I’ve been making a lot of telephone calls to the Philippines of late…
To check on a mail order bride, maybe? For a clandestine bank account? Or possibly arranging a trip to that exotic destination for a client?
None of the above.
Nope, all of my calls have been to 1-877-962-7827.
Give that number a try and you’ll get the KANSAS CITY STAR’s foreign desk—AKA the newspaper’s outsourced call center.
And so why am I calling three times or more a week?
Because the delivery of the newspaper to my house was missed three times so far this week—and it’s only Friday.
So like a good soldier I followed instructions and phoned in before 8:00 a.m.
Each time I was told that the paper would be redelivered later that morning.
However each time it was NOT!
Then yesterday they told me that my missed Thursday paper would be delivered along with the Friday edition.
But hold it right there!
As of late Friday afternoon still no Thursday OR Friday paper had made it to door.
And when I called back to the Philippines to complain again, I asked the foreign customer service agent whether the re-delivery would be made by the same tardy delivery person that keeps missing me or through a direct Star messenger. I was told that this process would be handled by special Star service personnel.
But guess what? THOSE hearty commandos missed me too!
Well, I am not giving up—not yet at least.
The folks in the Philippines told me that I’d be contacted direct by a Star commander who is actually operating from somewhere within this geographic area.
May the 66204 zip code force be with him!
I would also love to hear why I didn’t receive a credit for a recent vacation hold. And why those saved newspapers were not delivered as promised after my return.
I should have a boat load of credits built up for missed papers with the Star.
Yet every time I ask about it I’m told by the foreign desk that my subscription will be extended.
Oh, really?
I have supported (what is left of) this newspaper for a long stretch. But there comes a point in time when even the classiest Filipino will not be able to pacify this reader anymore.
And that time is getting mighty close.
Sad. Sad. Sad……
We had the same problem with the paper and finally gave up. It just wasn’t worth it anymore. Still can’t understand why they have so much trouble with their distribution system.
Geez, who did you tick off?
Just kidding, I totally empathize. One of life’s little, but extremely annoying, frustrations is NOT GETTING YOUR NEWSPAPER WHEN YOU BLOODY WELL WANT IT!!!!!
Sorry …
Our carrier has taken to rolling up the paper so tightly that it never flattens out, rendering it a challenge to read. Ah, well …
Was that a metaphor?
🙂
Sorry, I’m not clicking … metaphor for … ?
Sorry, bad joke.
“…challenge to read.”
:-/
My dear friend Tom, an electrician, a guy with political views farther to the right than mine, still HAS to read his paper every day.
I wish he would just stop the fu*kin madness. We work together about one week every month and he is either pizzed and on the phone with his “carrier” for not getting the paper, or, apoplectic about some grade school proffering from Doogood or Osterracismizer. He will not go on line to read the Star and insists on pouring through the entire paper from start to finish every day. Then he rants like R.M. Renfield the rest of the day until I can get him to talk about baseball.
Constant assurances that not everyone in the world takes the Red Star seriously are unappreciated. I tell him his myopia will kill him. He will NOT go on line and look at any publication or opinion piece other than the Red Star.
How about those Royals!!
But you can’t read the funny pages or play any games on-line!!!
R. M. Renfield — good one. I had to look that one up. I always learn something from you, chuck!
🙂
I gave up on the Star about 3 years ago.. just fed up with their sh*ty delivery — and their uber-lib opinion section — rich kid Louis Digweed STILL bleating about “white privilege.”
Hated that I might be kicking in a couple pennies towards their salaries.
I still check it out online –for free – just use an app like “Ccleaner” to clear you cache — and get around their paywall.
Because the delivery of the newspaper to my house was missed three times so far this week—and it’s only Friday.
A more cynical mind might assume that’s the Star’s exact business model.
Well, that and not paying taxes on the facility that’s not printing or delivering your daily newspaper.
you hate the people at the star.
you hate their liberal positions.
It’s nothing but a wrap for advertising.
You hate the editorials.
