So the NJ has put up their paywall, and you are limited to 5 articles (per week? per month?) and they helpfully count down the number of free articles you have left in a box in the lower right hand of your screen every time you click on a new article. I waited until the paywall finally went into effect to sign up (for the record, I actually buy this paper every day I am in town) and preserve my access to online articles. I’ve tried subscribing twice online and finally called today to figure out why I still can’t get the NJ online.
I initially registered on February 23rd. The NJ gives you an online subscription option, and I clicked on the Get Started button. After filling out all of the info (at first I tried to subscribe using my Facebook login, which hung up my computer), giving hem my credit card number and hitting next, I got a screen that just had this swirly circle — the kind that lets you know that something is supposed to be working. The screen didn’t change after a few minutes, and I walked away to talk to someone in another office. Got back in 10 or 15 minutes, and the swirly thing was still working. I needed my computer back, so just shut down that tab and went about my business. I tried again later in case I had just hit a bad patch and got a message saying that this account had already been created. What I didn’t have was an email notice of subscription or a way to sign in.
Today I had a chance to actually call the Customer Service number. After listening to the automated routing messages, I did get to a person who took the same information I gave to the online subscription process. Once she got to asking me what my email was, I asked her why she didn’t have this — after all, I had already given all of this information on line while trying to subscribe. The lady I spoke to was very nice and very patient (I was clearly NOT the first person she was hearing this from) — she had to be, every time she tried to explain how this was working, I had more questions — and what it came down to is that while you can go through the process online, you still have to call this subscription center to get your record activated. I asked her why this isn’t anywhere on the website — as in once they’ve taken your credit card number, why not tell people to now get on the phone to activate? The person helping me didn’t know and why should she? She didn’t create this thing.
This doesn’t make sense to me, really, but perhaps this passes muster with folks who don’t order stuff or subscribe to anything via their computers. But I did check my credit card and apparently the NJ did take my credit card number AND they charged for the partial month. The partial month that I didn’t have access to the online version of the paper. After all of this effort, the NJ has all of my info and my email and it takes 24 hours for the system to update — then I should get my online access.
Really? What a clusterfuck this is. It would have been lots easier to share the subscription of a friend who gets the paper delivered. But there isn’t much in this process that provides any evidence that the NJ is planning on delivering any better value. There is just No Way that here in 2012 that there should be a hangup this big in taking your money and providing goods or subscriptions. Crazy — and not in a good way. It just feels like I’m being penalized for trying to do the right thing. And again, I the person on the other end of the phone wan’t responsible for this — she is passing on the info she had.
Alternately, there is no such angst in supporting the newsworks.org fundraising effort. Quick, easy, secure — which is the hallmark of people who are going to respect your financial support. Plus Newsworks is good, and has a Delaware section.
Digiday has a piece on the Gannett paywall gamble. Notwithstanding the incompetence in actually subscribing online, it will be interesting to see how this works locally. The NYTimes online subscription (plus smartphone access) is $15.00/month so it looks to me like one of these papers is not priced appropriately. Plus, the NYT provides permalinks to their stuff — so if you are emailing or blogging or talking about a news event via Facebook, the NYT stays in the conversation without dinging your subscription or paywall limits.
So tomorrow ought to be the day I actually get my online NJ. I’ll be back to report on that. In the meantime, I did ask them to refund the partial month I never had access to — and was offered two free weeks this month. We’ll see.
Anyone else have any issues in signing up for the digital version of the NJ?