Canceling your newspaper?

I have been trying for 3 days to cancel my subscription with CJ!! I keep getting on a hold cue. First time i held for 13 min. Before it started to ring for 5 min before hanging up on me. Today I've called twice and been told to put in my phone number where they would call me back within either 8-13 or 14-24 minutes. That was over 2 hrs ago and still no call. Poorest customer service known to man. anyone know another way to get ahold of them?? You cant even cancel online!!

[Robin Garr]

They will do ANYTHING to keep their audited circulation numbers from showing how much their circulation has fallen.

About all I can think of is to keep them on speakerphone and multi-task until they finally answer.

Telling your credit card company to decline their transactions might work, but it might also have consequences on your credit rating if they chose to pursue that.

We still subscribe, although I often wonder why. Well, there's Pearls Before Swine.

I have emailed 2 different addresses. And I sat on hold for the 2nd time..this time 20 min until their officeclised. Still no answer. I hope they hate me by the end of this.

Try this....write a very short email with your subscription info and and ask them to cancel your subscription...THEN send the email to as many email addresses at the CJ as you can find....sports writers, editors, business writers, etc. RE-send this message at least 100 times...a day...until they call you back.

You may have to fiddle fart around a little...change the title of the email every so often...maybe go to an alternate email address but I guarantee you'll get their attention.

Steve.. I like your thinking! I also went on their Facebook and twitter to publucally shame them. But then I realized theyd actually have to have a conscience to do that

[Robin Garr]

Steve.. I like your thinking! I also went on their Facebook and twitter to publucally shame them. But then I realized theyd actually have to have a conscience to do that

Megan, are you on Facebook? I started a discussion over there (without naming you) to see what other people suggested. I was going to copy and paste, but it might be easier for you to look at the original. If you can't see it, feel free to send me a friend request.

http://www.facebook.com/robin.garr/post ... id=4866688

If you can, pay a personal visit to 525 West Broadway and tell them to "pound sand".

I cancelled my subscription over 20 years ago when the local carrier was always late in delivering before I went to work, and when the Circulation Dept would be closed after I got home.

I purchase just the Sunday paper @ Kroger, and then only for the coupons.

We dropped our subscription a couple of years ago; don't remember having that much trouble back then.

The thought crossed my mind to sign up for a digital subscription but I was shocked to see that they're charging $13 a month for that service -- the SAME as they charge for digital access with hard copy delivery. Does that make any sense?

All through grad school at Purdue, I'd read the NY Times daily. There was a drop box in the physics building, and about forty or so of us subscribed.

In Tucson, I enjoyed the local Sunday paper while going out for brunch (pretty much every Sunday).

But now, in 2012, I only read a print paper every month or two. And that is on an airplane or at somebody's house. I strongly (strongly) suspect my three boys will never buy a newspaper in their lives. Why would they? Their parents don't read them, and they can get more up to date news online.

The biz will be all digital shortly. I'll give it ten years. Max.

P.S. and for historical perspective, I had a paper route in Evanston, Illinois in the seventies. I delivered the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Daily News. Sundays were rough, I used a shopping cart to trudge the hundred or so huge papers on my route. But summers were fun, and I could fly through on my bicycle, whipping the papers onto porches (or nearby -hee hee). Pushing that cart through slush at 6 or 7 am in the dark, freezing temps of course, gives you an idea of what work ethic is all about.

Stop paying them.

If you are using an automated deduction from your bank account just tell the bank to stop.

Your carrier doesn't get paid, your paper is cancelled.

Keep really good notes so when they call you can tell them all the trouble you had and finally had to stop payment.

Then ask for the manager of accounts payable so you can send your bill for all the hours you spent getting it stopped.

Richard