology supporting the magazine is clearly not ready for the online market. Any would be subscribers thinking that they get a better experience with a Digital Sub...... well, don't hold your breath. All you get is the magazine in a very basic app - although you can bookmark and do your bit for the environment. I'm struggling to see who their core market is, they are clearly relying on an older generation who are more willing to accept digital deficiencies. Currently I think its a waste of money but will see how this review is responded to. Money Observer was way better.

For the last three weeks I have not received my print copy of IC and, on each occasion, telephoned customer services. The initial reason given was ‘we automatically cancelled your subscription as the Royal Mail returned your copy as being undeliverable’ I have only lived at my present address for 22 years and personally know our postman! Anyway, stuff happens, so I was reassured when customer services reinstated my subscription. Week 2 no print copy again, so call again and apparently, I had not been placed on the circulation list. Duly assured I was now on the list and would receive the Week 3 copy, I thanked customer services and waited. No Week 3 print copy!!! I have been in touch again to cancel my subscription (they have just taken my quarterly direct debit) and to request a refund on the grounds of a breach of contract, to be told we have ‘a no refund policy’, so I am to pay for something I have not been receiving! To my mind that is fraud, taking payment for a product that is knowingly not being supplied! Whilst the sum involved is not worth legally pursuing, I hope the wider world will be a little wiser of the simply dreadful IC customer service.

I must speak up for Investors Chronicle. Some of these negative reviews have obviously been written by inexperienced investors. I have been a subscriber for at least 20 years and I think the quality of the articles and contributors has never been better. Of course Phil Oakley was a big loss, but they have always had a turnaround in staff and the newbies seem very experienced and knowlegible. BUT I do have a problem with late delivery of the magazine which they seem unwilling to address.

I just resubscribed having been a previous subscriber with positive experience. I subscribed as a digital only subscriber now for the first time.
I expected for the amount I paid I would have access to the magazine online but now find I do not. It is very expensive and poor value for money. I stopped my previous subscription because of deterioration in quality and the introduction of poor quality Alpha at extra cost.

Tried a trial subscription for 4 weeks. Received them all,however only 1 out of the four arrived on time. My observation of the magazine is,compared with a few years ago,the publication has travelled downhill and not worth the money. It is also noticeable that many places that used to stock the magazine, have ceased. I assume because it wasn't selling. Avoid!

Iv'e been buying IC for 35 years and was an alpha subscriber, but the magazine has totally lost its way now and Ive reluctantly cancelled. The editor has suddenly left and so has analyst Phil Oakley - these were the reasons for subscribing to the premium alpha. The companies coverage/results and basic analysis that we all buy the magazine for has stopped, that started around last August I think. It's been replaced by wishy washy articles about crypto and sorting out the bbc etc. I'd buy Moneyweek if I wanted that! They seem to misunderstand why people buy the thing. Someone needs to get a grip here and get back to the knitting. I'm sad to have cancelled, and would come back if they got their act together.

Rock bottom customer experience. I have tried to order a digital subscription 11 days ago (4 weeks free then rolling quarterly). I have been emailing every few days on the status of getting into the digital product - with other finance magazines it's instant so waiting this long is unheard of. I get an email today - almost two weeks later - saying there was a problem with my payment method. A payment problem is something I would have expected to flag at time of purchase and have the transaction fail. Never have I had to wait two weeks to be told there's a payment problem. No apologies. No clear instructions on how to fix it. Offer is no longer eligible for me because I already placed the order. Unforgivable.

I have subscribed to Investors Chronicle for 20 years. I have had the magazine delivered on a yearly subscription and I have no problem with the service. My problem with the magazine is the alteration in layout and the decline in the product. 3 years ago there were succinct reviews on myriad companies with a box giving related figures and opinions of the reviewer. You always had to follow this up with one's own research but it had a function. This has been abandoned in favour of vague waffly articles about 'themes' which are also extremely repetitive, how often do I want to read about the risks of Crypto currencies? in the main a complete waste of time. I think it happened about the time they substituted the photos of the writers with dreadful drawings. I have been a successful investor and I always found the chronicle a useful read but to be honest I find so little in it worth reading now I think it is time to part company. Shame it WAS a good magazine yours HFC

Fast way to lose money

So many times Investors Chronicle forget to include supplements with the magazine & so many times Customer Services simply will not reply to complaint emails.

In short subscribers do not get what they pay for - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

I want to thank all of you who have provided information about this company. I feel that you have saved me from the a really bad experience.

Poor handling, subscriptions service etc.

- Every buy of theirs Ive tried has made a loss
- Every sell of theirs Ive kept has made money
- The magazine never arrives on time
- Print in magazine is too hard to read
- They are not responding to cancel my subscription - very poor customer service & no option to cancel online