Evening calls from I.d. Metropolis I'll. noticed others saying Belleville New Democrat. I had to previously get jacked up charges removed from this co. I never ordered this news paper. I
BND used to have my business. When I was laid off I had to cancel my subscription as I could not afford it. They harassed me for months trying to get me to sign up again but as I said before I did not have the funds. I finally asked them to put me on a do not call list now I have been getting missed calls from Metropolis, IL and when trying to call it back it comes up busy. As of late, I have been considering getting the paper delivered again. Tonight I had another missed call from this number and decided to google it to see who it was. Now that I've seen all the calls that were unwanted reported by other people, I think I'll continue to NOT be a customer of BND. Harassment is NOT a good business practice or would I reccoment it as a marketing technique!
As of December 2016, by using a variety of robocall blocking technologies, I had effectively suppressed the robocall cockroaches I had been plagued with, and they rarely were even attempting to ring my phone anymore. THAT ALL CHANGED in January 2017, when I made the mistake of attempting to start a trial subscription to the Belleville (Illinois) News-Democrat, (B N-D) which is owned by McClatchey.
After paying the trial fee, they never delivered any papers. I made two more calls informing them of the delivery failure, and after several weeks, they still had failed to deliver a single paper. So I called again, asked for a refund, and the refund was made.
Coinciding with the trial subscription in January 2017, I then got a PLAGUE of robocalls from many area codes. One of the numbers was 618-309-4658, and this number showed up here at 800notes, so I was able to identify it as connected with the B N-D. I called the B N-D, spoke with someone there, who essentially confirmed these calls are coming from a contracted robocall service. She said she'd take care of that, and so far it looks as if it the calls have stopped. But that is NOT THE END of the story.
As I said, I've been getting a RASH of robocalls since January 2017, from multiple area codes. The numbers are identified on caller ID but not the caller's name, or sometimes it comes up "HOME DELIVERY" or "RENEWAL DEPT". It appears that since the B N-D turned over my home phone number to a robocall service, the robocall service has made my phone number part of THEIR OWN database, and now they are spamming my phone at will. It's also possible they've sold my phone number to OTHER robocallers. I have responded to this by blocking those outside area codes, but another problem has emerged. Since they cannot get through on the outside area codes, they then started barraging me with calls FROM WITHIN my own area code. To block these calls, I have now BLOCKED MY OWN area code.
The result is that I am now filled with contempt for the B N-D and for McClatchey Newspapers. My simple attempt to get a trial subscription has turned into the BIGGEST MISTAKE I've made in 2017. So, if you take a subscription to the B N-D, and you get barraged with robocalls, well............
Here is the BBB site which lists scores of complaints against the Belleville News-Democrat, in various areas including delivering papers that people didn't ask for; continuing newspaper delivery after customers cancel and then harrassing customers for payment: repeated robocalls and other telemarketing calls despite people telling the newspaper to go away, and more. https://www.bbb.org/stlouis/business-reviews/ ... tion=complaints