You dislike their columnists.
you hate their ineffective delivery.
You never get your paper.
You attack their writers and management almost 3-4 times a week.
You say their news is 2 days old.
you say there’s nothing to read.
you say the biz section is being cut.
you say they’re losing money.
You are still mad they let you go and now you run a blog with maybe
20 regular readers compared to the 250-400K who used to read your
articles.
You have no contacts left and essentially we get amateur writers on kcc
like lefty/glaze/wislon/Sutherland (who writes some articles that
are not geared for this audience)/
You write most of the articles which are either wrong or factually incorrect
You spend more time attacking the star than you do the other things
wrong in our great city.
You think your sports reporter mr. glaze is an authority on sports when he’s
been wrong probably 90% of the time with his stats and writings and he’s
proven time and time again that he’s just repeating stuff from other comments
or thinks he knows the royals and chiefs when he’s been more wrong about
local sports than even jack harry.
MY SUGGESTION:
1. CANCEL THE STAR…DON’T READ IT…IT KILLS YOU BECAUSE YOU
CAN’T FIND ANYTHING GOOD THERE TO WRITE ABOUT. ITS THE
SAME OLD SAME OLD BASH THE STAR ARTICLES EVERY WEEK.
I SUGGEST YOU SAVE YOURSELF THE HEARTACHE OF WHETHER
A KID SLINGING NEWSPAPERS AT 4 AM FORGETS TO DELIVER YOUR
PAPER. GET IT ONLINE FOR GOODS SAKE. OR SAVE YOURSELF A
HEART ATTACK AND CUT THE STAR OFF FOREVER!
2. FIND SOME PEOPLE WHO CAN REALLY ANALYZE THE SPORTS
SCENE IN KC. glaze can’t do it. Read twitter or facebook and find someone
with some real knowledge of the stats (like WAR) or YAC and bring them to
kcc so we can get accurate information that will increase your viewership.
Luv ya hearne…but the negativity is getting way way too intense.
Smile…you got it made in the shade…enjoy life and smile.
Your friend
Harley
Harley Jo/Jo, even in retrospect, I would give the helm to Helen Keller before I let you touch it.
I couldn’t do any worse than whats here now….guaranteed.
with stories like this about the star’s delivery…this blog has
really hit rock bottom.
so much news you could cover….and with your experience
it would make this blog so much better.
and please…get a new sports writer….
thanks as always
Harley
Listen H Man:
I know you’re egocentric and all – take a number – but I think it’s a quite interesting story.
In part because I know this is not an isolated situation and that the Star has suffered quite a few cancellations from people like Jack who finally threw in the towel.
It’s yet another example of how the newspaper is struggling that transcends the more obvious difficulties in the newsroom.
And it’s a somewhat frightening sign of the times that after all this time, they still can’t get it right.
If you can’t execute the basics, it may not matter what other shortcomings or improvements they make.
its not just the star…its mcdonalds/most of
the media/radio stations/our dysfunctional
government/the schools that now don’t
require licenses to teach!/customer service
at any online or retail operation!
It’s become so prevalent in our nation
that most people just stop the paper and
move to other information sources.
the star has seen better days….but so has
all the media.
when Donald trump commands all the
air in the room so to speak…you know
we’ve gone over the cliff.
You could take 80% of the companes today
and show how they’ve cut back and hurt
themselves.
THE STAR IS NOT ALONE!
Who said the Star was alone?
Nice straw man!
Not in the sense of having print media struggles in terms of readership, advertising and profitability.
However, not being able to deliver its product to subscribers is an entirely different issue and one they have been unable to cure for years now.
Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to be an across the board problem, but with all their other issues, it’s the last thing they need.
Thought you’d be interested in an update to my ongoing delivery issues with the KC STAR.
Following the story here on KcConfidential about the four day miss out of my daily subscription, the paper started to show up again.
FIVE DAYS IN A ROW—Friday through Tuesday—right there on my front lawn.
But I knew that was too good to be true.
