Having just discovered a staggering $910 (!!!!) in unexplained and unauthorized charges to my MasterCard by the Wall Street Journal (no, these were not legit renewal fees), I have just spent what seems like the better part of four days telling my story on the phone to one customer service rep after another, each of whom has found a new way to lie to me. (“We’ll call you back by the end of the day” was the most frequent lie, followed by “we’re putting through a half-refund now and someone with higher authority will call you shortly to arrange the rest” — which turned out to be two lies in one). Finally, I decided to send an email with the whole sad story, asking for a refund and mentioning that I sure hope there won’t be any resulting confusion that interrupts my delivery service. I got an email back saying “Per your request, we’re cancelling your delivery service”. Today I had no newspaper — and still no refund.
Think of the top three worst customer service stories you’ve ever heard. Chances are excellent that versions of all three have cropped up along the way in this sordid saga, the details of which I will suppress because I’m sure they’re less interesting to you than they are to me.
But I will mention this: Aside from the lying, and the lying and the lying, there’s also the fact that absolutely nobody appears to keep any record of these conversations, so that each time I call, I’m starting from scratch, explaining the whole story to a customer service rep who won’t put me through to a supervisor until I rehash the whole thing, then waiting on hold ten minutes for said supervisor, who needs the entire story told from scratch again before connecting me to the department that’s really equipped to deal with this, where I wait on hold for another ten minutes before telling my story yet again and, 50% of the time, getting disconnected. When I call back, it’s back to Square One.
Oh, yes….and they’ve also studiously ignored my repeated requests/demands that they expunge my credit card number from their records, and refused to acknowledge my repeated notifications that they do not have my authorization to charge my credit card for anything ever again.
I have always been a strong believer that punishment is justified only as a deterrent, and never for revenge. I am hereby carving out a special exception to that belief for the customer service staff at the Wall Street Journal, who I sincerely hope will suffer ghastly deaths due to imperfections in the $910 bottle of wine they’ve bought themselves with my money.
Really. Do not let these people have your credit card. There are other newspapers out there. If you want the news, read the New York Times. If you want brilliant commentary, check out the blogroll on the right side of this page. No publication in the world is worth even a small risk of this kind of abuse.
Edited to add: I just dropped a line to WSJ customer service alerting them to this blog post (and attaching a copy of the text). They wrote back thanking me for my inquiry about how to get an article published in the Wall Street Journal.
Would it not be easier to go through your credit card company at this point? When I’ve dealt with this before, they told me to go through the vendor first, if at all possible, then if that doesn’t work out to call them back.
A book I read a while ago hints that, to some extent, companies behave “rationally” only in the sense that they all behave randomly, but those which by luck happen upon rationality thrive until the dice turn.
Your experience lends credence to the hypothesis.
I hope you get through to someone rational in the WSJ soon.
It sounds like it’s time to get your credit card company involved. They should clean up fraud pretty quickly for you.
Isn’t that some company that used to print stock quotes on dead trees? I think I saw some copies in my grandpa’s attic once.
I agree with Joe and David Grayson: the magic word is chargeback.
This is where you get to see just how good a credit card you have.
For instance, Amex historically does a good job of fighting
bogus charges, while Discover tends to credulously accept whatever
the company tells them (YMMV).
The big advantage to credit card chargeback (aside from getting
your money back) is the deterrent/revenge part. A pattern of
chargebacks against a company will tend to get the credit card
issuer to raise that company’s rates. An extreme pattern of
chargebacks can even get the company dropped from being able to
accept that type of credit card.
Was this money charged all at once or was it in small amounts over time? Were they the ones listed on the statement? As a WSJ subscriber myself, I’m a bit curious.
Either way, here’s an idea: Send them an email saying you refuse to write a weekly econ column for them because the salary they offered was far too generous. By their logic, they might make you editor-in-chief!
To those who are telling me to contact my credit card company: I’m ahead of you. But of course, while the creditcard company might help with the $910, they can’t restore the delivery of my newspapers.
