david_s._spivak

Take care, Dwight. The last person to use the word scam received a phone call from my lawyer. I work too hard and put way too much of my time and energy into this business to let idiots like you sit there with your little keyboard and try to destroy all of that.

International subscriptions take a very long time to arrive. If you guys want to sit here and complain and say I'm running some kind of scam, the first ammendment allows you that right, however; I also have rights. All subscriptions were sent weeks ago and I stand by that.

Jeremy, please e-mail me david@focusmag.info with your old address and your new address. If for some reason we didn't make the correction to your old address, I will send you a copy of the collector's edition via UPS 2-Day Air this week.

 

As far as paying for newsstand only issues, a subscription is guaranteed a number of issues for the lifetime of the subscription. If I promise you 24 issues in a 3 year time period, and I'm only able to deliver you 20, you still get 24 issues. It may take longer for your subscrption to expire, but you will get 24 issues. There was one instance where one issue was not sent to subscribers. The exlpanation was given above. If you'd like a copy of #14, you can purchase it from the website. That is, currently, all I can do about issue #14.

No, Don. You will not get your magazine this week. You were sent, along with everyone else on the list, 1 magazine in a pollybag via USPS Bound & Printed Matter. That can take several weeks to arrive in destinations throughout the US -- there is no way to tell how long it will take to arrive to your area. 2 Magazines sent UPS Worldwide Express takes a week to get to you. 1 magazine sent bpm takes a whole lot longer.

 

You told me that the "package" was in very bad condition and the envelope had it's bottom ripped out. You did not once say the magazines were damaged, nor go into any detail about what kind of damage the package had. I assumed that the envelope itself sustained damage, but there was no notable damage to the magazines because you didn't say anything about that. You also said in your e-mail, and here's the kicker, here's what I love, "and I know you couldn't do anything about this, hence, no blame to you."

 

All of a sudden I'm to blame two months later. Pretty funny.

Don -- I have absolutely NO control over how the issues arrive to you unless I fly to your address in Newfoundland. Now here's where I get pissed off. I sent you, out of my own wallet and genorocity *two* copies via UPS. I didn't mail them, I UPS'd them to you. You E-Mailed me on January 25th that you received the two copies. You did NOT mention that the magazines were beaten or torn up. It's almost two months later and you're bitching yet again about magazines that were sent out a little over a week ago to everyone. News flash Don, you live in Europe -- did it ever occur to you that it takes longer than a week for a two pound magazine sent bound and printed matter to arrive to you?

 

You never ONCE posted ANYWHERE until now that you actually received the magazines -- and of course you have to complain about it and you're telling everyone that they can't trust me right BELOW posts of people saying they got their copy.

 

There is a huge difference between people who have a legitmate gripe and are being fair about their gripe and people who just like to complain every chance they get.

 

If you would have told me January 25th that the magazines that arrived to you were beaten and torn up, I would've called UPS -- they would've given me a credit and I would've re-sent you two additional copies via UPS and made sure as hell that they arrived in pristine condition. I take pride in my magazine and fulfilling orders that people have paid for. I cannot do anything to increase the speed of the United States Postal Service, nor can I do anything, two months later, about copies that UPS destroyed on their way to you.

Listen -- I do many things for FOCUS, besides running it. I do all of the layout and all of the sales. I am not trained in, nor good at, nor pretend to be good at, customer service. This situation has been extremely stressful for me and it's hard to have customers who've been supporting my magazine not receive their subscription. I emphathize with all of you, however; I've done everything in my power to fix this.

Give it a little bit more than a week -- although the magazines were dropped off on Monday -- the post office had to go through everything, get all of the paperwork filed correctly, cash the check...blah blah. That's your federal government for you. Every single copy was finally shipped from the post office to everyone's door on Thursday via bound and pritned matter. By the 21, everyone should have a copy.

 

As far as the Decmeber issue is concerned, I would be happy to discount the normal price of a back issue to anyone who would like one -- however, I believe by extending subscrbsiptions by one year I have done everything I can do to make up for this.

