December 28, 2007
What Happens When You Try to Cancel the Online Wall Street Journal
- Dial 1-800 369-2834
- “International direct dial rates apply to this 800 number.” OK.
- Menu… Press 2 for online Journal
- Menu… Press 2 to cancel online Journal
- No one available to take your call. Click. Automatic hang-up. Annoyed.
- Re-dial 1-800 369-2834
- “International direct dial rates apply to this 800 number.” OK.
- Quickly Press 2 then 2 (the advantage of listening to the menu once)
- Phone rings! Human being (”Darlene”) answers!
- One minute ten seconds to confirm that I am who I say I am (security questions, etc.)
- Darlene: “What can I do for you?”
- Me: “I’d like to cancel the online WSJ”
- Darlene: “Can you tell me why?”
- Me (cheerfully): “No.”
- Darlene: “We’d hate to lose you.” (launches into shpiel)
- Darlene: “Let me extend your subscription by 60 days.” (They’re hoping I’ll forget to cancel but of course I won’t.)
- Me: “OK.”
- Darlene: “Have you customized the home page?”
- Me: “No.”
- Darlene: “Are you online now? Are you logged in to wsj.com now?”
- Me: “No.” (wanting to end the call)
- Darlene: “I can see that you are online and logged in.” (Creepy shades of Orwell (or is it Huxley?), this also means she already knows I haven’t customized it… very creepy.)
- Darlene gives canned shpiel about the benefits of customizing WSJ start page.
- Me: “OK, Darlene, thanks for the 60 day free extension. I’ll call back before the end of February to let you know how it went.”
Total call time: four minutes thirty-five seconds. Reminds me of AOL. I once had a free AOL account as a dial-up back-up, and would call every 60 to 90 days to “extend” my free trial. I did this for two years. Let’s see if I can do the same thing with Dow Jones.
Cat: | Time: 7:30 am (utc+8)
December 28th, 2007 at 7:45 am
Don’t get suckered by free extensions, you’ll just forget (or have it nagging on the back of your mind, wasting tons of time for the duration). It’s better to kill the subscription there.
Extra bonus points for being a phone operator ninja if you use Get Human and go directly to an operator first.
December 28th, 2007 at 8:01 am
haileris: I use the Remember the Milk firefox extension for Gmail (I’ll write a post about this to-do list sometime) and therefore never forget or have it nagging me.
Thanks for the gethuman link … it looks like their WSJ number has no edge over mine.
December 28th, 2007 at 8:25 am
Way to go! Please keep us posted! I’m curious to know how it goes! :-)
December 28th, 2007 at 9:18 am
This is one of the reason why I like this blog…creative & ingenious. ;)
December 28th, 2007 at 10:04 am
You have nothin on Ugly ;)
December 28th, 2007 at 10:27 am
Love the mouth eye pics. Opens up possibilities.
December 29th, 2007 at 7:50 am
thats priceless. enjoy the freebie!
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:41 am
I guess the more readers that subscribe, the higher they can charge for advertisements… Most newspapers make the bulk of thier money off advertisements anyways…
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:34 am
Nabloid: I guess you have two things going on … subscription revenue and advertising revenue. Maoxian.com for instance, once I start charging for the ideas, will (if successful) make around $5,000 to $10,000 a month in subscription revenue supplementing the $5 to $10 a month I take home from advertising, lol.