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Much has been written here by me and others in the last week about the collapse of home delivery services for subscribers to the Orange County Register. Now comes a report of a possibly more sinister ploy from this newspaper.
An acquaintance that is aware of the home delivery gaff of the Register last week, and apparently still continuing in some areas of the county, e-mailed me to ask if anyone has reported this apparent Register scam. It starts with the paper being delivered to the home of a non-subscriber, usually just the Sunday edition apparently. A delivery the subscriber neither asked for nor paid for.
This began happening to this lady in July. After a few Sundays she called the Register to see why she was getting this paper delivery. She was told that she would be getting if for two years because it was a gift. She asked who gave her this gift, and she was given the name of her deceased father! She immediately smelled a rat and told them to stop the delivery, which they did.
Shortly after that experience this lady talked with a friend who said she started receiving unsolicited, daily home deliveries of the Register. After a while the Register sent her a bill for $80 that she disputed. Eventually the Register threatened to send the bill to collections. She paid it to save the hassle and the possibility of a blemish on her credit record and terminated the deliveries.
Could this be a business practice to generate payments from the elderly who are likely to just pay a bill like that? Makes you wonder about the ethics of this newspaper.
Are these isolated incidents? Anyone else know of scams like this being foisted on non-subscribers?
Contact the LA Times about this. If it’s true, they have standing to go after the Register for Unlawful Competition.
This happened to me several times in the last 15 years or so when I lived in a house. It hasn’t happened since I’ve lived in an apartment.
I just found out the Regisrter has a program where it uses public school PTO’s to market a deal to parents of school children. The deal is that for 10 cents total the parents can get Sunday delivery of the Regisrter for 2 years. Nice tactic to drive up circulation numbers and develop targets for intensive subscription marketing for a 2 year period. Shrewd move, or another sign of desperation?
*Those concerned: Sinister or just plain bad management? Here is a story for you: We have a great and wonderful carrier that delivers both our LA Times and the OC Register. Stayed up or got up early rather and stopped him at 5am delivering his papers. We thanked him for doing such a good job and we only missed that one Saturday paper when the Register initiated its new system. Know how we got our paper? Our carrier had to remember all 1200 delivery locations. The Register still didn’t give him a contract and he had to make his deliveries by memory. We haven’t talked to him in about five days…..but it is definitely the Circulation Manager that should have their feet to the fire. Who might be responsible for such a ridciulous change of service outcome? You pick….who you fire first. There could be a good argument for five or six suspensions or firings at hand……to start.
Stories in this morning’s (Tuesday October 14) Register and Los Angeles Times report that Aaron Kushner has stepped aside as the Register Publisher and a new Publisher has been appointed. The Times story also reports on the various woes at the Register over the last 6 months or so (delivery contract issue with the Times, layoffs, aborted effort to publish a LA Register edition, selling HQ real estate, etc.). The Register story, front page below the fold, names the new Publisher as Richard Mirman who brings marketing experience, saying he is “known in Las Vegas for his talents in casino marketing.” It says Mirman is an investor, and that Kushner will “remain the principal owner and chief executive of the Register’s parent company, Freedom Communications.” Mirman is quoted as saying his goal is to “get the business on a trajectory of growth” and that his first order of business will be to grow subscriber numbers and get the company’s finances in order. Perhaps that says a lot about what has not been accomplished of recent.
*TA-DAH!!! Now, if he only has a few Tribal Connections too – we might actually ALL – get our papers on time.