Customer Reviews

The Wall Street Journal Online: One-Year Online Subscription

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

This is not a complaint about Amazon, just the Wall Street Journal On-Line. I subscribed to WSJ Online and used a credit card to pay. As my subscription was ending, I started receiving e-mails saying that my credit card had expired and the subscription would not renew. That was fine with me because I hardly ever used it. Despite those messages, the subscription did renew and I received a much higher charge on my credit card than I had paid in the previous year. When I tried to cancel my unwanted subscription I was told that WSJ Online would not give any refunds and that I was stuck with the one year subscription.

I had subscribed to the Wall Street Journal (paper edition) for several years and found it to be one of the best sources of information (financial and other) available. When Dow Jones decided to make the same information available via their web site, I subscribed immediately. Recently, I dropped the paper edition, and now only subscribe to the online version.

So, what's so good about this website? If you read the The Wall Street Journal regularly, you will have access to information that the general public only hears about several days later through standard media outlets. I found this to be the case time and time again. I would read some random article on Monday, and the following Thursday or Friday the local or national news would be featuring a "late breaking" story that was almost word-for-word what I had read about in the journal earlier! The website, while not perfect, allows you to search for specific articles, research various companies, and retrieve stock quotes. Yes, almost all of these features are available for free on other sites, but you get it all here in one place. The editorial section, while usually conservative, is well written and often has guest authors who are very "deep" in their particular subject area.

In some ways I miss the paper edition. You can take it with you, read it on the bus, sit outside and read it, etc. However, the benefits of the online edition more than make up for these deficiencies. I recommend this publication in the online format. For me, it has been money well spent.

As a WSJ journal addict who is traveling a great deal, I found it better to eliminate my paper subscription and go electronic. At first, I had both the print and online versions, but I found the paper version wasteful as it still contains stock quotes and large print ads on stock offerings.

While I have no way of knowing if other reviewers have a different online WSJ with pop-up advertisements, which I doubt, there are none on mine. In fact, the online WSJ is vastly more streamlined than Forbes, Fortune, CNN, etc. The clutter-free layout allows for easy navigation.

The content of the WSJ is unparalleled. What makes the online version so powerful for business research, lead generation and job hunting is the search capability. My major complaint is that free search only goes back for thirty days. For those who want to pay [$] per article, you can use the advanced search page and access Factiva/Dow Jones, which covers hundreds of publication both large and small. Dow Jones argues that they have to compensate the content owners. Yet, they don't even offer WSJ articles that are already owned.

If you are looking for business ideas or contacts, the WSJ is an excellent publication. The online WSJ makes gathering this information less consuming than the print version.

I just noticed that my $99 annual online subscription was increased to $150 plus tax. My credit card was automatically billed for this. I knew the renewal was going to take place, but was unaware of the 50% boost in cost! I cannot do anything about it this time, but will not renew and think that their no refund policy is very anti-consumer. I know of no other periodical that has that policy.

For those of you who read the newspaper, the WSJ online is a good value. My local newspaper is $120/yr online and USA Today is about the same.
The only things I don't like is I wish they would PDF the entire paper so you can view/find/read it as it looks in print (my local newspaper does that through Olive Software). They only have the first pages of each section pdf'd.
Also, they wanted to charge me $99 for my renewal, with the only way to cancel is via the phone. I called to cancel, and they offered me 15 months for $79, so I got three more months for $10 cheaper than Amazon. Why don't they just offer a discount for renewals rather than auto-renewing at a higher price. SO KEEP TRACK OF YOUR RENEWAL DATE AND CALL IN ADVANCE (ABOUT A MONTH BEFOREHAND)!!!

The Wall Street Journel is an excellent resource/web site.

To obtain your temporary password and access to the web site is totally ridiculous. The password is shipped to you in a box with excess junk. In addition there is a shipping charge for all of that junk. If you decline shipping charges your password is delayed a few extra days.

Most other sites either send you a letter within a few days or have some type of authentication that allows you to come online immediately. If Amazon can take your credit card information immediately in a secure mode why not give me my password immediately and send me the junk mail later????

