I had subscribed for The Economic Times newspaper in August, 2010 in kolkata through cheque no 983064 which was cleared on 27.08.2010. For receiving my subscription coupon I had to call Miss Dolly (03344076538) which I ultimately received on 3.12.2010 for September 2010 coupons. When I enquired about this discrepancy they said there will be no problem in using those coupons. Believing them I started receiving my newspaper from 9.12.2010. After I submitted few coupons I started feeling the heat as the vendor returned me them as saying he was not able to reimburse them as he belong to different distribution centre . He take newspaper from Hazra centre and my coupons are from Jadavpur centre. Before I started taking my newspaper delivery I asked for company selected vendor but they insisted there will be no problem with other vendor also. But by now I have started feeling the pain. On several communication, one ET/Times of India representative came through my vendor and told me to surrender my whole bunch of coupons so that he will issue new coupons. But after few weeks (?) he returned the same bunch with 6 coupons ( from month 7 till month 12) stamped as Hazra centre over the Jadavpur centre stamp and rest 6 coupons (from month 1 till month 6) keeping as it was. He broke his word by not replacing the bunch as promised. Then when I asked him about first 6 coupons (from month 1 till month 6) clearance he said it will be replaced by Jadavpur centre but could not guide me how. However in the mean time he had taken month 7 and 8 coupons for reimbursement but not 1 and 2 as per serial. After calling quite a few times he told me to submit my coupons to his senior Mr. Manojit. Upon submission to his senior, he said that the coupons are old and they will not be reimbursed. Now I have paid my full payment to Bennett Coleman and I shall not be getting my newspaper for 6 months period and during this time I had spent almost Rs.200/- for making phone calls and gone through mental agony.
Another important observation is that they do not give any email id of them or their senior and even said they do no have any when I asked for... My understanding is how sloppy these management are that they do not have any ethics and working philosophy that they openly tell customers of not giving them things for which they have received advance payment. Its just the management's sole intent to cheat customers by creating these holes in their system and not giving any direct email contact or phone no. PS... the phone no I mentioned is ringing and no body picking for last 1 month. How is it possible in an office. I am subscriber of ABP Ltd. ( The Telegraph and Ananda Bazar patrika newspaper) for the last 5 years and they are just excellent. I dont have to call them, they call me or SMS me for current status. My sole purpose of writing here is to make aware other probable customers from being a victim and send a message to the appropriate person who can resolve this.
I am attaching two copies of my coupon . File details -- File name- Original Coupon.jpg - coupon which was originally given to me with Jadavpur centre stamp.
Another file which is having original jadavpur stamp and Hazra stamp after restamping.