Where do I even start?
My delivery used to be fine.
Every morning around 4 a.m., a fresh new Wall Street Journal got tossed onto my front steps.
Then I moved a mile and a half--seriously not more than that. I'm still in the same zip code.
First I was demoted to delivery by U.S. mail--until the doorstep delivery could be "coordinated."
Then the doorstep delivery was an abortion--and that's an insult to abortions.
The Wall Street Journal can print a newspaper six days a week, but they could only deliver it to my doorstep four days a week.
Friday and Saturday were almost always skipped.
This engendered, as you can imagine, several more complaints on my part.
At which point I was "rewarded" (shall we say) for complaining--by having my doorstep delivery canceled and being demoted back to delivery by U.S. mail.
Which means I get the Wall Street Journal, full of hot-off-the-press financial and political news, the next day.
So far, so shitty.
July 8th I went on vacation. I had my Journal temporarily re-routed from San Francisco to New Hampshire, where I was vacationing. That was flawless! I actually got the newspaper in the mail the same day, which seems like it must have involved time travel somewhere between the printing press and my mailbox, but nevertheless, it worked.
Then I return to San Francisco--and the Wall Street Journal now cannot even manage to stick the damn paper in the mail!
Seriously. No paper Monday 7/21. No paper Tuesday 7/22.
Jury's still out on Wednesday 7/23.
In short, the Wall Street Journal has no actual interest in delivering their paper to me--not putting it on my doorstep, not sticking a stamp on it.
Why bother?
I'd buy the Kindle Reader and download it all, but that gizmo's nearly $400. Can't they manage an iPhone-style price cut to insult early adopters?
And the iPhone has no app yet for the WSJ. The New York Times, yes, and it's fairly elegant--easy to use, if slow.
So I guess I have to give up on the Wall Street Journal. Pity!
Though I was starting to detect some Fox News-ish tendencies in their reporting (making fun of the French as snobby socialists, figure that one out).
Oh, and in all my complaints to the WSJ: not one personalized email or phone call.
Moral of the story: Wall Street Journal service is like no service at all. And I don't mean that in a good way, either.
--E. R. O'Neill
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
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2 comments:
Hello there,
I live in San Jose, CA and have the same experience with crappy delivery service with respect to the Wall Street Journal.
On mornings where the paper actually shows up, it's usually wet from the sprinklers, despite my repeated requests for them to put the paper in a bag. I am sure some bozo will try to tell me they won't do this because they're going green or some shit like that.
Other days, I will get papers that I don't subscribe to, like the San Jose Mercury News. Sometimes my WSJ is there with it, sometimes not.
And just recently, my Saturday paper stopped coming. I logged on to their services web site and noticed they have me flagged to not receive the Saturday edition. Yet I have consistently subscribed to that edition since it came out.
When my subscription ends, I do not plan on renewing. It is such a pain in the ass to deal with those jackasses at the Wall Street Journal.
I feel your pain!
The WSJ must contract to independents who distribute it.
Mine comes in a plastic bag--always, rain or shine.
Of course, in San Francisco, it's always damp-ish.
The bag is a greenish color--so biodegradeable, I imagine.
After all my complaining, and then more missed deliveries--four days in a row, I believe--suddenly they started putting it on my doorstep again, and they haven't missed a day since.
But you have to complain *a lot*--like every single problem, and keep a list.
The whole thing almost made me want to buy a Kindle Reader from Amazon and just download the WSJ. But $400 for the Reader is too much.
And it would be awful to spend $400 because they can't deliver 20 cents of newsprint to your front door step.
Keep me posted on whether you get them to shape up!
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