Wall Street Journal Nightmare
The nightmare went something like this:
1. I get notices in my email box — seemingly from The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) — telling me my credit card is expiring and to enter an updated one. It looks like phishing because the sender email address had a weird initial, so I ignore.
2. I get two or three more of these emails and continue to ignore. (I’ve been taught well by the security professionals.)
3. Weeks later, I go to the WSJ app on my phone to read the morning news, and can’t get in. It tells me my subscription has expired.
4. I try to re-subscribe from the iPhone, but can’t make heads or tails out of the process. I decide to go to the laptop, which has more screen space.
5. I email customer service several times, and they respond immediately but only tell me to log into my account and only give me directions about how.
6. I log into my account and see the notice that my credit card has expired. I follow the “proceed here to update” link and provide my updated card info. When I finish, I hit submit and am taken back to the beginning of the form.
7. Rinse and repeat three times and the system is in an infinite loop, unable to take my updated card info. It bounces me to the top of the page with a blank form as if I’d never completed it, asking me to submit my info.
8. I call the 1–800 number and explain the website submission form isn’t working and that I’d like to handle activating my credit card by phone, essentially cancelling my subscription. I’m quoted a rate of $38.99 a month (or something like that) and am in shock because I’ve been paying $4.99 a month (or something like that). I cannot understand the justification for the price increase. I explain to the woman that I love my digital WSJ subscription, but ten times the price isn’t going to do it for me. She tells me I had a one-year promotion, and at the end of the promotion, the price goes up.
9. I explain there was no end — my credit card had simply expired — and she informs me that that creates an end, and now the price is $38.99 (or something like that).
10. I ask her on what basis she is quoting a ten-times increase.
11. She says it’s because I had a promotion for a year.
12. I tell her I can’t see that anywhere in the fine print, and besides, this was about updating my credit card. I also share with her that what I am seeing on their website neither says anything like this nor suggests any such amount.
13. She tells me again under no uncertain terms it is $38.99 a month (or something like that).
14. For kicks, I go out to their site again while on the phone and pretend I’m a new subscriber. I see a rate of $8.00 every two months (or something like that) and tell the rep. She doesn’t believe me and says the machine will figure out it’s me and not let me subscribe at that rate. It is, after all, $38.99 (or something like that). I tell her I’m doing it right now.
15. She is not amused.
16. I get an Amazon pay link as I’m signing up and tell her I just subscribed for $8.00 every two months (or something like that). I hit submit and sign up.
17. She continues to disagree.
18. I hang up.
By this time, I decide it’s time to go on a news diet and stop reading the WSJ for a while. I email my chief of staff and ask her if she will please navigate Amazon to cancel what I just subscribed to. I cannot deal with another “infinite loop” of online subscriptions that day — or ever, really. Days later, she was able to cancel. I can’t imagine it was easy.
I am a week into the WSJ diet and while I do miss it, I’m holding to my principle of doing without after this atrocious customer experience!
And so, I find this is modern-day customer service:
You can’t reach anyone.
If you do reach a person, they won’t help you. Further, they’ll argue with you.
Organizations don’t keep their pricing consistent across various channels and bury increases in the fine print (so that those of us who actually paid $4.99 a month can start paying $38.99 — or something like that).
And so it goes. After the Southwest meltdown, my favorite news app is following suit. Just like I’ll never fly Southwest, I’m on an indefinite WSJ diet. At every turn one is reminded it is a DIY world.
That’s how it is with online subscriptions: you get on, but you can’t get off. These days when I buy online, I check out as a guest. I never create accounts. I don’t do online subscriptions, even if I can “subscribe and save,” because they make the process so obtuse that if, God forbid, a credit card expires, you can’t update it or cancel.
This online commerce experience between Apple, WSJ, an app, website, customer service email, and 1–800 number was so scrambled that I’m still shaking my head from the insanity of it all. I’m disappointed in the WSJ for being a premium brand that dishes up service so disjointed scrambled eggs look orderly. I’ll let you know if I decide to venture into their digital waters again, but no matter what, WSJ must do better.
And, oh — I just saw WSJ promote a rate of $9.75 a week with a big slash through it and a new rate below it:
$1/week for 1 year
It says I can cancel any time. It doesn’t tell me what the price will be after 365 days, or what happens when my credit card expires. I tell myself it will go sky high and be inconsistent from paywall to paywall and site to site. (Or something like that.)