Tired of playing games with media subscriptions services
Posted By RichC on January 31, 2014
It’s depressing to be back from a few days of sun (and rain), after a long drive from Florida yesterday, but also good to be home. 
It has been a morning clearing a few bills and accumulated mail off my desk and a light work day before Superbowl XLVIII weekend. One piece of mail, a letter from the Wall Street Journal informed me that my subscription to the Wall Street Journal will be expiring and automatically they will bill my credit card at the new price … of course an increase. This is par for the course for most subscription based services, but pretty frustrating when the jump is large. SirusXM has previously been the most offensive in jumping their rates once “the deal” rate is over, but almost all magazines and newspapers seem to play the same game. Companies know they can gain subscribers with low intro rates for new customers and make it up with big jumps on existing customers unless they call to complain … or leave and then re-subscribe (something they don’t seem to discourage).
- WSJ – I’m currently paying $213.72/yr, the increase letter takes that to $455+tax/yr BUT after my phone to cancel the rep offered me her lowest rate of $312+year. Still too high as the current intro rate is $12 for 12 weeks.
I just hate playing the game … it sure would be nice to have them appreciate long term existing customers.
So “once again,” as a long, long time subscriber, I canceled my subscription, listened to the “please continue” offer (still higher then I was paying) and will revisit once they want me back again.
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