How the Chicago Tribune stays in business I will never know. My aunt is in assisted living and is from that generation where they got a paper every day. The Kankakee Daily Journal is a joke. Despite having “daily” in its name it only prints twice per week. Old people are the only ones subscribing to newspapers and they want a physical paper.
Yes, I’ve written about the Kankakee Daily Journal before. The day mom passed that subscription got cancelled. I needed to get her daily delivery in Kankakee and the Chicago Tribune was the only newspaper that would do it. The Sun Times wasn’t interested in the money.
Debacle After Debacle
Given her age, I get her three months at a time and auto-bill my credit card. Every renewal gets F-ed up. I have to log into the online version every few days to make certain they haven’t hosed the subscription mid-cycle. Somehow the Chicago Tribune cannot successfully auto-bill a credit card.
Well, it happened again!
I logged in yesterday and saw I had “Limited Access.” I open the dialog to manage my subscription and see.
WTF, it isn’t due for renewal until later in the month!
Nobody Maintains the Chicago Tribune Website
At the bottom of that same dialog, you see this.
That is NOT the toll free number for Chicago Tribune customer service! It’s to a scam offering free alert devices and Medicare insurance policies. Apparently, in a “cost cutting” measure, “management” (and I use that term loosely) got rid of the 800 number, didn’t bother to inform the Web developer, and a scam jumped in to take over the number. I mean, given the sloppy subscription service and complete lack of maintenance on the Website, it’s a prime number for a scam to have! Thousands of Chicago Tribune customers will call it.
The real customer service number for the Chicago Tribune is (312) 546-7900, open 7am to 5pm.
When the customer abuse bot comes online to give you the menu just say human. Each time it starts the menu say human. About the third or fourth time you get transferred to a human.
Lack of Training
The first human I got through to utilized almost passable English and tried to tell me the account was suspended for non-payment. I informed him repeatedly that it auto-bills a credit card and that nobody contacted me about anything. I’m nowhere near a limit. Finally I ask him to see why it didn’t go through. Chicago Tribune has a fetish of submitting the delivery address instead of the billing address when charging the card. Like a drug addict, they just can’t give it up.
Dude disappeared on the line. After multiple minutes of silence I started asking if he was still there. Finally I hung up and called back. Great customer service!
Don’t tell the world you are struggling to make ends meet then make it impossible for a paying customer to keep a subscription going!
Escalation
After giving the customer abuse bot four humans I got transferred to another human. This one actually knew how to use the system or so it sounded. She informed me the note on the account was that the person had moved without a forwarding address. WTF!
My aunt went to the next building over for a couple of weeks for physical therapy. They are both owned by the same company. The activities director took some of her friends from the assisted living facility over to visit her. The newspaper had still been getting to her room (which she is still paying for and still has all her stuff in it). We were picking them up and taking them to her.
Unless there was a temp or new hire working the front desk, there was no way for anyone to be telling the Tribune “she moved without a forwarding address.” People running the facility knew exactly where she was and took some residents to visit her.
Today
Today is the 11th. Escalation still didn’t fix this. Account was not due for another payment until the 21st. There were no emails or phone calls prior to suspending and no emails or phone calls about fixing.
Chicago Tribune still claims they aren’t making any money.
Duh!
You make it impossible for anyone to pay for and keep a subscription.