Actually, even though you didn’t ask for it, without knowing all the details, I think cancelling your subscription is probably the best approach. They know how to do that. They have a button they can click. The computers will close your account, calculate your balance, and issue a check. Then to restore service, just re-subscribe on their web page. It seems like more work, but all the steps are things they know how to do without calling supervisors.
Arg Automated systems suck. I have nothing actually useful to say but in the spirit of misery loves company.
Here is a funny comic about automated services http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0007.html
and here is a candidate for top 3 worst customer service stories
http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-from-cents.html
Steve, just contact Stephen Moore at the WSJ editiorial page, and you will have this cleaned up by the end of the day, and probably with a gift subscription for the next 3 years.
Leave something on their Facebook page and/or twitter feed. They respond much better to these, especially if you have a large internet “footprint”
I too am somewhat surprised that the WSJ doesn’t provide you a free subscription. Of course, we are talking I think about the physical newspaper, as I assume you get the online version for free through your school.
My iTunes account got hacked about five years ago, with $100 in fraudulent charges made to the credit card they had on file. Their customer service required that I call the bank holding the credit card. The bank required a police report. The police refused to take my statement saying that internet fraud isn’t their responsibility.
Thankfully, I have a cop brother in the city in which I lived. I called him. He called his major. His major called the major for the district in which I lived. Within three hours, I had a policemen at my door, personally dispatched by the district major. I got my $100 back in two days.
I can tell you customer service sucks everywhere. Baltimore PD sucks. Apple sucks. Surprisingly, the bank was awesome. It’s a small credit union, which may have made the difference.
I’m sorry you’re having this problem, Steve, but as mentioned above, you should also be talking with your credit card company. I would also file a police report against the WSJ, as well as file a Better Business Bureau report.
The update is the most astounding part of the story, in my opinion.
My experience has been that telephone customer service operations serve roughly the same function as bureaucratic red tape in government: They provide “the theater of service” without actually delivering anything tangible. I always figure out a way to get what I want outside of the context of customer service. The most reliable way for me has been to contact local sales reps, etc.
Have you tried reaching out to the local sales/delivery people?
Steve,
If you want to forget all about this awful experience, rent from U-Haul. Most likely, that will work similarly to having someone punch you in the nose to make you forget a paper cut.
I’ll spare everyone (and myself) the details here. My experience with U-Haul (apparently equaled and even surpassed in severity by many experiences of others with U-Haul) is my “Don’t even get me started” experience.
I will say this, FWIW: Upon my own initiative I was able to accomplish the move despite U-Haul’s best efforts to make that impossible, and afterward, after raising hell through several iterations via emails and phone calls, I ended up with a full refund plus compensation for the extra expenses I incurred to make the move possible despite their screw-ups, even though I had to overcome the repeated “It’s not our policy to pay for that” objection.
Steve edit this post to add your Mastercard #, so that we can crowd-source a solution.
This business of subscription services (like the WSJ but they all do it) taking your credit card number and then using it later to renew your subscription when you haven’t requested renewal bugs me. Can you imagine giving your credit card number to a pizza shop for a delivery and then receiving unordered pizzas thereafter? Why do the credit card companies let the subscription services do this? I now pay by check.
Neil:
This business of subscription services (like the WSJ but they all do it) taking your credit card number and then using it later to renew your subscription when you haven’t requested renewal bugs me. Can you imagine giving your credit card number to a pizza shop for a delivery and then receiving unordered pizzas thereafter? Why do the credit card companies let the subscription services do this? I now pay by check.
Agreed, but this wasn’t a case of that. My subscription comes to me free as a college professor via the “Journal in Education” program, so there is no renewal fee. What you’re describing is a scam; this was more like a random mugging.
A few years ago I moved to Puerto Rico, and called WSJ to change my address for my subscription. The agent told me that they couldn’t deliver to PR. I asked for the next day USPS delivery that they do in rural areas in the US. As its a territory USPS delivers to PR at the same rates as in the US. But the agent told me they couldn’t do that either.
Already having a bit of an idea of life on a small island, I said, “Okay well thanks, it doesn’t surprise me. I’ve found a lot of services aren’t available in PR.” And the agent told me it was surprising because he had successfully changed someone’s address to Micronesia the day before.
