It took a few days -- and the lead was buried in the fifth
paragraph of a six-paragraph e-mail -- but the
Wall Street Journal did the right
thing. It sent me, and no doubt other subscribers who bitched, a
note saying it will continue my subscription to both the
Journal
online and
Barron's online, which is what I paid for in the first place.
As I
noted here last week, the
WSJ told me it
was cutting off the
Barron's portion of my subscription immediately,
even though I'd already paid for it. And then it was
none too speedy
about getting back to me.
The backtrack e-mail, which was sent on Saturday, said, "We
... want you to be satisfied with your subscription, so as a courtesy,
we would be happy to offer you continued access to both the
Wall Street
Journal Online and
Barron's Online until your next renewal date.
However, upon your next renewal, you will be required to pay for a
subscription to each product that you wish to continue to access."
That's fair.
Unfortunately, I have to call and have the
Journal both charge my credit
card and then apply a separate offsetting credit. That's silly and
irritating, but sometimes systems just won't do what they ought to. But
at least the company is finally doing the right thing.
The follow-up e-mail waxed poetic about all the great things
that have been added to the service, with more to follow. It also made the case
that, "As with any publication, our editorial content and features
change from time to time, and we regularly add, and in cases such as
this one, remove, content and features." Sure, I'll accept that -- but
you can't really slice off a giant chunk of the service and expect
people not to squawk.
A couple of morals for the
Journal:
1. If you're going to do the right thing anyway, you might as well
start out by doing the right thing.
2. Don't bury the lead in an e-mail when you're trying to kiss and
make up. I had to read the darned thing three times before I realized
the
Journal had given in.
