Teenage kid was going door to door selling subscritptions for the LA Times in early August of 2008. His selling point was signing on subscriptions would enable him an employment opportunity which would in turn keep him off the streets. The introductory offer was $20 for 12 weeks, receiving delivery Thurs-Sunday. I went ahead and cut him a check and began receiving delivery approximately 10 days later.

I received a phone call around Thanksgiving by a rep with the LA Times. She was diligently attempting to extend the subscription beyond the introductory period but I had been rarely even reading the paper and explicity requested the service to be stopped. She finally relented her sales rebuttals and agreed to note the system for cancellation. At first I thought the call was good customer service but shortly thereafter, I found that my cancellation request fell on deaf ears. The delivery kept coming to my doorstep.

Sometime in mid December of '08, I received a Past Due notice in the mail for the amount of $14.57. Since it was the holiday season, I kept postponing and procrastinating on making the call to see what was going on. Today, Jan 19th, 2009, I received a phone call from the Times now trying to collect $21. I had stated that I spoke with a rep and requested cancellation back in November and the caller acknowledged the note in the system but continued saying that I owed the money because it wasn't me that initiated the call to cancel so the service and charges continues. What?!?! She was going to transfer me to customer service to officially cancel the subscription but after 3 minutes on hold, the call disconnected.

As a very service oriented individual, I am very disappointed and upset that the Los Angeles Times conducts themselves in such a manner. I surely will never purchase their product ever again. Am wondering how many people have encountered this situation.