The only time I had a problem with missing issues was when I moved and did a change of address - the rest of that subscription never did find it's way to me. As others said, "Contact Us" on their website was worthless. I finally got an explanation that, due to the change of ownership and, therefore, some of the services dept., there was a lot of confusion (this was one of the previous change of ownerships.) As others have said, it's just a magazine and it's just $11.99 a year, so I just re-upped and forgot about it.
That said, with all the talk about Stereophile changing, going mass-market, etc., and especially being bought by bigger publishing organizations, it seems to me that, despite the negative aspects many of us see in these changes, one thing that SHOULD be better than ever is subscription fulfillment. For goodness sake, the notion that you don't get a response from using their website to contact them is horrendous. Not a big deal in the great scheme of life, but you can hire a $6/hr temp to do nothing but respond with a semi-personal, "we got your communication and ....." type of message. The efficiency benefit of being bought by a big publisher ought to make the customer service thing better, not worse. -Kirk
