Last Remaining Human Who Actually Wants To Subscribe To A Newspaper Can't
Meet Michael. He likes to read the newspaper. Sadly, his attempts to resubscribe to the Washington Post have resulted in abject failure. Hmm, we thought that newspapers were sort of hurting for subscribers...
Michael says:
I will try to keep my 4-week ordeal to try to get the Washington Post to actually deliver me a Sunday paper - for which I am willing to pay - as short as possible:
In 2008, my wife and I had a 7-day subscription to the Washington Post. We liked to read parts of the paper in the morning, and I loved to read the whole Saturday and Sunday papers. In January we had our first baby, and I cancelled my subscription in March, having not read a single word in 2 months (sorry, environment). I received a final invoice for $8.37, and promptly paid.
Flash-forward to September, when we have a little more time to relax on the weekends, and decide to get the paper again. The Post's on-line subscription sign-up system is broken, so I called them up. The helpful operator recommends that we simply re-start my old subscription but only on Sundays. I will receive a bill shortly, and my first paper is supposed to arrive that Sunday. However,
at around noon on Sunday, I realized I didn't get my paper (I forgot it was coming). I went on-line and filled out the form asking for a replacement - it never arrived. So, I called the Post. I was told that the distributor for my county didn't get the message that I had paid the $8.37 bill in March, so he wouldn't deliver the paper. They promised to call the distributor and that a paper would be delivered the following Sunday.The next Sunday - same exact story (except I remembered to look for it first thing in the morning). Again - promises that it was a simple communications mix-up that will be fixed immediately. The next Sunday (3rd in a row) - still no freaking paper! I called AGAIN - only to hear the same story again, but this time with a *twist*. The operator told me that she would have the distributor call me personally to explain his mistake. Ha ha - I explained to her that I had already wasted a lot of my time on the phone fixing this - I don't want to talk to their distributor - that is the Post's job. She then said that I would get my paper the next week (yesterday) with a note from the distributor explaining the problem.
My wife and I bet $5 on whether we would have a paper this week - I won. When I called, I found out that there were now two reasons I wasn't getting a paper - and neither involved the $8.37. Now the distributor/Post was telling me that I owed $3.00 for the papers I "received" in September 2009, and another $1.83 for a few papers I received after I paid the $8.37 in March. Amazing. I patiently explained that I can only pay bills that I receive - I can't pay magic bills that are never actually created. After also explaining (again) that I have NEVER RECEIVED A PAPER SINCE RE-SUBSCRIBING, I am not paying the $3 the distributor says I owe. Eventually, after 25 minutes on the phone, including 15 on hold various times, she credited me the $3 and we reached a mutually-acceptable solution to the $1.83 which would allow me to get a paper this coming Sunday.
Now, I know what you are thinking - who still gets a paper? Well, I like reading an actual paper on Sunday mornings - I spend enough time staring at a computer all week (and, FYI, I am only 36 - not a " grumpy old man," although my wife would classify me as grumpy, I suppose). I mentioned a number of times to the numerous people at the Post who I spoke to that I was trying to buy their product and that they were doing everything they could to prevent me from doing so. Add this to the growing list of reasons that they say newspapers won't last too much longer...incompetence.
Now, we know Michael isn't technically the last person alive who wants to read an actual paper — but the consumer base is certainly not growing rapidly. Perhaps they should get their act together.
(Photo:doviende)
Post a comment
Comments:
well, I do read the newspaper(NYT and WSJ) in my school's library, and my friend (in the same suite) has a subscription to the NYT delivered to our suite.... didn't really have any problems for him to get the subscription started
though i spend more time reading news online
My parents had a different issue when trying to get the NY Times delivered to our house (just outside Hartford, CT, so well within their distribution range). It just didn't show up most days...no explanation at all. No one at the NY Times could tell us why we weren't getting the paper, and it wasn't showing up at someone else's house (at least not that we knew of), so we just gave up.
That's OK. The Washington Post is a lousy paper anyway, get the WSJ or Washington Times if you must have a DC area paper.
Just renewed my daily subscription today for my local paper. For $1.20 a week, I get coupons on Sunday, and endless reading on the can all week long. I am 26 and have always gotten the paper since college and will as long as it is affordable.
Things like this happen to all printed things- I wanted to subscribe to a comic book, then it arrived. 4 months later.
I live in Chicagoland, and I've tried subscribing to both the Trib and Sun-Times, each a couple of times, and all have ended badly. They usually offer a 4 week trial period for free, and in every case the delivery agents have consistently failed to actually deliver a paper before 9AM 3 out of 7 days. One guy got so pi$$ed because I kept calling to complain, that he started delivering torn up papers, and papers with no wrapper in the rain. Like I'm going to shiver with fear at the wrath of the paper boy and not report those situations too.
Finally I gave up and told both of them to just forget it.
I find having an actual paper makes doing the crossword easier.
Until the Kindle gets color, much faster, and a screen where I can "flip" the pages, I will still prefer paper.
