Catch 22 and resubscribing to the N&O

Posted on March 10, 2009 by kmr

I let my N&O subscription run out last year after Mrs. EJS and I decided to see if we could stand not having a printed paper around. This decision was spurred on by our collective disgust over the Obsession vid.
A month ago I decided to re-enlist. (While I’ve had my disagreements with the paper, they’re still putting some dough into investigative work and I like that.)
So I jotted down a coupon code from the N&O shopper I get in the mail called Midweek Values.
I got an auto email back saying my subscription would start soon. A few weeks passed and I inquired as to why no paper. I got an email back from a circulation manager saying that I still owed $19 or so on my previous subscription and was therefore not a new subscriber and not eligible for the coupon discount. I replied asking her to send me a bill that I would be happy to pay it so I could formally cancel my subscription and then be eligible for such discounts.
That was a month or so ago and I haven’t gotten a reply. So far the N&O is out the $19 I owe them (please send me a bill someone) plus the amount I would have spent on a new subscription. On top of that, they also stopped delivering my Chapel Hill News.
I realize it’s not much to a company that is drowning in debt, but jeesh, at least I’m trying to help.

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One Response to Catch 22 and resubscribing to the N&O

  1. Rob E. says:
    March 10, 2009 at 4:22 pm

    We had subscription problems, too. My wife signed up at a kiosk at the mall, I think, for a Fri-Sun subscription. It didn’t start when they said it would. We called. Got a call back from the delivery person asking for directions to our place (which is an apartment complex that must have more than a few subscribers in it). Called back with directions. Still no paper. A month or two after subscribing, we were going out of town for the weekend and didn’t want to take the chance that papers would pile up (even though we had never received any), so my wife called to cancel. She was told that we somehow had Two subscriptions, which made no sense as we’d never received One paper. “Cancel them both,” says my wife and tells me later that we would get a partial refund. Partial refund? We never saw a paper! Until we canceled the subscription, that is. We came home to three days worth of papers on at our front door and continued to receive papers for several months afterward. My wife would love to get the paper, but we do not want to deal with the hassle.

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