Today (Wednesday) again NO paper (including NO USA TODAY which apparently is delivered by the same person.)
Again I made my call to the STARS’s foreign desk in the Philippines (a.k.a. their outsourced Customer Service) before the mandatory deadline of 8:00 a.m.
Again I was told that one of the STAR’s commandos was to re-deliver today’s paper “as soon as possible.”
Of course hree and a half hours later still no paper. So I called again and was told that the foreign desk would send another message with an “exclamation mark”—whatever that means but that today’s paper would probably now show up with tomorrow’s delivery (…providing, of course, there will be one.)
How do this outfit do it?
Thanks for the update, Jack.
I too, am a Star junkie. Been subscribing since I returned to KC from school in the mid 70’s. My day is not complete without my fix and I read it pretty much from start to finish with the exception of the want ads. Yep, I’m a leftist and I recognize the Star has a strong liberal slant from the staff but I get the dark side view by reading the opinions of Charles Krauthammer, David Brooks, Michael Gershon, etc. and enjoy the letters to the editor from conservatives as well. A good one today from a reader that has a problem with Lee Judge. Imagine that.
I have had my issues with delivery and have come to peace with the fact that it will only get worse. For so long, I took the timely delivery of my paper for granted but now understand that my delivery guy has pretty thin margins. The delivery guy I had a year or so ago, that was around for a few years at least, was meticulous and would include occasional newsletters in the delivery and always a card at Christmas. He would send me a thank you note every month because I included a $1 tip that had to cost him more than $1 in the cost of stationery and stamps alone until I told him to stop it and put the money towards gas. He shared that he was a member of the Katz Drug Store family so I’m guessing that money never made it to him. About a year ago he sent out a letter to his customers that he had to quit as he couldn’t keep up with the cost of gas and repairs to his car. The person who took his place was about 50/50 on the delivery but I gave up on my complaint calls and just stopped at QT to buy a paper when it didn’t arrive in time to allow me reading time before leaving for work. I must have a new person now as each paper has a neat, twist tie of the plastic bag to keep the paper dry and is always in the middle of the yard as opposed to the driveway.
I dread the day when home delivery for the Star is a thing of the past. I recognize that I’m one of those dinosaurs for whom reading content online doesn’t cut it and Hearne can’t believe still exist. I try to get news from a variety of sources and a balanced view by watching Fox and reading conservative outlets. Chuck even has me looking at the American Thinker site but I still need to hold the Star in my hands daily.
Stay on it, Jack.
Hey Stomper, thanks for your interesting inner-feelings when it comes to the paper. Mine run parallel to yours. Matter of fact I even took the Sunday NYTimes and the Wall Street Journal. But since they’re all apparently delivered by the same person, one miss out usually meant a complete delivery miss out for that day.
In all fairness on some days only half of my subscriptions showed up. But that’s still the case nowadays when I’m down to just two papers—namely the STAR and USA TODAY. Guess it must be hard for the delivery person to keep straight of who gets what—especially since I seem to be the only person left in a three block area who still receives paid for thrown subscriptions. Easy to speed right on by.
Do I feel sorry for Mi-Ai Parrish’s circulation problems? Not really. It comes with the territory. And that territory keeps on shrinking.
Stomper – Thanks for the kind words and yes, I was your delivery guy. I was with The Star for about 4 years but it was much more than just the expenses that drove me away. There was no such thing as a day off. In fact, I recall one night that I was at the VA emergency room, with my blood pressure pushing a possible stroke, and was told to get in and make my deliveries once I was discharged. While the people I directly worked for were good, the folks up the chain of command had little regard for the delivery drivers, treating them all as if they were expendable. They would always come of with a new and clever way of penalizing the drivers. A driver would make about 10 cents to deliver a newspaper and then charged $7.00 if a customer called in to say it was wet. When it did rain, some drivers actually lost large amounts of money since each complaint would negate the equivalent of 70 of the papers they had delivered.
I had built some great relationships with those I delivered the paper to but you can only work for an abusive company so long before you have to move on.
Gregg