4 January 2007

Canberra TimesDirect

| DarkLadyWolfMother
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This is a cautionary tale, for any of you who are using, or want to use the Canberra Times Direct service.

Both I, and my housemate, have used this service off and on; mostly for the Saturday papers. We’ve had reasons to cancel it for a while, and reasons to pick it up again. For the most part, this has been painless.

We’ve had a few strange incidents over the times. We recieved a paper every day, not just the Saturdays, for a few weeks. We rang them to enquire, and they didn’t seem to know anything about it. It continued two weeks after that call, then stopped. Other times, when we cancelled, we’d get a month or so where the paper still arrived, but we weren’t charged.

So when my housemate last rang to cancel her Saturday delivery, we didn’t see anything strange in the paper still arriving. Until she got a Bill, that is.

She rang to explain, and was told that there was no record of the earlier call and so she would have to pay the Bill. However they would now cancel the subscription.

For the last couple of months she’s been ringing them occasionally to try to clear this up, but with no evidence, this had no effect. Today she simply paid the Bill, as she was sick of it.

The moral of this story? As with all transactions with a business over the phone: always keep notes of date and time you rang (or they rang you), who you talked to, and enough details of the conversation to be useful.

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Canberra Times Direct was one of Stokes’ innovations when he owned the Times. This, and other initiatives, were at the expense of our local newsagents.

Well I have always got on well with newsagents – I am a voracious reader of newspapers.

But the cost saving offered by Canberra Times direct was too big to ignore.

So I signed up and cancelled my CT delivery by Robert, my newsagent, but signed up with him for the SMH (and later the FR).

And I found Canberra Times Direct hopeless. constant problems.

So I cancelled and went back to my newsagent.

For a decade or so since then I have been receiving CT, SMH and FR from the newsagent. Not totally problem-free, but not too bad.

OpenYourMind2:57 pm 06 Jan 07

Have been getting CT delivered for many, many years. Fantastic and reliable service. Even if I catch an early flight, the paper is usually already at my house.

CT is far from perfect, but I still think I get my money’s worth and certainly have no complaints about the home delivery.

VYV8, that was, basically, my point 😛

VYBerlinaV8_now with_added_grunt12:44 pm 05 Jan 07

“Surely it’s much more cost efficient to just buy a 6pack of cottonelle to wipe your ass with ? “

Once your done doing that you can enjoy the same quality journalism you get from the CT anyway.

Kerces I agree with Pandy, the FAQ does not cover everything and it is not in a clear format as some answers are muddled up in all the comments. Your ‘posting for dummies’ post under FAQ (which you have to scroll way down for, not handy when in the midst of trying to submit) are ideal. Putting it in a more prominent official spot would be good.
For example I would like to know how to change a link on a post, to say ‘link’ and not the whole address. This is not covered in FAQ (as far as I can see, maybe it IS somewhere! but not easily found).

It’s better than the just broken up and still getting over it that used to be there at least.

And perhaps you could include about writing stories if you do update.

hmm, its been a while since i read the faq kerces. i think its time JB and I updated it – u might like to take his single tag off him too 😉

I think your first mistake, is in fact, paying money for the canberra times.
Surely it’s much more cost efficient to just buy a 6pack of cottonelle to wipe your ass with ?

I find the faq not very helpful at all IMHO

duh, try the faq.. i’m fairly sure it has info about posting..

johnboy, re sidetopic about technical assistance – could I suggest for your consideration a ‘tips for posting’ section, either on its own for anyone to assist, or maybe under FAQ? It might save some editing/moderating at your end?

If you want to keep whining Luca I can add your comments to the moderation queue too.

The CT was spruiking for telemarketers for their CT Direct service: = HARD sell

Luca, when you press ‘save it’ it goes to the moderator.

Do me a favour, darklady. I’m asking you as your post is top of the queue. I’m new to this site and can’t figure out how to submit news! I asked johnboy in a round-a-bout but nice and polite way (see article on Canberra Times (Rural Press) Web Page) and … and he started to foam! Like I know how to write a post and save it (not that I want to) but how do I send it to the moderator? Thank you very much.

Two of clubs6:49 pm 04 Jan 07

Billing for papers you never asked for seems to be pretty much standard practice with the CT.
We took out a one year subscription. At the end of that year, no reminder notice was sent out to let us know that it was expiring. Instead, they just carried on sending us the papers and sent us a bill later.
And yeah, a bit down the track when we took out a Saturday subscription we also sporadically would get the paper 7 days a week.

Vic Bitterman5:15 pm 04 Jan 07

I’m not impressed with them either, but only on the delivery side of things….

I used to only get Saturday’s CT delivered directly by them. Over the years, I had so many problems mainly with papers not being delivered. When you call them up, the say re-delivery will occur in a few hours time – may as well walk down the shop and get one myself!

So I ditched when and changed to my local newsagent delivering. Been brilliant since! I can think of maybe or or two times over the last year or so when I haven’t got a paper.

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