New Scientist Reviews 

Scam because no unsubscribe button. Ok content but this feature makes it a scam for me.

Impossible to cancel. Their FAQ says it is possible to do so in the 'help' section of the 'my account' but that is nowhere to be found.

There way of taking money is a 'subscription trap'. I intended to take the magazine for only year, as a present to my wife. At no point did I think I had a rolling subscription until they took £199 out of my bank account. I only became aware when my credit card statement arrived, by which time the 14 day cancellation period had expired. I'm feeling ripped off

Cannot cancel subscription. I wanted to cancel my subscription. There is no automated function. Impossible to find how to do it. I eventually found an email and requested cancellation. They have charged me again. Abysmal service.

Signed up before and used their subscription for a short while and cancelled due to not using. Requested they delete the account and associated data as I don’t want this stored unnecessarily. They’ve ignored two data deletion requests as you have to fill in some silly form on their website. In breach of GDPR regulations and not good enough.

Update: I replied to their reply asking for more information. They have then proceeded to ignore me and have not deleted my account or reached out.

Like a lot of reviews, poor experience. Ordered a gift subscription without reading trustpilot. Gift was for Christmas but stipulated next issue following Christmas. First issue will be 6th December, when I rang to query it, they said nothing can be done it’s already processed. Enough said.

Horrible experience. I bought a subscription for my dad as a gift. Purchasing the product was a nightmare through their broken website. The app would not work. Customer service was horrible and incompetent.

In the end, I wasted hours trying to get this online. I bought a year subscription and it never got used once.

Cancelled my account with New Scientist in March 25 i now find i was charged for a subcription via my debit card on 30/10/ 2025. Ihave had no contact from the outfit since March this year after they willfully bombarded me with e-mails. They are a total mess as a company

These tours are at least 5 times the price of any other tours, espencially counting that they don't include travel fares. There are no online reviews so maybe no-one actually goes on them...?

The content itself is ok, I subscribed to get away from politics in mainstream news. I’m a physicist and a sports scientist. However, the way they trick you to pay subscription is terrible. They don’t make it clear how much you’re paying after the trial period and you can’t cancel on the app. I ended up being charged £65 quarterly!

New Scientist used to be a rigorous update on the latest scientific world, but now it is little more than a self-help magazine touting alternative remedies that have been proven time and time again not to to be usefully effective. IT hypes them because they have not checked that when a desperate researcher from a minor university says "it's still in its infancy", this in reality means it been tested every three years for the last 30 years to no avail, and that's why no bigger tests are done and that's why it's "still in it's infancy". There are a host of articles that follow this patter almost every week. They have found that touting this quackery under the guise of their old, (but now unwarranted reputation) of being good science reporting, sells magazines: clearly that's all they care about.

Back in the '80's I was a physics teacher. I had a subscription to New Scientist for myself and many A Level students for £1 a week.
Then New Scientist put this up to a value way out of my reach, let alone the students.
I asked why they did this. They said "Because we can." We cancelled our subscriptions.
Yesterday they said I could get free subscription to their weekly email letter. I subscribed.
They haven't changed. I get an email for free but I can't read any of the articles without paying.

Firstly I have enjoyed the magazine for a number of years but their subscription and customer service departments are dire!
The card I was using to pay my annual subscription was lost so I had a new card sent to me but when renewal time came round the number on file was rejected. My fault not theirs. They asked for new details which I provided but then said that didn't work either while I know it does. I phoned them and a lady said it could well be their fault as it happens a lot but nothing can be done as they have now cancelled my account. That's it. No more New Scientist!
I have had a reply from them. But it really makes nothing any clearer. Yesterday after my post here I received an Email from them thanking me for my payment (you remember the one they said they were unable to take) so I Emailed them seeking some sort of vague clarification. So today another Email arrived saying that they confirm my account is cancelled due to non-payment but to tell them if any payments are taken from my card. In other words neither they nor I have any idea of what's going on!
They should change the name from the "subscriptions department" to the "Basil Fawlty" experience! It's such a shame when the magazine itself is so good.

Broken Promises & Rotten Servive.
Copy of email I just sent:

Hi
No, don't send a replacement issue.
When an issue doesn't arrive, I buy a replacement from my local newsagent.
So there's absolutely no point whatsoever. None at all.

This is why I opted to extend my subscription for both missing issues.
Also your website agreed to extend my subscription in both cases.
When you send me the confirmation email, that's my signal to buy my own replacement copy.

But now, after 3 months, you are breaking your promise.
So I've wasted my money at the newsagent.
And wasted 3 months of my life sending you email after email after email.
And receiving nothing but more frustration.

