The Wall Street Journal Sucks
I’ve got three complaints about the print WallStreet Journal (WSJ) subscription that I have:
- Delivery is inconsistent. Some days it comes, some days it doesn’t. I’d say a good 40% of the time it doesn’t come at all.
- Delivery is often late. If I get, there’s a 20% chance it’s when I’m coming home from work, not when I leave.
- Delivery “on hold” didn’t work. I put the subscription on hold for two weeks while I was in Shanghai, so what did I come home to? A huge stack of Wallstreet Journal magazines, and two emails notifying me of the hold period start and end effective dates. Clearly, not very effective.
If you want to read the WSJ (and it’s a great magazine to read), I strongly suggest you pick up the Wallstreet Journal Kindle Edition and get it wirelessly without any of the physical delivery issues.
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If you are ever contacted by Wall Street Journal just ignore them; don’t bother providing interview or any other info to a WSJ correspondent, cause WSJ will take all your info and data and will provide you with no credits in their article whatsoever.
Does anyone have any experience with receiving the paper by mail to Canada via Canada Post?
Is the newspaper delivered/packaged in a plastic bag, or just the paper as is with a delivery label on it?
How many days on average do you receive the paper after it is published/mailed to you in Canada (Montreal specifically)
All of you losers need to get a life. I’ll bet most of you are 50 to 100 pounds overweight, from sitting on your asses all day complaining about the WSJ.
Well said, James. If some complainers spent one day in the shoes of a newspaper carrier, they would be much more appreciative of the service they receive.
A few years ago, I delivered newspapers everyday for over 18 months straight in all-weather conditions with no days off during that time. Carriers not only carry their respective large local metropolitan newspapers but also the national ones as well, such as NY Times and Wall Street Journal on their route. I often had the lowest(and sometimes zero) number of monthly complaints in the warehouse. Picky complainers were one of the top reasons I finally quit. Other reasons being no vacation time for carriers and not enough pay for gas and wear and tear — the carrier uses their own vehicle and isn’t paid extra for those expenses.
Often times the large truck from the main newspaper printing building that carries pallets of newspapers, doesn’t arrive to surrounding distribution warehouses at a set time every day. Some days may be several minutes or even hour(s) late before it arrives for the carriers to start their work. Also, the carriers for most newspapers, such as at my warehouse have to manually add and fold seperate sections into each bag for the 100’s of newspapers for their route — which slows them down even more. Then, doing their daily mail(a list of starts/stops customer requests) easily slows them down as well.
The usual fat Sunday papers were the worst: more, bigger sections to manually add together, then fold and insert into sometimes required too-tight bags or any-size bags available at the warehouse. On Sundays, I used a full size truck with an 8 foot long bed and could barely carry them all. 400 Sunday papers x 5 pounds(or more) each paper = over 2000 pounds(1 ton) of extra weight to hand load paper by paper into truck bed. We had an option to leave some of the papers in the warehouse and make another trip to load up and drive back to our route–but, that would mean MORE late paper complaints!
As Paul Harvey used to say: ”And now you know… the rest of the story.”
you guys are all full of ****. you guys have nothing better to do than just sit around your house and 4 am and complain about the damn newspaper that cost you less than 30 cents a day. delivery is late, delivery is early, paper is big, paper is small, bag is ugly, bag is dirty, bag is small. who cares dude. grow up. do you know how much it would cost you if you have to get off your *** and go to the store and pick up your damn newspaper every single day?
I for one do not have the papered delivered to my home. It’s delivered to our office. We have the same problems as home delivery. Numerous phone calls, emails & escalation has resulted in…wait…absolutely nothing. I’m begging my boss to cancel it so that I don’t have to waste my time on this **** any longer. Oh, and James? You’re an idiot.
I have has similar problems 7 days without a delivery when I do get them it is usually when I get home around 8, note some mornings I leave at 10 AM so I am not expecting the paper at 4 AM I am not some lazy pothead sitting around my house all day. I called through the automated (and infuriating) system to report mis-deliverys then I contacted service agent. Three days ago I called to an agent who was supposed get the district office to contact me within 24-48 hours, more than 72 hours later still nothing. I should also mention the packaging is not standard some days it comes in a small bag, others its just flopped in, I have seen it in a walgreens bag. This service is laughable the shame is this is the only good paper left, they seem to know it.
Thought I’d share the email I just sent them – the, oh, FOURTEENTH attempt or so in four weeks of delivery failure. I’ve been unable to escalate past the call center – they simply won’t permit it or call back. ANY suggestions on how to escalate would be GREAT:
“I’m still not getting my paper. At all. I’ve tried to cancel service and you require me to call in person. Arrrrgh!!!! On Wednesday, the local contract delivery person (perhaps named Marco?) called me and was astonished that I had an issue (after THREE WEEKS of near constant inquiries), promised to deliver the paper the next morning (Thurs, Aug 19) and would follow up with me personally, and leave his card. All in an attempt to convince me to not cancel. Result? NOTHING!! No paper, no follow-up.
I think that the local carrier delivery man who covers my street is mentally-handicapped (this is not meant meanly, just based on reported interactions with neighbors), and probably needs more care and coaching when any changes happen to his route. Perhaps you could pass this along to the route supervisor. But the supervisor’s lack of follow-up last week is inexcusable.