I was a happy camper until I received a surprise $99 WSJ charge on my credit card with no prior notice. Customer service said it was "in my contract", that I get auto renewals at whatever the going rate is. They refused to cancel/refund the overpriced additional year under any circumstances.

I got an email about 30 days ago that my subscription would be automatically renewing. Never said what the price was. Never dreamed it would go up 50% without WSJ telling me it was going up. I would have kept the subscription had they not gone up. FYI there is no way to cancel your subscription online. I looked under my account when I got the email letting me know my subscription would automatically renew and could not find what my new rate would be. Just said I had to call their customer service to cancel my account. 30 days later I see the charge on my credit card statement. Never got an email from WSJ telling me my subscription had been renewed or renewed at a 50% increase. I called their number to cancel because I don't respond well to that type of treatment from a company! Took about 10 minutes on hold to speak to someone and get it canceled. The agent assured me it would be done. Be interesting to see if I get my credit on my credit card.
Businesses should never keep their customers in the dark. Businesses should be thankful of auto renewing customers and learn that it sends a bad message when you hide an increase little lone a 50% increase. I would have stayed a customer had they not hidden the rate or gone up!

my subscription was $99/yr and is due to expire in June 2009. They are raising the rate 50% to $149, which they described as a "bit of an increase."

Have been a subscriber since the early 1980's (yes I am a dinosaur) and WSJ was the only newspaper I read for a number of years. After News Corp takeover, however, there has been a steady decline in the quality of the reporting. At the same time there has been a large increase in the number of AP Wire stories (not original) and non-business stories (sorry can't call it reporting).

The one thing the WSJ was good at was in-depth stories that took you into the boardroom and conference rooms of companies and really opened up the complex issues in business in easy to understand terms. The stories were direct and readily exposed corporate corruption as well as great achievements. Sadly, this deep reporting was something Murdock specifically targeted for removal - he felt the stories were too long.

Now we are left with perhaps 40% of the original content plus quite a bit of fluff. Much of the business "reporting" consists of repeating the press releases without independent analysis or commentary. Worse yet, a huge amount of editorial bias has infected the non-opinion pages, to the extent that the credibility of the underlying reporting is in question.

Check out the on-line edition. Any story that mentions Democrats has 50-400 bile-spewing comments from people vilifying individuals (e.g., commenting on Barney Frank's homosexuality in an article about the Fed's powers) and not even addressing the fundamental issues. Debate is completely missing - instead it is a rant forum. There are a couple of posters with the ability to construct a reasonable argument, but the majority of on-line posters have gut-felt opinions and stick to them regardless of the topic. Unfortunately, the company seems to realize this is the new subscriber base, and seems to pander to it and we are worse off for it. It is a very sad state of affairs. For those less fortunate to have been a reader prior to the bias change, I can tell you that you missed the paper when it was its best.

I recommend the Financial Times. It is thinner - doesn't have the same level of content - but is almost strictly business and still includes unbiased commentary. The slant is a bit non-US - so politics only surfaces when there really is something happening (as opposed to repeating Republican "talking points" daily like we see in WSJ) which is a bit refreshing, though I do enjoy a bit of politics for entertainment. Interestingly, I have found that my horizons have expanded greatly since subscribing a couple of years ago. I actually understand the world economy much better now since the FT includes articles about business from around the world. I highly recommend it - and also recommend sticking to it while reading non-U.S. news (very boring at first since you probably won't have an international perspective) - you will probably find the broader perspective refreshing after a while. You can get some great first-time subscriber deals. When it was time to renew, my wife told them there was no way she was paying $300+ for the online edition (yes they actually charge for their content) and she somehow talked them down to $84 for the year. I don't know how, but stick to your guns and you can get on-line plus print for a great first year rate, and can talk them down on the renewal.

Good luck - I still have both paper and on-line edition of the WSJ but will drop one or both this year. It will be difficult, but I have to be realistic and accept that the news I am looking for simply "'ain't there no more". Kind of like breaking up with a girlfriend - hard to do and usually you find you should have done it 6 months earlier.;)