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I have finally found out what the bottom line was as far as the problems with the subscription copies of the February 2008 issue of FOCUS. As most of you will recall, in June of 2007 we switched printers to a more high-end printer. Unfortunately, this printer did not have any experience in subscription fulfillment and FOCUS was placed in the hands of a mailhouse for our August 2007 issue. The price to do this was even better than the price we paid previously to do this.

 

When our December 2007 issue was printed, the mailhouse quoted me, for what was a few hundred additional subscribers, 3x as much as they quoted me previously. It turns out there was some kind of error made in their previous quote to me and decided not to tell me about it. Why this is, I still don't know. The cost was completely insane and we could not afford it. This left me without a way to distribute my December 2007 issue to subscribers in a cost effective manner, which turned the December 2007 issue into a newsstand only issue. I researched different mailhouses and each of them gave me similar quotes... my printer, out of genoricity, offered me an opportunity to mail copies of FOCUS out of his location and he would take staff off of projects they were working on to do this for me. I bought very expensive software to help me presort my list and I bought a permit and paid for an application fee with the post office. My printer's staff pollybagged, labeled and took care of everything that needed to be done on their end and, I thought, everything was good to go 3 weeks ago. Unfortunately, the post office left out one small, completely insane detail for mailing out the copies of FOCUS to everyone. They never contacted my printer, nor me regarding this and the magazines have been ready to send out for weeks now.

 

So, I finally found this out today, took care of it and now I am promised that the magazines will be sent out on Monday to all subscribers. It is, of course, very late and I as angry as I am and as much as I wish I knew I could've done something to control this, in the end this is my fault. Many subscribers have been extremely patient and understanding with me, while others, understandably have been very upset.

 

So, what I'm going to do is add on an additional 6 issues to everyone's subscription starting with the April 2008 issue. If anyone's subscription ended in August 2007, it will now end in April 2009. Subscribers are the life blood of any magazine, and when a magazine cannot fulfill orders that subscribers have paid for, it becomes quite embarrassing. We never handled subscriptions with our old printer... they took care of all the paperwork and all I did was send my list and a check. Now I've fixed the problem and it will not EVER happen again. Our next issue, the April 2008 issue, should finish at the bindery by the 7th. I anticipate all copies being mailed out by the 14th. There should not be anything that will interfere with this since I've already taken care of all of the paperwork. I apologize to all subscribers about this and assure you that you are receiving one of the finest qualitiy magazines and that you will not be dissappointed again.

Issue 15 was, as you see above, a newsstand only issue. Issue 16 is the February 08 Collector's Edition that so many people are having problems with....

 

I will be finding out today what happened with that issue.

First of all, it seems as though this is a system-wide failure of infrastructure. #1 - My internet connection via Time Warner Cable Business Class has been intermittent in the past 3 weeks. If I have 1 day with full internet, I'm lucky. I've basically had every single wire and piece of equipment that's possible replaced and still nothing. Unfortunately, I work out of a pre-war building... no, I don't mean pre World War 2, I think this building is pre-Revolutionary War. So, in order to give me a permanent fix, they have to tear up walls or something. #2 -- Even when I do have a connection to the internet, I download all of the e-mails. As I mentioned to Thomas today, I've never received an e-mail from him before today. #3 -- Subscriptions were sent out 3 weeks ago via presorted bound and printed matter. I still haven't gotten my copy and I live 2-3 hours away.... it's not like we're mailing these out of Bangladesh or something. And I have received a few querries as of late regarding this...

 

The overall problem is that this is the 3rd issue we've done with a printer who just doesn't handle magazines and we were very lucky to get involved with him... but it's been a difficult transition to this. We're both using a software that we don't fully understand, and the customer support team has been horrible in helping us. Mailhouses cost twice as much money as it is to mail the magazines out and just aren't an option.

 

So I ask, I beg for everyone's patience while I get to the bottom of this. The February 2008 was indeed a subscription issue and I did pay for this to be mailed out. Imagine your levels of frustration and multiply that by nearly 4000. That's my level right now upon discovering this week that something has gone awry with this. I assure you, whatever the problem is, it will be fixed and never ever again repeated. The April 08 issue just finished printing and is binding right now... it will be mailed out within 3 weeks to subscribers. Anyone who subscribed after January receives this issue as their first issue. For you, Thomas, as I said to you in E-Mail, your first issue is the Ferbaury 2008 issue.