"Newsquest - supports racism, bans truth"

I have been banned from commenting on the website of my local paper for breaking the rules.

They won't tell me which rule I broke. They won't tell me which comment was the offending one. They won't enter into discussion or even acknowledge emails.

However, racist comments and complete lies about migrants and asylum seekers are permitted. Complaints against them are not upheld. Apparently, illegal migrants receive free accommodation and £35 a day in benefits. No they don't. Illegal migrants get nothing. And apparently illegal migrants housed in a hotel locally (no, they were asylum seekers, who are not illegal) attempted to snatch a woman from the street in broad daylight. The Police know nothing about it, there were no witnesses and no woman reported the attempt. But it is okay to report this as 'fact' in the comments section.

Disagreement is fine. Racist lies are not. But Newsquest / my local paper permits the latter but censors the former. And we have to ask why a paper is happy to let dishonest claims about asylum seekers remain on its pages. In the 1930's, Germany had Völkischer Beobachter. Today, England has Newsquest.

"See review for full experience info"

FURTHER UPDATE

The March edition arrived as promised.

I’m keeping the rating at 3 stars, although the issue was resolved it shouldn’t have had to come to the point where I had to email the CEO to get a response or a resolution.

UPDATE

After emailing the CEO the response was filtered down and I was contacted by the Group Customer Care Manager who
Advised that there had been a problem in the ‘systems’ and that the coding had been changed in order to rectify this. There had also been issues around communication in the call centre and this had been dealt with.

Mum has now received the ‘freebie’ February magazine and is still waiting for the March edition, which is the first magazine of the subscription.

ORIGINAL POST

Took out a subscription to Dumfries and Galloway Life in December 2024, a Christmas gift for my mum. She activated the subscription on 26/12/24 which meant that she missed out on the January edition but should receive the February edition (which would be sent out in the 3rd week of January)

I have sent a number of emails and have spoken to someone at the customer care centre - each time I’m told that the magazine has been sent and that I should wait for 7 working days before I make contact again.

Apparently the magazine has been sent today (again) so I have to wait another 7 days.

The March edition is now being released next week.

I enquired about cancelling the subscription (due to the magazine being paid for but not materialising) and was told that I can’t cancel because the 14-day grace period has passed ! Ridiculous.

I would not recommend using this organisation as they do not fulfil their promises. They took my £50 and didn’t send any magazines.

FEELING RIPPED OFF

Hoping Trading Standards can help

"Terrible Experience"

I signed up to an offer as a Christmas gift for somebody requesting that the JL voucher be sent to them prior to Xmas which they failed to do .
I won't sign up in future .

"Quickly responsive "

I have an online subscription to a local newspaper and from time to time minor issues arise - a subscription not recognised or a link to an article not working.
I have always found the Newsquest Customer Care Centre to be quickly responsive in resolving problems.
They compare very favourably with Customer Service depts of much larger organisations.

"This company should be banned…"

This company should be banned from trading . I am a small business and they got in touch with me when I was advertising for staff . They promised me over the phone to sen me 200 CV’s they had on file for suitable applicants . They sent me out 12 CV’s of people who were unsuitable or who lived 3 hours away , they then wanted £1200 for their service . After numerous phone calls and emails letting them know I was not happy with their service , the threatening letters started arriving from debt collectors . PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY THEY ARE ABSOLUTE ROGUES !!!!!!!!!

"Newsquest should be dismantled"

This company is everything that is wrong with media standards in the UK .... genuinely the worst journalistic, editorial, copy example of an accredited publisher. I can't speak to one example without pointing to one hundred examples. These are s holes need to be not just fined, but dismantled for SO many reasons. Mostly for normalising toxic, unchecked content, combined with such a low standard in writing standards it's beyond funny. (If this reads like someone with a grudge, it is, but it's not a personal one. I'm just sick of 'local' publications reading like a teenage conspiracy website that doesn't even spell check!)

"New user - banned from commenting."

Took out a subscription for the first time ever to the (Glasgow) Herald only to find I was immediately banned from commenting on articles. How could I be banned as brand new subscriber. I contacted various 'contact's' on the Papers website to try and resolve and no one could or would resolve for me so I cancelled my subscription and got my money back.

Edit 17/01/2025 So as you can see Newsquest asked me to e-mail them below which I did on 17th December. A month later and since I e-mailed, I've had no response.

"I am paid up for Hereford times via…"

I am paid up for Hereford times via Newsquest i guess but can't get my digital addition. I would give no stars like the previous customer. I have sent many emails getting reset password emails that don't work!! Hopeless and I am trying to set up a telephone call with Newsquest to no avail so far! so frustrated!

"If only I could give no stars"

If only I could give no stars! An age to get answered on the phone, then pressing lots of buttons to get where I needed. When they told me my payment wasn’t accepted and to try again I found they were trying to take the full subscription price and not the offer price. I gave up in frustration and disgust.

"Customer Service Reply Templates"

Subscription payment method stopped working through no fault of my own. Added two more payment methods, but no way of specifying those as the new default payment method. Emailed customer service. They took over a week to reply and when they did, they told me how to add a payment method and that I would then be able to specify that as the default payment method. Tone deaf customer service.