I GET SEVERAL COMPLAINTS from subscribers to foreign magazines for non-receipt of their copies. The usual tale is they will get the latest issue for two to three months then the publication stops coming altogether.

I had lunch recently with a friend who used to work for a magazine distribution company and understood a little the problems of local firms that serve as some kind of courier service for foreign publishers.

My friend supervised the company?s messengers and had the daunting task of explaining to irate subscribers just why they were not getting the magazines they paid for. It turned out the messengers were diverting the publications to Rizal Avenue and similar places where there were many second-hand book and magazine buyers, selling them at very low prices, despite these being current issues. The magazine sellers in turn will sell them later at higher rates, but still much lower than brand-new prices, as bargain items.

The messengers, of course, were supposed to have the legitimate recipients sign the delivery receipts as proofs the items had been duly delivered. But, as my colleague Ester Dipasupil found out, some messengers were not ?particular? about who signed the receipt. In Ester?s case, which I wrote about a few weeks back, the messenger managed to get her father, who had been dead for 24 years, to sign the receipt. How?s that for diligence, considering the late journalist Francisco Dipasupil is buried in his native Batangas and the bill was supposed to be delivered in Ester?s home in Mandaluyong City?

Replacement isn?t easy

As my friend found out, the messengers signed the delivery receipts themselves or got other people to do it, and sold the magazines, that had already been paid for by subscribers, to other people. The problem, she said, was it was difficult to replace lost magazine copies. The foreign publishers usually sent only the exact number of subscription copies and a few extras, the numbers also set in advance, for newspaper sellers and bookstores they had agreements with.

Thus, the local distributor often could not send another copy to replace the one lost. Getting a replacement from the foreign source would take time, if it was at all possible. By the time the replacement copy got here, another issue would be out.

Local magazine distribution initially became a practical and efficient way of making sure subscription copies were delivered because the postal service also tended to ?lose? things. I myself lost several copies of an expensive foreign publication, the Scientific American, that were sent by post.

My friend eventually left her job at the distribution company not only because she was having trouble parrying complaints from frustrated subscribers but, even more worrisome, the erring couriers were belligerent, threatening her with violence?even death?when she penalized them for their offenses, or fired the really incorrigible ones. Complaints were also filed against her at the Department of Labor for termination without cause?as if selling the magazines they were supposed to deliver only was not sufficient reason to get them fired.

I do not know how local distribution companies could resolve this issue, but a priority for them should be to do a better job of explaining to clients just why they are not getting their copies. A subscription to a foreign publication is not cheap. Many people had even stopped buying local newspapers and periodicals because their budget just would not allow it. So paying for a foreign magazine is getting to be more of a luxury in these difficult times.

Local distributors have to make a better job explaining to their clients why copies would go missing often.

Refund delayed

Josephine Asuncion, a Reader?s Digest subscriber, might seem luckier than most because the publication?s distributor, AZ Direct Marketing, said the problem was simply delay in distribution. At least she had not completely lost her copies, like most subscribers.

But Asuncion said she had been getting the same excuse for several months now that she asked them to cancel her subscription and refund her the remaining balance of the amount she paid.

Asuncion said she made the request in January and was assured she would get her refund in four weeks. It is now April, as we all know, but the refund has not been made, according to Asuncion.

?To a retiree like me, P3,000-plus is not to be sneezed at. I save so that I can read the Reader?s Digest, as it has become a habit for me ... I have been reading [it] since high school. But with the kind of service that AZ Marketing gives, I would rather spend a few pesos more and buy directly from the bookstore,? Asuncion said.

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