San Jose Plutonium News

San Jose Mercury News: Thank you for choosing text. May I have the phone number and address associated with your MERCURY NEWS account?  How may I assist you today?

b1-66er:

<phone number and address elided>

I would like to cancel my trial subscription, thank you.

SJMN: Thank you for your text.  Unfortunately we cannot stop the paper via text. Please call customer service.

b1-66er: It's not the paper I'm trying to stop, it's the digital subscription.

SJMN: unfortunately I have no authorization to cancel an account via text

b1: This seems (almost intentionally) difficult.  I can always do it the other way and tell my credit card to deny everything to you.

Which is fine by me.

I'm trying to be nice, but you guys aren't.  There's a trap door to subscribing, but no obvious exit once i have.

Or is that what's meant by "trial?"

SJMN: I do apologize, unfortunately I have no authorization to cancel an account via text, please call customer service, but I will pass the feedback to my superiors.

b1: The reason i started TXTing you was because the phone voice prompt suggested it due to interminable waits.

How many rings do i have to jump through to say "no?"

I worked on customer service stuff at AAPL.  It's super clear that no one has ever tried walking through this tree as a customer.

SJMN: Thank you for texting. Customer Service is now closed. You will receive a response during our regular business hours.

<No follow-up TXT was ever sent.  I called my credit card the next day telling them to deny.

A couple days ago i got a postcard from the SJMN telling me they were charging my "account" $9.95.  The next day i got a letter from my credit card saying the "paper" had attempted to charge 99 cents to the card.

Such are the tribulations of life.

And to think that I've done some writing for them.>