@katstermonster: The problem is the distributors, I suspect. My father was dealing with a crazy lady in order to get his NYT. Which was an upgrade from before, when they informed him that "home delivery" included "receiving it in the mail whenever it got there."
@billbillbillbill: That must be an initial offer that ends after so many weeks, no? How can they deliver a newspaper for $1.20 a week?
I would order the Times if they would deliver to my zip code. Unfortunately, they do not. I guess I'll just read it online for free.
@billbillbillbill: Agreed, the local paper is wonderful, but local paper != Washington Post.
Or, local paper ~= Washington Post, for all you Matlab fans out there.
On the flip side, the Atlanta Journal Constitution used to NEVER, EVER give a crap whether we got our paper or had any problems. Now that we are their last remaining subscriber, we rarely have a problem, those problems are dealt with quickly, AND we always get a follow up phone call from customer service asking if everything was taken care of. I kind of like being one of the last newspaper reading dinosaurs!
The Boston Globe costs $637 a year including Sunday, The WSJ is around $200. Guess what I get?
I read the New York Times with that snazzy Times program. I used to use dead trees, but you know, this was cooler.
My favorite used to be the flip side: "sample" newspapers would just start arriving without anybody asking if you wanted them.
Because you weren't expecting them, and especially if they delivered after you went to work, the papers would just sit around in your driveway or lawn. And if you were on vacation or on some other trip, they'd just pile up.
You might as well have raised a big flag in front of your house saying, "Hey! I'm not home! Please burglarize me!"
@UCLAri: The sheer amount of people (myself included) who I see reading newspapers on the train to/from work makes me think that physical media isn't going away any time soon...or ever.
i just wanted to let everyone know that i am 36 years old and my wife is 31, and both of us read the los angeles times every morning and have paid for the privilege to do so through 2011. as long as a city that we live in publishes a newspaper, we will happily subscribe and read it daily. print is not dead - be careful what you wish for.
@humphrmi: Paperboy? When was this? The 1980s?
It's usually middle-aged men in rusted-out 1982 Malibu stationwagons (or thereabouts) that deliver papers now, it seems.
I'm just waxing nostalgic on how society and the newspaper delivery job for kids growing up seemed to have moved on from each other....
@supercereal: Oh its going away. The problem with newspapers these days is the cost of the paper has NOT increased with revenue gained.
Its VERY expensive to print a newspaper, and its come to a point ad revenue + reader revenue does not make up the cost of printing and production, forget about salaries.
The only way this will ever be stopped is if you will continue to purchase a newspaper for say 10-20 dollars a issue.
I am sure I know the answer to that one.
More reason to read it online or buy something like a Kindle. Sorry, buddy, but print is on its way out and it sounds like every newspaper knows it. I'm sorry you had a bad customer service experience, but time to modernize!
@frank64: maybe i have a new subscriber deal...but i'm paying 31 dollars a month for the globe, 7 day a week delivery to southern NH.
@Hanshiro: LOL. I couldn't have put it better. Except maybe like this...
@fs2k2isfun: How sad for you, that you have run out of toilet paper! Thank goodness for the Washington Times!
@Mr_Human: Yyyyyupp. And that doesn't even top the list of reasons I will never buy it.
Had the same experience as the OP with getting Sunday delivery of the Philly Inquirer. Theres a Satruday and Sunday component. In 5 weeks (10 delivery opportunities) it showed up three times. We'd call, they promise to make it right, and didnt. Finally called to cancel, they promised the moon and stars, what-ever. Finally agreed to cancel the account, and they screwed that up too. Hooray for chargebacks. Oh, and the Inquirer filed for bankruptcy this year.
@katstermonster: the distributor is why it took 3 days for my paper to start being delivered. the boston globe had called to ask if i enjoyed the globe, at which point i said i haven't received it.
but now i have other problems with the globe....i wanted to discontinue the auto-bill, bc the auto-bill means no statement. i mean if verizon can send me an email saying "xxx.xx dollars is being charged to your credit card", the boston globe should be able to do as much
@sponica (on furlough): Yeah, you can get special 6 months subscription for half price if you are a new subscriber.
The WSJ price is my renewal price, so I think it is standard.
@Falcon5768: I'm not saying that newspapers themselves won't go away, and I couldn't care less about the cost-benefit analysis. My point was that a purely digital means for storing and accessing written text (novels, magazines, textbooks, etc.) will never, ever be adopted.
Of course, I say this with a background in physical media, à la holography and optics. This either means that 1) I'm a bit biased, or 2) I have more insight into the industry.
I subscribe to a different Sunday paper, but they are constantly calling to sell me to a full week's subscription. I can't seem to convince them that I'm happy with the Sunday paper but am willing to cancel if they keep bothering me.
Probably my favorite part of this article: "I patiently explained that I can only pay bills that I receive - I can't pay magic bills that are never actually created."
That's a great way of putting it. I'm going to refer to things as "magic" as much as possible from now on.