So they were random 6 years ago and have continued on the roll.
I read them online for a while, then they put up the paywall and over time I just transitioned to reading other things, like this blog and the blogroll on the right. They just became irrelevant for me.
Your best revenge would be watching them become irrelevant for people like you. Just stop reading them and cite this as the reason. There’s other news sources, and many that pick up the same stories over the wire.
Or, submit this blog post to the editorial page. Since NewsCorp doesn’t control the editorials, who knows, maybe they’ll print it.
Go directly to the top, stop wasting your time dealing with flunkies. Call the CEO–you’re famous, it will be easy–complain directly. You’ll probably even be thanked for alerting them to the problem.
Your “Edited to Add” almost cost me a new keyboard. I’m sorry they’re being such lying liars to you, but really that’s funny. Now it’s up to you to follow through by trying to get them to publish this.
Yes, I would think the CEO of the Wall Street journal would know who Steven landsburg is.
Steve,
If you get the subscription for free just for being a professor, why does the WSJ have your credit card at all?
I’m sure in one of your books you write about the irrationality of picking up a $5 bill, which otherwise would have been lost forever. If you don’t pick it up it will reduce inflation by $5 but if you pick it up you expend 1 cent’s worth of effort. Therefore you gain $4.99 but cost the world $5.
They have gained $910 and you have lost $910. Spending time and effort trying to get the money is just making the world poorer… unless you write a blog post about it…
Ouch. ;-)
Maybe customer service at newpapers is bad everywhere? The Austin American Statesman couldn’t figure out how to get our delivery going, so after weeks (6?) we cancelled and got our money back.
I will say that I am happy with the WSJ delivery service to my iPad every morning ;) And I no longer have to go out in the rain to get a soggy paper. It’s the little things…
I always use a temporary credit card number for these kind of transactions.
I try to use someone else’s credit card for these transactions. Someone with a common name, like Steve.
I believe Sandra Fluke is running that department now.
I love the paper but I will never subscribe again. I was a subscriber to their digital edition and then after one year they jacked up my rates to something ridiculous. But canceling was not as easy as subscribing; I actually had to call and talk to someone. Maybe not such a big deal, you think, but it angers me that I have to waste my time on the phone with them when there’s no technical reason why you can’t cancel electronically. It also angers me that they jacked up the rates. Lesson learned: never subscribe to the Journal. I still occasionally buy it at airports though.
Your ETA made me laugh aloud. TOTALLY try to get this published in the WSJ – I would love to see how far along it goes before somebody finally notices its content.
Isn’t this just a case of the “free market” I keep hearing about? Corporations get to do whatever they want, and you can choose to buy their stuff, or not. What’s the big deal? They needed $900, and you’re free to leave if you don’t like it. Everything in the world works like this now – it’s just a variant on “privatize the profits and socialize the losses.” You econ guys should understand, not sure why you’re complaining.
Have had two similar experiences in last year. One was with an unauthorized charge to a Citi Bank Master Card. The other was a billing screw-up by ISP Time Warner.
Dispute the charge with your credit card company.
I still don’t see how anyone would think that 910 dollars for a subscription is anywhere near the market rate, unless you were paying for a group of subscriptions. If not, it seems like a no brainer to revert back to a single subscription rate.
Finally, you don’t need a subscription anyway. For articles that are “gate kept,” and you can’t get in with a direct link, i have always been able to get them by googling the article, and then i’m able to get in.
Good luck.
Never give the Wall Street Journal your email address either. I booby-trap the email addresses I enter into websites with the name of the site embedded in the address, so that if my email address ends up being passed to a spammer I can see what company either sold my address, or else was hacked. Then I can block that address individually and inform the website that they have a security problem, or else are breaking the terms of their own privacy policy. (This method is a very effective spam-blocking measure, and has lots of other security benefits: e.g. you can instantly identify whether an email from your bank is legit because they use a unique address that only they know.)
