jmordars

It’s no secret that newsprint is dying.  Mostly all news is delivered digitally.  Why would I wait for a morning newspaper to read the news I can get on my phone?

For a while, I enjoyed receiving the Sunday paper.  It became part of a morning routine.  Wake up, walk the dog, make breakfast, and eat breakfast while reading the paper.  I mostly get news from specific sources and have things filtered down only to what interests me.  It was nice reading the different perspectives on Sundays.  The Sunday paper also contains a lot of grocery coupons that could easily offset the price of the subscription.

My issue with this news outlet is their terrible delivery and customer service.  After subscribing, I would receive the paper late.  When the paper would arrive, it would come anywhere between 8AM and 12:30PM.  Most, if not all customers, have an expectation of receiving this ancient news delivery medium at a reasonable time.  When I delivered the newspaper as a kid the minimum acceptable time of delivery was before 6:30 on weekdays, and 7:30 on weekends.  To get a decent tip from customers, the paper would need to be delivered at around 5:30.

In addition to getting the paper late, I would often not receive the paper at all.  I would only get maybe 1 out of every 2 deliveries.  This would result in having to call the customer service line, which takes at least 30 minutes to get through.  They would often redeliver a paper later in the afternoon.  Receiving a credit on the bill was hard to get without spending a lot of additional time on the phone.

It is frustrating to support a dying service, and not at least receive the product.  After 4 missed deliveries in two months, I decided it was time to cancel the service.  The phone call for cancellation went quickly.  After explaining why I was cancelling, the customer service representative didn’t try to make it right.  I was expecting at least a conversation to try to get me to stay.  Since I was calling a few days into a billing cycle, I would still be charged for the whole month of missed papers because it is their policy to not issue refunds.

I cancelled the newspaper service at the end of last year.  Life without the paper has been simpler.  It is one less thing that demands my time, and has the obvious cost savings from killing a subscription.  I can use this saved money for something with more purpose.

For the last six weeks, I have received five Sunday newspapers.  I haven’t been billed for it, it seems to be a result of the incompetent delivery service.  I’m likely getting someone else’s paper.  I think it’s kind of funny that they are even screwing up my free deliveries one sixth of the time.  After getting a few of these, I thought it would be best to contact the paper about the error.  The only reason for doing so, is to help the person like me that is getting missed. 

After all of this, I still continue to receive the paper, which goes straight to the recycling bin.