@bobert: My friends are in YEAR #3 of their "free trial" subscription to the Chicago Tribune. They got it when they first moved into their house, quickly realized that they're not home enough to read it and prefer to read online, and called to cancel.
I think they've now canceled it at least half a dozen times, and it just keeps piling up. Occasionally, it will stop for 2-3 months, but then it will restart with no explanation. They've never paid a dime for it.
Quite the business model.
@UCLAri: I'm still debating a WSJ subscription. I'd love one, but what guarantee do I have that my paper is going to be delivered to me by the time I leave in the morning? It's a lot of money to gamble on that, though I'd like to try because I love the WSJ.
I'd get a Sunday Post as well, but Washington Post insists on me getting the other days as well, and I don't want that. I'd rather read the WSJ in the morning, and the Post on Sundays for the coupons!
I had a similar problem with the local fishwrap here in Phoenix. Instead of writing a check (who still does that?) for a 6 month renewal, I signed up for the so-called "easy pay" option that deducts a set amount from a CC every month. When my paper stopped arriving, I tried going online to find some information but they didn't have a record of me online so I called. The automated phone service didn't have a record of me as a subscriber either. I finally got a real live person on the phone who told me that my paper was stopped because I owed them money for some unknown reason. Impossible since I previously paid 6 months in advance. They confirmed that after I told them to check their records. Then they changed the story to say the money was owed for a new subscription that wasn't paid in advance. When they couldn't explain how that could have happened when they acknowledged my signing up for the easy pay and having my CC# on file, they said they'd remove that past due charge and start up my paper again. The paper still didn't show up for a couple of days. Before I called to complain, I checked my CC company's website and they charged me for my first month. It took another call and two supervisors to get the damn paper going again.
A few years ago, I subscribed to the Baltimore Sun - mostly for the Sunday coupons/circulars. I seldom actually got the paper - then figured out why when I got a bill with one of my neighbors address on it. Evidently they had left the first of the two digits off my number, and my neighbor kept the papers, but did fix the address on the bill.
The funny thing is that I probably spent an hour on the phone getting it sorted out. You wouldn't think it would have been that complicated.
Something similar happened to me once, and they wanted me to pay $40 to a random guy who goes around making collections for the delivery agents at FOUR A.M. I called the publisher and, apparently because not a lot of people do that and she wasn't therefore suspicious, his secretary put me through. I said that not only was I not going to pay without a physical bill, I certainly wasn't getting up at 4 a.m. and in no universe am I handing over money to a random strange man at my door. Especially not at 4 a.m. The publisher agreed this seemed to be a bad system.
I ended up with six months free.
@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): Don't they just leave you an envelope? That's what our people did.
@ThinkerTDM: Not all printed things. I subscribed online to Consumer Reports, and my magazine arrived in the mail three days later.
@UCLAri: I'm half OP's age and I still like my paper...Sit back in the mornings with some breakfast and catch up on yesterday's news...
My local paper has outsourced it's subscription services to an outside company. I used to be able to call the paper and have a missing (or stolen) paper re-delivered within hours. Now my call goes to a automated menu system that, after I supply my info, promises but doesn't deliver a paper or a credit.
@katstermonster: I once worked as a delivery person for the NYT. It was a learning experience for me in many ways, and not a good way to make a living. Very hard on my car too. But I digress.
There is NO excuse for you not getting the paper. The local distributor knows exactly how many papers each driver is supposed to get, and that's what they get plus maybe one extra. Zero waste is expected.
The drivers have a list of the addresses and know which ones get papers on which days. It's all counted and accounted and there is no guessing. If the driver is smart, like I was, they will reorganize the route into one that makes sense and saves time.
If the driver is not doing their job, their supervisor WILL find out about it and A) deliver a paper themselves and B) ream out the driver who screwed up, and C) replace them if they don't shape up.
The drivers are all independent contractors and are totally disposable. Especially these days when people are happy to take any job. The supervisors are hardly in a more secure roll. They can get replaced at whim as well. If quality is still an issue, then it's because the regional delivery manager doesn't give a crap. And in that case, the paper itself doesn't care because a problem that big should get noticed by the publisher's office.
All that said, I used to get my local paper delivered at home. The thing was stolen on an almost daily basis. I live on a corner lot and people would just cut through my yard and grab a free paper on the way. On dew-covered mornings, there were footprints and bike tracks all over the grass. And rarely a paper. The local paper refused to do anything about it (unlike the NYT when I worked there) so I quit getting the paper.
@UCLAri:
As much enjoy reading the paper over breakfast, i would rather be illiterate than pay for any "news" in rubert murchochs holdings...
@IfThenElvis: I'd suggest either a chargeback or sue them in small claims court. Either one will grab their attention, and hopefully result in better service (nobody likes to tell their boss why they're being sued).
I still subscribe to the dead tree edition of the WSJ because I really enjoy reading it on the train on the way to work. I'm a 20-something and I can't come to prefer digital formats for newspapers. Call me a troglodyte, but I still think paper has advantages.