[Vision2020] Thinking of Subscribing to a Local Newspaper? BEWARE of Telemarketing Gig

[Darrell Keim]

Sandra:

I may be wrong.  But, I believe that if you tell W.P. Direct to remove you
from the list it is law that they have to.

On Sat, Dec 18, 2010 at 12:24 AM, Saundra Lund <v2020 at ssl1.fastmail.fm>wrote:

> Visionaries:
>
> Please note that I'm cc'ing this to the pertinent folks at the Daily News,
> not that I expect a response (the Daily News certainly hasn't risen to
> challenge to provide quantitatively equal coverage to non-NSA & non-Logos
> area schools).
>
> Close to four months ago, I decided to give the Daily News another try
> after
> reading some wonderful editorials folks posted here from the new editor.  I
> wanted to give it a fair shot but was unwilling to go back to an annual
> subscription, so I subscribed to the online version for three months.
>
> I'm used to getting renewal notices when subscriptions are about to expire
> rather than taking personal responsibility <g> to put a reminder note on my
> calendar, which was apparently an error on my part.  My subscription ran
> out
> over the Thanksgiving holiday, which I didn't notice right away until I
> tried to log in a few days later.
>
> Not a problem, I thought -- I just went through the renew process online,
> which seemed to go smoothly according to the messages throughout the
> process.
>
> Except that my subscription didn't restart as it should have on the date
> the
> system gave.  No biggie, I thought -- I just sent an email to the Daily
> News
> on 12/3 & included screen shots that indicated the process was successful.
>
> I've not received a response.  At least my bank account hasn't been
> debited!
>
> If the saga ended there, I'd likely not be posting now.
>
> However, since my subscription expired & my renewal apparently didn't take,
> I've been plagued by phone calls from a telemarketing outfit called West
> Park Direct (216-589-0214) that TPC Holdings (owner of the Lewiston Tribune
> & the Moscow-Pullman Daily News) contracts with.
>
> When your subscription ends for any reason, TPC turns over your name &
> phone
> number to West Park Direct to try to get you to subscribe again, and then
> even God can't help you.  You can look forward to endless calls from West
> Park Direct until hell freezes over.  Less than a month after my
> subscription ended, I've given up trying to keep count of how many calls
> we've received.
>
> And, I just loved this part:  even though we've been enrolled in the Do Not
> Call Registry since its inception, calls from West Park Direct are exempt
> because I was STUPID enough to do business with the Daily News, which
> thinks
> it's OK to give out my name & phone number to West Park Direct, so West
> Park
> Direct has free reign to call me for the next 18 MONTHS before I can file a
> complaint with the FCC to get them to STOP calling.
>
> I cannot tell y'all how DISGUSTED I am.  We pay for phone service for OUR
> convenience, not so that we can be harassed by a NATIONAL telemarketer on
> behalf of a  LOCAL businesses we entrusted our personal information to.
>
> IMO, the Daily News ought to be ashamed for giving over former customer
> information to telemarketers, and current subscribers should be aware that
> should you decide to stop subscribing, you, too, can look forward to
> telemarketing phone calls.
>
> For those thinking of subscribing, BEWARE!  Pay in cash & refuse to give a
> name or phone number -- demand that your subscription be tied to your
> address only or else be prepared to be hounded from the depths of hell by
> telemarketing phone calls.
>
> And please be sure to spread the word.  I've gone through everything I can
> find with a fine-toothed comb, and NO WHERE do I find any disclosure that
> TPC Holdings will turn over our personal information to a flippin'
> TELEMARKETER!
>
>
> Saundra Lund
> Moscow, ID
>
> The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do
> nothing.
> ~ Edmund Burke
>
> =======================================================
>  List services made available by First Step Internet,
>  serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>               http://www.fsr.net
>          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
> =======================================================
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20101218/5a7cd99b/attachment.html