Dear Times Union,

***ANOTHER UPDATE:
GREAT news!  All FIVE of my newspapers arrived this morning with all of their coupons included!  Yippee!  I know...I'm nuts.  But we all have our "thing" in life and currently, this seems to be mine.

**UPDATE:
Thank you to the folks over at the TU who read my random emails and went out of their way to help me today.  Thanks to sweet Cathy, it looks like the issue has been corrected.  Hopefully this helps the TU to make some internal improvements too.


Clearly we are experiencing major difficulties in our relationship.  I have been trying for the better part of THREE WEEKS to order you.  And you are acting like a ditzy school girl or a great-grandmother, I can't decide.  Ignoring my calls and emails.  But also making it flippin' impossible to get in touch with you.  You do allow me to email you online but you require a phone number.  But only allow me to type in seven digits.  I do not have a 518 number.  As is the case with gazillions of people who keep cell phone numbers for decades these days.  To order a paper, you require me to type in a request form but will not let me just pay for my subscription.  You then tell me you will call me back in 48 hours.  Which you are well aware is a big fat lie on your end.  After I call you three times, you finally call me back to take my credit card number over the phone and given to a human being.  Meaning, unsecure and even more unsecure.  I oblige, knowing this is a small area of the country and we are in fact behind the curve.  Or that is how I convince myself to give over my personal information to a stranger on a phone call.  Gulp!

So Sunday rolls around and I am expecting FIVE newspapers.  One that I ordered via Groupoon and four that I ordered over the phone.  I checked my bank account and you gladly took my money so it was only logical to expect their arrival.

ONE arrived.  And did not include coupons.

But of course I cannot send you an email because you are like a little Granny organization when it comes to the modern era. 

I call on Monday morning.  You should note that even though I am ticked off right now, I was incredibly nice and patient over the phone.  I know how to mind my manners.  So it takes 20 minutes and three employees and they decided that for an unknown reason my order was cancelled.  Now I do not believe this because my $$ was not refunded.  But I take the apology and accept that the order will start this coming Sunday.  But yesterday, Thursday, I got a bill in the mail for ONE order of the Sunday paper.  I double checked my back records and I have in fact paid in full for the five papers.  No refund.  But this bill leads me to believe that my order is once again incorrect in your system.

So I call you, knowing I have no way of emailing.  But you are bloody closed at 2PM.  What the heck?  It's not a holiday weekend and you are a newspaper.  The main newspaper for the NY Capital region. 

Not only was I expecting five papers filled with coupons last week, but also complimentary back issues of the week prior as was the offer at time of purchase.  I am trying to be nice.  I am trying to be patient.  But you are making it very very challenging.  It should not take me three weeks to order a Sunday newspaper. 

I do believe I have solved the mystery of why the newspaper industry is dying a slow and painful death.  Help me, help you, Times Union!  I have paid you my pennies.  It's your turn to just deliver my darn papers.  Please!

My patience is wearing thin,
KK