Update to my situation…
I sent an email to customer service yesterday afternoon, asking three questions.
When can I expect official notification of this?
Haven’t received my FSM Nov/Dec '25 paper copy issue yet. Has it been shipped?
Will my local (Canadian) hobby shop continue to receive print copies for retail sale?
Regarding question 1…I received official notice from Firecrown, via an email, this morning.
Regarding question 2…we, in Canada, have been enduring a recent full fledged postal strike, which, to this day, continues as a partial rotating postal strike. So, that likely explains the delay on my Nov/Dec copy.
Further, in the Firecrown email, received this morning, it states that “Due to ongoing delivery challenges, we can no longer guarantee reliable postal delivery of Canada or international print copies after November/December 2025 issues.”. The way that is worded, I expect to receive my Nov/Dec '25 issue. Be it 2 months, or 2 years, I should get it.
I mentioned refund in my email, along the lines that I’m inclined to request one. But I have not officially requested that yet. Part of that decision will be dependent on their answer to question 3. Still mulling over other options as well, which includes possibly just making an annual purchase from Trains.com of the six per year bi-monthly print issues.
The auto-reply to my email states that my email will be processed within 2-3 working days. Not sure exactly what "processed’ means, but regardless…standing by.
Got the same notice today. Let me know how your request goes. I don’t even have a shop or bookstore close by that carries the magazine, so I’m not sure what I’ll end up doing.
I received a reply to my email from customer service this morning. Five working days, not 2-3, but I digress.
The email did not answer any of my three specific questions.
Rather, I was provided with a song and dance explanation as to why Firecrown made the decision to suspend print copies to Int’l/Canada subscribers.
I hadn’t even asked for an explanation as to why, but I was provided with one anyway.
Meanwhile, did I mention none of my actual questions were answered? Oops, sorry. Yes, I mentioned that.
I replied to the reply asking, once again, my original questions (except for question 1, as I did receive the official notice).
Delaying my cancellation pending the answers I expect to my questions.
I think customer service is broke. With Tim’s help, I finally received an email from cus ser stating they would be mailing the Nov/Dec issue to me, good news! A day later I get another email from someone else in cus ser stating that their records show I only subscribe to digital only. I replied to that email and still no response. I did notice that the account number I have is the same for both FSM and MRR. Up to this point they always had different numbers. I wonder if Fire Crown somehow merged the accounts and in the process screwed up the FSM side of things. I’ll probably try a phone call on Monday if I haven’t heard anything by then.
Ok. Heard back from Customer Service. It appears they did a database merge and that might have been the reason for the missed issues. My sub has been changed to print and digital, the way it should have been. Hopefully, it is all taken care of at this point!
Since my last posts in this thread there was another thread created, and gained steam, specifically regarding the Canadian/Int’l subscriptions issue. Bit of a head scratcher what to post where.
For continuity sake in this thread, here is the latest to my situation. Moving forward, I’m involved now in the other thread.
I received a second reply to my questions.
My question regarding has my Nov/Dec print copy shipped yet, was replied to as follows…“Our records indicate that the Nov/Dec issue is available in digital format”. Again, that’s not what I asked.
My question regarding (given the postal concerns) will my local (Canadian) hobby shop continue to receive and have FSM available for retail sale, was replied to as follows…“Please contact your local hobby shop to obtain the necessary information”, which I did yesterday. Unfortunately, the owner wasn’t in at the time. Walked away still wondering, but at least I got my print copy of the Nov/Dec issue from them (which conveniently just arrived in stock this morning). Time will tell if I end up with two copies.
As for cancelling my subscription… phoned customer service this morning. I’ll post details of that in the other thread. Not gonna double post about that here.
Tim, it has been over 30 days since you have replied, and still nothing from your FSM and Firecrown Customer Service representatives and no Sept.-Oct. issue. What gives? I guess I will have to send an antiquated letter to the Big Dog at Firecrown, and tell him about the worst customer service in the world.
@richs26, as far as I know, you never forwarded your information to me. If you have and I didn’t receive it or I missed it, I apologize. I have worked with other readers to get their missing issue sent out. But also please feel free to mail whomever you would like to at Firecrown. It is your prerogative to do so.
Tim, I reported it twice to FSM which the first post said they were looking into it. The second one, I never got a reply and blew me off. I went to Firecrown corporate and never ever got a reply for the 2 complaints I sent. This weekend I was going to write a letter to the FC CEO to complain about it.
Rich Scheuerer
[address and email]
Rich, I went back and found my emails to customer service regarding your missing issue. Sorry this fell through the cracks and I didn’t follow up with them. I will do so today.