When you make a promise I expect you to keep it.
Why do you make this so difficult, please?

My latest email to Customer Services =

Hi,
Please adjust the expiry date for my New Scientist subscription to 14th February 2026, i.e. to adjust for the 2nd missing issue.

You asked me to confirm the cover dates of the missed copies of New Scientist magazine.
They are:
(1) Missing Issue 10th May 2025.
(2) Missing Issue 28th June 2025.

But why are you asking AGAIN for the same information that you've received many, many, many times over the past 3 months (& counting) ? I.e:
(a) Already provided online via your website.
(b) Already provided via MULTIPLE emails in May, June & July.

Possible reason for missing issues?
* The New Scientist magazine often arrives in a badly damaged see-through 'protective' envelope.
The flimsy envelope is often torn and occasionally completely open with virtually nothing keeping the magazine from slipping out. And these are the ones that manage to arrive!
Obviously, if magazine and envelope become completely detached in transit then delivery becomes impossible.

* New Scientist gets wrongly delivered.
I know this because a couple of times this year my neighbours have handed over my missing magazine.

Please let me know how "...a full postal audit with our delivery partner..." can help here.

--o-0-o--

I have never subscribed to this New Scientist but they have been spamming me via text for months with news letters. I have blocked all the emails sent to me via text but I am still getting the texts/emails. I have called customer service but I am stilling being spammed by New Scientist sometimes up to 3 per day with most of the texts coming in over night. I want it to stop and must figure out who to contact to stop this if it doesn't stop in the near future. I have contacted my phone provider and they could do nothing to stop this despite me blocking over a 100 spam texts/emails.

After several phone calls to New Scientist, the complaint being escalated. I am still being told they do not know why I am receiving this emails via text. Especially given that I am not in there system, how I am I still receiving this spam

Thank you for the reply but I do not have an account. Did you even read my review I have never had an account/subscription. Your reviews tell me all about your service. Stop sending these emails immediately

After two months of these unwanted spam emails from New Scientist and two weeks of communication with them. The emails via SMS have finally stopped.

The IE Consciousness event delivered fabulous talks, each presented with real enthusiasm and learnedness. This is where New Scientist absolutely got it right. It was a paid-for event, and from the speakers, I gained exactly what I came for — outstanding insights and deep expertise.

However, the way audience engagement was handled was a major disappointment.
At the start of the session, it was announced that no questions would be allowed at the end of each talk and instead left to a single Q&A session after all talks had finished. This immediately felt like a loss of vital context — by the time questions could be asked, the nuances of earlier talks had faded.
Then, the decision to only allow questions via the Slido app left me frankly flabbergasted. Audience engagement is the soul of any great conference — it’s how confusion is clarified, debates are deepened, and true understanding emerges. Digital questioning completely undermined this. While I did download the app and submitted questions, the process felt impersonal and disconnected.
What was worse: during the Q&A, the New Scientist host, Martin Davies, proudly announced that over 200 questions had been submitted — but he selected only a handful and filtered them through his own lens. In the end, only maybe three questions were actually asked. It felt less like curation and more like censorship. His choices gave the impression that he was out of his depth with the material, and valuable audience contributions were lost.
It reminded me of Donald Trump-style filtering — controlling the narrative rather than engaging in open, honest dialogue.
This trend of disenfranchising the audience needs to stop. Conferences thrive when audiences are respected as co-creators of the learning experience, not passive consumers.
New Scientist got the speakers right. Now they need to trust their audience again.

I used to enjoy reading NS for many years but now their articles just annoy me. There appears to be no peer review or checking. Just read one suggesting homo sapiens leaving africa used oacre as a sun screen which is why they outlived neanderthals. NO proofs given and it equally obvious that the homo sapiens 41k ago just held NS over their heads.......

I seem to have been subscribed without my knowledge. Have just sent an email demanding immediate refund. If need be will have to go through the tedious process of charge back with the bank.

I was interested in subscribing to NS - I used to take it back in the 80's, but after reading many , many 1 star reviews here and the scripted disconnected responses .... I am not going to subscribe...

So well done NS, potential customer put off even before subscribing !!

You could do so much better by sorting out the subscription, and equalising the subscription cost to all customer, whether new or existing...
Make a brave move....
Offer more options .... 3 month... 6 month etc etc , with no auto renewal (or an OPT-IN renewal option, not an automated OPT-IN).... or at the very least more warnings before renewal takes place.... instead of the trap you have in place now....

with less of a cost penalty for choosing a shorter period.... and you might actually win over (more) customers....

EDIT: (28/3/25) The response from New Scientist should tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about the kind of customer service you should expect ...
Personally , good decision not to subscribe