U-T San Diego

Lousy paper. Lousy customer service

I purchased a item from UT SAN DIEGO. The item came damaged, i called and they asked me to contact the company, 3 months later i still have not recieved a responce from either. Never again will i purchase anything from UT SD.

I continue to have garbage dumped on my lawn despite complaints.
When i stop at the light on the corner of Leucadia and El Camino Real in Encinitas, the sellers swarm my car, bang on my windows and are agressive and rude
I am now collecting all of the plastic bagged garbage and I plan to throw it on their property and lobby. If everyone did this maybe they’ll get the message. If I have no recourse, then they have none either

I have been getting the newspaper, here in Oceanside North County since 1978, since it changed from North County Times to the current UT San Diego, I have had nothing but problems from delivery to 2 accounts being active. I have spent hours on the phone trying to resolve this. They had my payments going into an account, that they closed when they opened with the new UT, SO THE NEW ONE WAS NOT BEING PAID, I HAD A CREDIT BALANCE ON THE OLD ONE, DUH. I even had a collection agency calling me threatening me that my credit would be affected. I HAVE NEVER HAD A COLLECION AGENCY CALL ME IN MY LIFE. I pay my bills. I thought I had it straightened out in Feb of 2014. I have an automatic payment every 4 weeks. They started again… I have never seen a business that is so inefficient with their accounts. I have been a loyal customer all these years, I was a customer in San Diego from 1970 till 78 when I moved to north county… I AM NO LONGER A CUSTOMER… MY ACCOUNT IS CANCELLED. You just chased off a customer who has been with you for 37 YEARS.

I hesitate to improve this review by one star up to 2 stars, because I don’t understand why it took almost 5 months to finally get this right, after probably around a dozen phone calls (see previous review).
But I want you all to know that as of last week, I am FINALLY getting my papers as scheduled! I previously was getting my Sunday paper most of the time, and never getting the Wednesday through Saturday papers for my Wed-​Sun subscription that I started in September 2014. It was still a surprise when I opened my door this morning and I saw today’s edition!
What happened recently? I made another phone call but more notably I wrote a detailed, honest Unilocal review. I really doubt U-​T San Diego checks Unilocal to gauge customer satisfaction… but you can’t ignore the fact that the same week I wrote the Unilocal review, they finally started delivering my papers.
I am LOVING have my daily paper and finally knowing all the local news that’s fit to print, which I can’t really get from just following CNN or the national news sources. And navigating through the U-​T San Diego Web site, I can’t always find the news stories I want to read so I prefer the print edition, like the dinosaur ex-​journalist I am.
I did not cancel my subscription.

My first newspaper order was a bust. The agent at Walmart told me I would be paying $ 3 a week and I had gotten charged $ 45 so I cancelled it and reversed the charges.
I decided to try them out a 2^nd time. I paid $ 23 for 2 month subscription on November 7^th, 2014. I never saw a single paper until Dec 8^th, 2014. On December 8^th I received two papers and then none.
I had talked to many managers and they told me my refund was being processed. It doesn’t take 3 months to give someone a $ 23 refund! I would seriously give them no stars.
IF YOU ARE SMART DON’T GET YOUR PAPER FROM UT SAN DIEGO! GO TO LA TIMES AT LEAST THERE YOU’LL GET YOUR PAPER :)

