At the encouragement of Fairfax’s pricing structure, and in aid of the planet, I recently switched from home delivery of the Australian Financial Review to a ‘digital only’ subscription. My problem now is that it’s been two months since the switch, and I can’t stop them from delivering the paper. Four phone calls to the overseas staffed call centre - where they on two occasions assured me that they’d fixed the problem, and two emails to the ‘customer support’, and still no luck… I begged them to give me the name of the local delivery agent so I could contact them directly, but they refused on ‘privacy’ grounds.
I even tried putting out big signs for the delivery agent, and they literally delivered the paper on top of the sign.
Usually as consumers, we complain when ‘things don’t happen’…not to often that the problem is 'getting them to stop…
Hi Lynn, we still have Fairfax’s Sun-Herald delivered once a week. I’ve found the quickest way to engage with Fairfax for changes to the subscription is online at https://subscriptions.fairfax.com.au/login_find.aspx
Scott: Thx for the reply. I’ve lodged two separate complaints via their website. My suspicion is that because I now have a new (digital) subscriber number, they haven’t cancelled the delivery on the old subscriber number (which unfortunately I didn’t retain…why would I?)…Anyway, I’ve also now lodged a complaint on their Facebook page…often the people who deal with Social Media are a little more savvy than the call centre folk…Looks like my only option may be to sit at 5am outside my house and wait for the delivery man…sigh…
Generally the AFR is delivered, by arrangement, by your local Newsagent. You might like to ring the nearby newsagents and see if one of them has the Fairfax contract for your area. They will take you off the list and will tackle Fairfax for you most times.
My local newsagent store disappeared recently and phone number was disconnected…with no forwarding information…I’ve rung every newsagent in the area to see if they took over the delivery route, but no luck…sigh…
Another way could be to cancel/suspend your subscription for a short time, though cancelling might have better success than suspending and would allow you to provide feedback on why you cancelled. Just arrange a short term holding of the paper at a local newsagency until you restart your subscription service.
This should, in theory and taken with a grain of salt, stop the house deliveries and once you restart, the home delivery should no longer be an issue.
When I started my digital subscription, they ‘cancelled’ my home delivery subscription. (I’ve got a new subscriber number …) …so nothing to cancel or suspend I’m afraid… …(though I appreciate your suggestions…thx)
As noted in my explanation you would need to for the short term ensure a paper copy was held for you at a local newsagency. This would indeed for the period you cancelled or suspended your subscription mean that your digital copy would stop. But once renewed it would start again.
I had to use the cancel option when we had the Courier Mail in Brisbane. We went from paper delivery to just the online option and the paper still landed on our driveway every morning. I was aware of an overlap because our paper cost was billed pre rather than post monthly, but after 2 months they still came. I cancelled our subscription after failing to get the problem resolved by other means. The papers stopped shortly after the cancellation and when I recommenced our digital delivery no new papers came to our doorstep, from memory it was about a 2 week break. After the 2011 floods and our relocation I have abandoned all paid newspapers whether digital or printed.
But that sub isn’t necessarily the one responsible for the delivery, the hardcopy might continue and the softcopy cease - the reverse of the desired result.