By the way, our neighbors all gave up on WSJ years ago due to inability to deliver. You’re probably missing dozens of subscriptions because of this problem, not just mine.
Also, we suspended and resumed service in July. After resuming service, we received the paper a few times, before failing for 4 weeks. Can you please look into the suspend/resume notice process carefully? Maybe the local carrier is still getting notice that we’ve suspended, weeks after it was to have resumed?
This is by far the most horrible customer service experience I have ever encountered. You truly, truly suck at your job. Please take this comment personally. Either fix the problem, or quit your job and let someone even marginally competent take over. We’re talking about PAPER DELIVERY here – how difficult can it be?!!”
after reading all your comments, i have decided against subscribing to the paper version of WSJ. I think the online only subscription could be lower.
same here. i cannot register online unless i pay again. the customer service really sucks.
You may also want to see two entries on my blog about their inability to stop their SPAM. They have written enough about it but apparently feel impotent when it comes to stop it:
http://bit.ly/bYhJyO
http://bit.ly/aoQRFs
THE JOURNAL HAS BECOME A RAG!!! Sarah Palin is the greatest american EVER! She is greater than the Pope.
WSJ customer service sucks big time. I had both online and print editions subscribed. When I called customer service to cancel the service due to access to online version of it through company, they offered me a discounted rate for continued service, so I decide to go with it.
But for 4 months there is print edition delivered. Its is also my fault that I did not call sooner. When I called, they said I was subscribed only to the online edition and not the print edition. I was furious, since I continued the subscription only because of print edition (since I have online access thru my company). But since I called they are willing to add print edition to it for the same price, but they were not willing to extend the subscription for the missed delivery of 4 months.
I told them to cancel my subscription and give me money back!!!
wow, you’re in grad school huh?
I totally agree. I just tried to subscribe to WSJ at the recommendation of my accounting professor, and became furious that they were sending me my paper in the mail, then not at all!!! What kind of legitimate newspaper mails you their paper?!?!?! I live in Riverdale in NY, the Daily News and the New York Post have delivered to my doorstep for the last 27 years I have seen, why cant WSJ? I called customer service, got people in Florida, and even the Philippines!!! They kept extending my subscription, but I wanted the paper! One woman had the nerve to tell me that I still had access to the online edition so that should suffice. No genius, I want what I paid for, thanks. I asked them whether because mine was a student subscription (I’m in grad school), I was only entitled to inferior service. Anyway, I finally cancelled the subscription, you can find more timely, useful, UNbiased information elsewhere on the net. Hopefully these morons will credit my credit card. Absolutely disgusting.
Here’s an update on the failure of the yokels at the Wall Street Journal to do anything whatsoever about their failure to mail me my copy of the journal. Instead of calling me, as I asked, they sent me a questionnaire to fill out so as to determine just why the “delivery person wasn’t able to find my house.”
Evidently the fact that I’m not complaining about a delivery person and, instead, am just trying to get MAIL delivery, escapes them. While I love the contents of the journal I can only conclude that their subscriptions/delivery office is populated by a group of not-too-smart monkeys.
Since 1 January (until now, 23 January 2010), we have received but a single copy of the WSJ. The WSJ employees that I’ve talked to by phone are rude. The automated system simply sends back a form email telling me that everything is being taken care of.
Got to say that the people who run this paper are either out-of-touch with their customer problems are simply don’t care.
I subscribe to the journal in Houghton, MI. I usually miss two papers a week. (They usually come the next day) I think some of the problem is USPS because almost every time I call to complain, they say that there wasn’t a production issue, so it must be USPS. My service is delivered through the mail, not by a carrier.
I just cancelled my subscription, live in lakeville mn, they have rhere head up there buts, they just have to many problems getting a papper to our biz, they suck
In the past two months, I have received my paper TWICE! Their customer service phone people in Florida are rude and could care less, no supervisor to speak with, everything is done via email between Florida and HQ. Unacceptable!
I just cancelled my subscription. I live in downtown Boston and the home delivery used to be around 6:15 am. I has been running to after 7 am and sometimes not at all. I have been calling for 4 weeks and the problem was not resolved and promises for a callback by the Wall Street Journal were not kept. It’s not that good a newspaper anymore. I can find most of the stories either online or in other papers that actually can deliver their print edition on the same day it is published.
Over the last two weeks I have received more than 100 solicitation e-mails from the Wall Street Journal…sometimes as many as 10 a day. Because I don’t need more junk e-mail – I get more than enough as it is – I clicked on Unsubscribe and was instructed that it would take as many as 10 days for my name to be removed from their list. That was not good enough, in my mind, so I called their Customer Service Department. They informed me that it would take as much as 30 days to remove my name. So I went up-channel to the EVP of customer service, who has done nothing but send form-e-mails and apologies and “we’re working on it” statements.
WSJ has had plenty of time to work it out. Meanwhile I have taken to sending the WSJ spam back to Kristie Sells (the apparently powerless EVP of customer service) and other execs at the WSJ. Figured they’d like to see what my life is like.
Any suggestions on how this situation could be resolved satisfactorily?