Today I got my email notification that my weekend subscription to the Saturday Sun and Sunday Province was due for renewal. I noticed an increase in the bill, $1.40 for the 6 month period and wasn't taken aback with that. What did surprise me was when I looked a little closer at the bill, it said that my delivery was for Saturday only. Where did Sunday delivery disappear? And now I'm thinking why did the price go up if they dropped a days delivery?
Let me give a little history of my newspaper delivery. I started daily delivery of the Vancouver Sun in 1990 when I first moved here. And shortly added in the Sunday Province. A few years later, I added in daily delivery of the Province, so was then getting 2 papers Monday to Friday and the Sun on Saturday and the Province on Sunday. I kept this up until nearly the end of 2010, when I decided that since my new paper delivery could only seem to deliver the paper early enough for me to take to work maybe once every 3 to 4 weeks, it was time to stop the weekday service. Besides, by this time, I would read all the news online, and the only real benefit of the paper was the daily crosswords, since the news was old. There was also the fact that since before the Winter Olympics, both the Province and the Sun were available for free at the Canada Line stations, as well as numerous suburban bus routes. I worked early mornings and could get the papers there before it was delivered to my home.
So, there I was getting the 2 weekend papers paying less than $50 per month for both. About 6 months later, I received a call from the Sun who offered to give me daily delivery free for a trial period. I said I didn't need it, but they wanted to do it anyway. I guess they wanted to increase their readership figures for advertising purposes. Well after my 6 month trial period ended they wanted to know if I would continue, I said no. I was happy with 2 days a week. So that's how it was, and I got an increase to my bill of $1.40 for the next two 6-month periods, which would last me until next week.
Now I get the bill as mentioned earlier. So, this morning I shipped off an email to the Sun asking what happened and why did things change? Their response...your account is setup for Saturdays only on a 6 month term and the cost is $50.36. So I once again ask why their terms changed? Why did they drop Sunday from my delivery after all this time, and then increase the cost for delivering less product. Their response...We can add the Sunday Province only on the account for $4.98 per month which is a promo rate, please advise. NOT!
OK, I'm home shortly after 15h00 and decide I am going to call them directly and speak to them to see if I can get a clear answer. Search out the customer service line, and at approximately 15h25 I make the call. After selecting the correct buttons to speak to an operator, I get, 'the customer service department is now closed. You will now be directed to our automated service.'. Wait, it's not even 15h30 and their office here is closed? Let's try again. Same thing. Lets try the toll free number. Same thing. WTF! Oh, there's a switchboard number for the office downtown, I'll call that. Please hold to speak to a representative. The office hours are 08h30 to 16h30, please leave a message. OK, what time zone are they on? Does anyone work there?
I'll try advertising. It's ringing. I get a recording, for sales and customer service, press 1. Keep listening. Finally, continue to hold to speak to an operator. Hello, Julie speaking. How may I help you. Finally, a live person. So, after explaining to her why I am calling her instead of the department I should be calling, she is empathetic in the fact that the outsourcing of their call centre to places outside the country may be the issue, but she will try to help me. I explain further to her what my issue is, and she offers to send an email to her manager right away, and ask him to have someone call me back about my bill. I had also said I wanted someone from Vancouver to call me and she said she would ask for that as well. She did say she would try to get them to call today, but couldn't guarantee it. I explained my work hours are a bit erratic, so I am difficult to get a hold of.
It's now 22h10 and I didn't get a call earlier (I didn't expect one this late), so it is likely they will call tomorrow...when I am at work. I'll see what message they leave, but it is very likely that unless they offer me what I had before (I can accept the $1.40 increase), I will be cancelling my service. I can get the copies of the crosswords I want from elsewhere, and that really is the only reason I still get the weekend papers. As I noted before, the news is old by the time the paper gets here. I think that the media is looking for ways to kill their hardcopy printed news and layoff workers so they can go to an online version only. They'll just need someone in a place of cheap labour to update the web pages with local news and they will save a load of money. In the meantime, they'll lose me as a view of even their online versions. I have enough other news sources available, and with twitter, I get breaking news when it happens now.
Well, that's my rant for the day. It's bedtime and I want to get to the gym early. Have a good night all, and wish me luck when/if I get to speak to the representative from the newspaper tomorrow.
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