The Wall Street Journal appears on two or more occasions to have passed my email address, as used on their site and nowhere else, to widely distributed spammers’ lists. I blocked each address after the spam started arriving, and informed the WSJ both times. There was no response of course. Only a very small number of other sites has ever leaked my email address in this way, and most of them responded when I pointed it out to them. WSJ is by far the most notable company to leak my address to spammers, and one of very few who didn’t reply to my mail about it. Don’t give the WSJ your email address unless you want to become a spam target. Google their articles instead and read them for free.
So, Professor, are you regretting all those speeches you gave trying to convince your 207 and 108 students to subscribe to the WSJ? They must have been *really* evil for you to write this.
ZT:
So, Professor, are you regretting all those speeches you gave trying to convince your 207 and 108 students to subscribe to the WSJ?
Absolutely.
WSJ did this to me too. They don’t ask if you want to renew your subscription. They just charge your card for another year, then leave you to battle it out with subs department. The nightmare only ended because, fortunately,my credit card expired. Then I received a plaintive letter begging for my new credit card info.
Here’s my worst customer service story, from June 2011. Most of this comment is a names-removed version of a note I posted on facebook right after it happened. I also emailed a slightly less snarky names-included version of the story to the corporation’s customer service.
We were ultimately victorious and within an hour, so this isn’t even in the running for a “worse” story. But it’s still funny:
—
Even if you don’t know the difference between a plastic blob and a diamond, I promise that this wedding ring story will not fail to entertain. I expect it to be the worst customer service that I will ever receive in my life.
My then-fiancee (CH) and I bought her wedding ring at a CR Jewelers. The ring on display was way too large, so as is usual, it had to be resized down to a 5.25. We returned to pick it up, and it seemed to be too tight (Fail 1.) An employee assured us that CH would get used to it (Fail 2.) Within five minutes of getting home, CH’s finger was swelling enough that it was clear that a larger size was needed.
After entering the store, CH said that it was way too tight. “Oh, so you just aren’t used to yet?” (Fail 3.) No, you idiot. You don’t get used to swelling. Part of the problem was that the wedding ring was a contour band, which means that it’s two rings that fit around the engagement ring. CR had not asked for the engagement ring to assist in the resizing process (Fail 4.)
This is when we first met The Evil Manager. She entered the conversation to tell us that it would be another $30 to resize the ring (Fail 5.) I, of course, insisted that we had already paid for the resizing.
“Nothing is free these days.” – The Evil Manager.
“I know, that’s why my receipt says $30 for resizing. See, it’s right here” – me.
Around this time another employee had gotten out the rod used to measure the size of a ring. The reading? Size 5. Pointing to the “5.25” on our receipt, CH suggested that this may be the source of the difficulties. So at no additional charge, they took both rings back to resize them properly. Furthermore, after additional tests with the sizing rings, CH decided that size 5.5 would be appropriate. Had the story ended here, it would not have merited a facebook note.
It was too tight the next time as well (Fail 6), and although we considered taking it back immediately, we took The Evil Manager’s suggestion that we should take our time deciding (Fail 7.) It was tight, but not terrible, so it was a few days until we decided for certain to have it resized again. This detail will be important much later in the story. (Of course, this also means that CH very wisely cheated slightly and wore her wedding band early.) We took it back again and were having a normal conversation about it with two of CR’s employees. They were trying to understand the ring’s resizing history, while we were all trying to figure out the rings’ current sizes and the desired size. I have no doubt that the situation was under control at this point, and we were well on our way to being satisfied customers with a ring that fit and at no additional charge.
And then, The Evil Manager decided that she needed to be a part of this conversation too (Fail 8.) That’s right. Her mere presence merits a fail tally. While walking toward us, and at a distance of 15 feet, The Evil Manager insists:
“It’s too tight because you’re sweating” (Fail 9.)
“It’s too tight all the time.” – CH.
