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Sunday, December 09, 2012

A Letter To The Editor: The Daily Times And Thanksgiving

Were you aware the Daily Times felt it necessary to charge their home subscribers, who pay by credit card or automated payment an ADDITIONAL TWO DOLLARS ($2) on their monthly bill for November? When questioned, the official Daily Times response was the additional charge was for the THANKSGIVING DAY edition.

The Daily Times explanation was, they pay additional money to the delivery carriers and those that stuff the advertising circulars in the paper due to the extra ads for Black Friday.

My arguments are:

1. There was no advance notice this charge was going to happen, regardless of the end destination of the additional fee,
2. There was no after-the-fact notice about this charge. And no explanation of the need for the additional charge,
3. IF there was to be an additional charge for the paper that day, shouldn't the advertisers pay that fee, not the subscribers?

An additional five-cents per advertiser would have more than made up that fee. Additionally, the advertisements for Black Friday are not printed by the paper, they are delivered FINISHED to the paper, for inclusion/stuffing into the Daily Times.

An explanation from the Daily Times was only provided to those that chose to call and inquire. How much of the additional two dollars actually made it to the carriers and insert-stuffers?

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

what a ripoff! I paid in store the regular price. Just curious as to why dt didn't add it to retail price in stores? Crooks!

Anonymous said...

DUMP them the ads they are posting are old news. Get up to the real ages of the internet and get more valuable coupons there. That way you don't have to worry about the extra charges form them. They make a lot of money scamming people like you who give them your credit card number which was your first mistake!

Anonymous said...

Sounds like subscribers got ripped off. What does the contract say? Does it say the local rag can raise the price any time without notice?

Things that make you hmmmmm...and want to contact a class action attorney.

Anonymous said...

We routinely put in vacation hold paper requests and always come back to a lovely stack in our driveway, we recently cancelled affective today - low and behold no paper...wonder how many more weeks we will get charged? They truly STINK....

Anonymous said...

I'd call that theft under $500. There's a law against that.

George Chevallier said...

I have automatic bill pay by credit card and the charges are not known to me until my credit card statement arrives. Recently, I have been charged $13.13 for Aug. & Sept., $16.96 for Oct. and $18.70 for Nov. I think they should be a little more consistent with their pricing. Or, as someone noted, give you notice of any increase.

Anonymous said...

I wonder if the price for the paper that day went up when you bought it at the store rather than had it delivered. Did anyone happen to notice if the price went up for that day?

Daddio said...

File a dispute with your credit card company. Make `em back-charge the paper for unauthorized charges.

Queensgirl52 said...

We dropped our subscription years ago due to delivery problems. The main problem was failure to comply with delivery suspension requests, but there also were many times when we did not get the paper.

Ron Smith said...

If you go on vacation and donate to NIE (Newspapers In Education) you're a damn fool. Papers haven't been delivered to schools for years. I use to work there. That money sits in a nice FAT credit on the books.

Anonymous said...

I'm not quite sure as to why you are complaining. It's really your own fault for continuing to pay for the trash! Either cancel your subscription or stop complaining!

Anonymous said...

Don't purchase the crap. They'll be out of business soon enough.

Anonymous said...

This happened to an elderly woman who is not an internet computer user. So keep the "you should have known better" comments to yourself.