Complain about a product or service

The San Jose Mercury News

Hernan of San Francisco writes (11/6/01):
I was contacted one evening by a telemarketer who asked if I would like to receive the Mercury news for a "trial period". I reluctantly agreed after securing a promise from the telemarketer that the trial period was fixed and that no proactive action would be required by me after the trial period to cancel the delivery of the newspaper.

The trial period passed and I only read a few issues of it, since I live in a large apartment complex and I don't usually walk by the lobby where every tenant's newspaper is delivered. A few weeks later I recieved a bill from The Mercury News because the trial period had indeed rolled over.

I immediately called Customer Service at The Mercury News to complain that I had been lied to. They didn't seem much surprised or embarrassed and blamed me for not reading the fine print attached to a piece of correspondence I couldn't remember having received. After a little waiting on the phone, they agreed to cancel the bill.

Yesterday I recieved a collections notice from Collectech Systems informing me that I owe The Mercury News $19.67. I called customer service and was told that there was nothing they could do for me. Even after I explained my previous experience with Customer Service, I couldn't get help.

I finally asked if I could speak to a manager and was put on hold. The individual on the phone returned to say: "Sir, I have some good news. We found your complaint record in the computer and the claim is being dropped. Please hold." Then the phone went dead and I was listening to a dial tone. I immediately called Customer Service back and was connected with another individual who insisted that he could not find any such complaint record and could not put me in contact with a manager. He said he would contact billing to ask them to review the account and gave me no assurance that the account would be cleared.

I was told to wait 3-5 business days to be contacted by mail about the $19.67 The Mercury News says I owe them. Meanwhile, I have an open claim with Collectech Systems and my credit might be affected. This feels like extortion. I'm willing to bet that I won't hear from anyone except for Collectech Systems when they send me a second collections notice. I am willing to spend hundreds of dollars to not pay this $19.67. The Mercury News is committing a fraud.

Hernan doesn't need to spend hundreds of dollars. We suspect that three or four dollars will do it. He should send a copy of this complaint via registered mail to the publisher of the Mercury News, with a letter politely stating that hell will freeze over before he succumbs to these heavy-handed tactics. We spent many minutes futilely trying to find the publisher's name on the paper's Web site, which lacks a simple device called a Search Page. The address is:

San Jose Mercury News
750 Ridder Park Drive
San Jose, CA 95190

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