I further explained that she had been wearing it all day for several days. Now, The Evil Manager began explaining how the problem is that the wedding band alone is two bands, so with the engagement ring, it’s three bands, and that make it feel tighter than it really is (Fail 10.) Yeah. We got that already. That’s why we asked for a 5.5. Just then, one of the employees finished checking the size and it came out to a 5. Let me interject here that I have no idea how it could have been this small. It was 5 before, and it had gotten bigger since then, although I did not end up having a chance to satisfy my curiosity before a distraction arose.
“So tell me what size you want.” – The Evil Manager
“Well, we’re still trying to figure that out for sure. But the issue hasn’t been knowing what number we want. The issue so far has been that it hasn’t been resized to the sizes that we’ve asked for.” – me
“A GEM!” – CH
“First you asked for 5.25, then you asked for 5.5, and you still think it’s the wrong size. What size do you want?” – The Evil Manager
“A GEM JUST POPPED OUT! IT’S RIGHT THERE.” – CH
At this point, CH picked up a diamond off the table. You see, The Evil Manager had been flailing her arms a lot while holding our ring. She had now managed to make contact between the ring and the table, and a diamond had now popped out. That’s Fails 11, 12, and 13. Popping the diamond out is Fail 11. Completely ignoring CH’s insistence that she had just popped a diamond out is Fail 12. Fail 13 is just because, well, because breaking a bride’s wedding ring right in front of her is just fucking epic.
Your garden variety Evil Manager is just a jerk. An extra special Evil Manager breaks a customer’s wedding ring right in front of them while trying to cheat them. But this manager truly went above and beyond the call of Evil Managerdom. It turns out that it was our fault that the diamond popped out (Fail 14). You see, rings get weaker when they are resized a lot, and we were the ones requesting all the resizing.
“The reason multiple resizings were needed is that you didn’t get it right.” – me
“Me? It wasn’t my fault.” – The Evil Manager (Fail 15)
“Whether it was you personally or not, CR Jewelers failed to resize the ring twice.”
“Well, I guess it is both of our faults.” – The Evil Manager
At this point, I walked off to the side with CH to discuss what happens next. Putting the diamond back in place for free and resizing it for free was not going to be an acceptable resolution. Our ring had been proven to be defective. What happens if the diamond pops out again next week?
We told The Evil Manager that we would like our money back. The Evil Manager replied that they don’t accept returns after 3 days, and it had been more than 3 days (Fail 16). Remember that detail, subtly introduced, and then forgotten as the story quickly moved on? It’s amazing how well this plot device works, even when the detail’s importance is clearly labeled. It had been more than 3 days because The Evil Manager had told CH to try the undersized ring for a while to see if she got used to it.
“We aren’t returning it because we just decided that we don’t like it. We’re returning it because IT BROKE IN YOUR HAND.” – me
“I’m sorry, the policy is in writing. It’s right here on the sign, and it was on your receipt too.” – The Evil Manager
At around this point, a potential customer entered the store. He left quickly.
I tried a new approach. Frankly, we walked into the store absolutely loving both the ring and the price, and we thought the hassle of three resizings was annoying, but totally worth it. Hoping to rewind to this point in the day, I said that I would accept a new version of the exact same product. The Evil Manager’s initial reaction was to say that this was the only one that they had, but very quickly she decided that she liked this out, and had an employee begin seeing what it would take to order another one. While this was happening, The Evil Manager wanted to try to check the size of CH’s finger again.
“You’re shaking. Are you okay?” – The Evil Manager
“I’m very upset!” – CH
“Would you like a piece of candy?” – The Evil Manager (Fails 17 and 18. When you offer candy as consolation to a bride for breaking her wedding ring, that counts as two fails.)
I quickly released that we needed to get out of the store immediately, so that CH and I could talk. We took the ring (and the loose diamond) several hundred feet to a bench to discuss our options. The resizing-twice-makes-diamonds-pop-out explanation was obviously a lie. In hindsight, I can see how the ring design is prone to problems due to very small diamonds sticking out on the edge, and now we knew that the manufacturer is not up to the challenge of making this design work. CH wanted our money back. I waffled back and forth a bit about the implications of the fact that I said that we would accept a different ring. We decided: Plan A: ask for the money back in the store. Plan B: ask the corporation for our money back. Plan C: take them to court – we would have a stunningly sympathetic case, and we were sufficiently angered to go to the trouble. We returned to the store and said we would like our money back.
