Decline of Wall Street Journal under Murdoch Management (credit card, rich, purchase)

[Teak]

This is not a thread for wild accusations, just calm presentations regarding the decline of the Wall Street Journal under the "management" of the Murdoch media empire.

Several years ago, before Murdoch's company bought out the WSJ parent body, I began to subscribe to the online version since I enjoyed the print copy immensely. The Journal had always been one for long, in-depth features about often non-mainstream topics regarding economics. For example, I can remember one about the economics of fly-fishing shops in Montana. I sent a reprint to a friend of mine who is an avid fan of fly fishing and bamboo rods. One could always depend upon a well-researched and well-written articles.

The rate at which I first subscribed was only $79 for a year. After two years, this rate jumped to $99 but then held steady until the Murdoch purchase. Since then both the quality of the Journal has declined and the price has rocketed upwards.

Murdoch has turned the Journal into something closer to USA Today, the quintessentail McPaper. Short, often poorly-researched articles; popular topics better left to People magazine and its kind. And comment sections.

After seeing several years of 30%+ jumps in price, I finally bailed. Last year I paid ~$158 for a subscription and this year they were demanding $208, an increase of 32%!

Of course, the Murdoch gang has also made it difficult for people to UN-subscribe. Before my subscription was up, I went to my account page to see what credit card details were still there. My credit card was out-of-date so I thought that I was covered. Still, I went to the web-link they listed for people who want to unsubscribe.

Five times, I went to the link and each time I got a message: System is down, please call 1-800-xxxxxxxx between the times of yyyyy. Since I live overseas, this meant having to get up at 2 or 3 am in order to fit into their limited time window.

Around the middle of last month, my account was frozen, I believe, because I had erased all of my credit card details and had not entered anything new. Thus, I was unable to log on to the WSJ website and thought that they had not renewed me since I could not access the website.

To my surprise, they billed my out-of-date credit card (same number, but past-due expiration date) for $208. I called the number listed under the credit card charge and asked the operator how it was that they could charge an out-of-date card. She made some comment about the credit card companies sometimes doing that but promised to cancel my subscription and refund my money.

Of course, three days later, the charge back on my credit card was $1.13 short since, they said, I had used that much time with the WSJ before the money was refunded. This despite the account still being locked!

Now, $1.13 is not much and I will probably do nothing about it, but IT STINKS that Murdoch has introduced such barbaric tactics to SQUEEZE as much money out of subscribers and former subscribers. I am sure that this is happening at all of his media outlets also. His company basically stole $1.13 from me without providing any service.

[SD4020]

Newspapers in general have taken a beating in the last 6 years. It isn't just a WSJ or Murdoch deal. Several pubishers have filed for chapter 11 and suffered losses in revenue.

[yellow4yield]

I had a similar situation with NYSE ARCAweb. Took me many tries to discontinue my account.

NASDAQ was easy to discontinue and did so right away.

(I switched to the same services provided by my broker, so no longer needed the exchange services.)

[Teak]

I miss the Wall Street Journal of old. We need a newspaper of that quality around for fairly independent reporting on business and economics. There are enough rags for reporting on the lifestyles of the rich and famous, which is where Murdoch is taking the WSJ.

[texdav]

I agree ;newspapers in general have declined.