Thenewyorktimes.co

After subscribing to the electronic edition of The NY Times, for about (5) five years, I grew discouraged at the editorial decision to severely limit reader responses going forward. Readers/subscribers today are unable to post responses to 80% of the news items on the site. Formerly, 90% of the items publishes allowed a response. No need to subscribe electronically anymore if posting online was your thing.

Also, the subscription process today is both funky and fraudulent. I canceled my subscription (2) two days before the expiration date - by phone. The customer service rep. Confirmed the cancellation. I was shocked to see a new account opened at twice the rate I just finished paying - despite getting a confirmation from the rep who canceled my account. To fix the situation required a holding time of 15 minutes (for the first rep and subsequent supervisor who needed to address the situation). Supervisor, "Manny" (who refused to provide a last name or employee ID) admitted the system rejected my cancellation because an order to renew my annual subscription was made a year prior (with no notification to me or the customer service dept. that dealt with customer requests for fixes on their accounts). Imagine - the inability to cancel a subscription prior to the expiration date or on the expiration date itself! Despite one's wishes, the paper will ram through a subscription without exception. An additional 20 minutes was spent unraveling the mess.

To make matters worse, "Manny" refused to provide an email confirmation of the cancellation, forcing me to make a daily review to my credit card bill and my NY Times account. This is a lousy way to do business. I was going to renew at a lower rate, which was offered to me but decided to go with a paper more aligned with reader/customer interests and ethical customer service..