“I’m sorry, but we can’t accept returns after 3 days.” – The Evil Manager
“You can’t tell customers to try it for a while and see if they like it, and then tell them you don’t accept returns after they try it for a while and don’t like it.” – me
“We seem to be going in circles.” – The Evil Manager
Yes, we are going in circles. She has a circle of idiotic statements that she keeps making, and I keep pointing out the obvious. Her many repetitions of “3 days”, “no returns after it’s resized”, and “it broke because we asked for too many resizings” have been greatly reduced to grant mercy on the tortured readers’ minds. Sadly, this means that the precise incrementing of the beloved fail counter must also come to an end.
Eventually, Plan B began, and we requested the contact information of her management. She began walking into the back room with the phone. At this point, the broken ring was in her hand.
“Could I have my ring back, please?” – CH
“I’m not going to steal it! We have plenty of diamonds already.” – The Evil Manager
No, but you might hold it ransom, order us a new one that we don’t want, and conveniently dispose of the evidence. After giving the ring back, she got out the phone and began making a call. CH explained that we actually wanted the number so as to call from home, but The Evil Manager had already dialed, so she walked into the back room with the phone.
While she was gone, I talked to one the employees and got The Evil Manager’s name: KH. I’m guessing that throughout the whole ordeal, we interacted with five employees plus KH. All five were very friendly. The only complaint about any of them is that we once got the “you’ll get used to it” line, but I think we all know where that came from.
The incredible thing about this experience is just how close CR Jewelers came to having two reasonably happy customers – had KH avoided the last confrontation by doing nothing at all, I think that would have been my assessment. Trying to cheat us out of $30 for a second resizing during the prior visit wasn’t cool, although the ring would have been a good price even if marked up by $30. The engagement ring that I bought from them continues to be an excellent ring for an excellent price, and it was resized correctly in one try.
After a while, KH got off the phone with her management. They decided to give us a full refund, including for the resizing. We signed the receipt and she wished us a good day. We did not return the sentiment. We also made no attempt to pretend. I know that she was humiliated in front of her subordinates. I hope that even her version of the story humiliated her to her boss. And now, KH, I hope your boss learns precisely how you treat your customers.
Afterward: In response to my email, I received an apology, a $50 gift certificate, and most importantly, the email suggested that KH had to take some version of “sensitivity training.” I walked by the store several times over the next year, and I never saw her working there again.
I once got a free subscription in addition to a paid subscription to the WSJ. Instead of sending the free year after the current paid year, even after I filled out all of my current subscription information to add the free service to my current one, they just sent me two subscriptions at the same time! They didn’t combine the accounts after I complained, they suspended one, which caused problems with my internet subscription ending on one when that account went to holiday mode. It took multiple calls for them to understand the mess of the two accounts they made for me, and at the same time they treat you like you are the idiot. The WSJ has the worst customer support. Worse than ATT or Comcast, and that is saying something. I have recently received a renewal notice for $600 for May, even though my free subscription will start next May. This is odd in itself since I originally got the $150 educator rate. They can’t keep anything straight. I will call them, inform them that I am also recording the call, and notify them if they charge my credit card that I will immediately charge it back. Luckily for me, the free subscription is on another account, so it most likely will still come.
I am considering not requiring my students to get it in the future if I can find a fairly good alternative.
I used to love the print WSJ, BM (before Murdoch.) I still do receive it, mostly for the op/ed pages, but a year or so ago when they jacked up the subscription price, I cancelled. A few weeks later I got a solicitation for giving a “gift subscription” of ~$100/yr for print and online. So I gave a subscription to my dog (who, luckily, has a human-ish name.) At the same address. And they filled it. Go figure.
BONUS: …I can also tell that WSJ has sold its subscriber list (again) when junk mail comes in his name! Oh, and I set up a .gmail account in his name & he gets lots and lots of marketing emails from WSJ. Which I delete periodically, with a quiet chuckle.