I joined my company in July and one of the first things asked of me was to restart our UT-​San Diego subscription for Mon-​Sun delivery. Sounds simple enough, right? For most companies it would be since 1) we are not a new customer and 2) I had all of the information to get it restarted. I had called and requested to restart service along with an update to the information on file (adding my new work email and removing the outdated email on file). I ended up calling NINE times over a course of four work weeks. In fact, here they are in the order of whom I spoke with:
⁷⁄₁₄ Jessica
⁷⁄₁₅ Cecily
⁷⁄₁₆ Brittany
⁷⁄₂₉ Mary
⁷⁄₂₉ Severo
⁷⁄₃₀ Ginger
⁸⁄₄ Hanna
⁸⁄₅ Brittany (again)
⁸⁄₁₉ Miranda
Each rep confirmed that the changes were made, the account information was updated, that I would receive a confirmation email and a receipt, yadda yadda… What could have been completed in one call took nine. They promised paper delivery would be immediate — as in next-​day (but wasn’t), they confirmed that the old email was removed from the account but on more than one occasion they emailed important account information to that old email, and they basically said I would receive things in a certain timeframe — which never happened. They said that I could expect an emailed receipt within 24 to 48 hours (which I get is fairly standard if not on the slow side) but never received. Obviously, there is a massive disconnect between the «customer service» and the «service» aspects of their organization.
In another strange but fitting turn of events, our accounts payable department misplaced our last U-​T invoice and our U-​T account lapsed. I had to call the U-​T again to once again restart our service and request a receipt. I spoke to a gentleman on November 14 to restart the subscription, and called again on the 19^th because I never received my emailed receipt… Of course, that brings me to today, sans receipt three weeks later. I called again and requested the receipt, and casually mentioned that I haven’t been receiving my Sunday papers since our account was restarted. The rep confirmed that both were going to be included in the «escalation report» which he was going to send to the «Union-​Tribune San Diego Supervisor»… I could’ve been irate and irrational on the phone and demanded to speak with that supervisor but — ugh — it’s pointless.
Unlike many people online, I don’t care to comment on the quality of the writing and the content of what they publish. As the primary newspaper in the second largest city in California, one would assume that the U-​T San Diego would have their stuff together. I don’t Unilocal as often as I should, but if I have to speak with 12 customer service reps* in the span of less than five months — I have to say something. My issue isn’t with their reps, because I’m sure that they do the best of their ability and training, and their «system» is probably not the appropriate one for the work they do, and I’m 99 percent sure that their operating system is not as fast or intuitive as it should be. Certainly the processes that the U-​T upper management have in place are nowhere near efficient enough to handle the speed of the instant-​gratification culture we live in.
So, U-​T San Diego, I am truly disappointed about your lack of follow-​through. You’ve been a staple in San Diego for years but dependability is key to a happy customer. If I know your Customer Service number by heart, that is NOT a good thing…
*I have to admit, I haven’t heard more depressed and sullen customer service reps than those who work for the U-​T San Diego, which makes me feel sorry for them. If my radar is correct, these reps probably don’t work directly for the U-​T but handle customer service calls for a bunch of different companies (it’s always noisy when I call and the U-​T cannot be dealing with that many calls). They sound like they deal with complaints and irate ass-​backwards people all day long. As a former customer service phone rep, I know firsthand how truly awful that type of work and environment is and to work for an incompetent company with a nearly obsolete product must be the worst. /​rant

What a quandary. My relationship with the U-​T goes way back in my adopted home town. Back to Neil Morgan and Helen Copley. Back before there was such a thing as the word online. I still like their online format better than any other news site. Yet in the same breath I find certain things about it to make me hate going there. Why?
I may know a little more about marketing and selling than I should, it kind of ruins life sometimes. I know the sneaky little world of click-​throughs and how they can be manipulated to snag the advertisers’ dollar. Honestly I am immune to net ads, if you paid me $ 1000 I could not tell you the name of one advertiser I have been exposed to at website I visit in the past year. Okay, pay me a million dollars and I will purposely start looking at ads.
I also know that agencies spend a lot of time convincing gullible corporate management that certain tricks will increase their ad revenue. What the gullible corporate management never seems to figure out is a way to measure if those tricks actually increase ad exposure or if they end up pissing their customers off.
Count me in on the side of being pissed off when I log in to the U-​T San Diego website and encounter the «slide», you know, where the entire page pushes up or down to reveal an ad. I will tell you with 100% honesty that when that happens my finger is highly trained to scroll the screen to push that ad OFF the page. In no case will I ever look at it and in every case will I be pissed off at the U-​T for frustrating me when I am simply trying to read the daily news. Hello U-​T corporate management, you have been sold a pile of manure … the people who told you that making your customers angry is a good way to increase your profits have lied to you. It doesn’t work.