Mark enjoys the New York Times, and is happy to support their superior acts of journalism in a modern way with a digital subscription. This subscription would allow him all-you-can-read access from computers, tablets, smartphones…you name it. He owns an iPad and an Android phone, and tried to set up Times apps on both devices. The Android version refused to work, even when he reinstalled the app. His emails about the problem were answered but evidently not read. He decided to cancel his subscription…which is when the final insult came about. They offered to extend his subscription for a dollar, but ended up shortening it instead.

He sent them this note:

I enjoy reading the NYT. Their publication provides some of the best insight and reporting, and I feel a bit better about feeling that my subscription supposedly reflects my support. However, all that seems to be undone by their customer service…

On April 30th I received an offer for 12 weeks of all access digital subscription for $5. I took up on this offer noticing it would give me unlimited NYT access for my iPad, Android smartphone, and the website. Unfortunately, I immediately noticed I had no problems accessing my subscription from the iPad app or the website, but I could not access my subscription from my Android phone despite following the steps on your site. I sent an email to android@nytimes.com explaining my problem and asking for a solution. I received a reply a couple days later telling me to reinstall the app on my phone and trying again. Unfortunately, that solution failed to solve the problem as well, and I sent another request for help, along with the steps I took so far. I then got another reply saying I was only a visitor, and not a subscriber, despite being a subscriber for at least a week. I then replied back asking them to check their records again, and to come up with another solution to resolve my Android app problem. I have not heard from them since.

About 3 weeks later (May 19th) I called the NYT subscription dept to cancel my order due to lack of customer service regarding my account. I was persuaded to not cancel my account, and instead given an offer to extend my subscription for $.99 for 4 weeks. I agreed to it under the condition that the NYT customer service would look into my original problem and contact me about a solution. I was told I would be in touch with their customer service in under a week. Once again, I have not heard from anyone associated with the NYT. Not only that, but my 12 week subscription was canceled without a refund (I had 8 weeks left!) and replaced with the 4 week subscription.

Because of the lack of customer service, and the lack of commitment to honor the agreements made to me, I’m looking to cancel my NYT all access digital subscription along with a full refund for both the 12 and 4 week subscriptions that I had signed up for.

He added in an additional note to Consumerist:

I understand I could go the the NYT website to access stories from my smartphone, but that would defeat the purpose of subscribing to an all access digital subscription, wouldn’t it?

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