Customer ReviewsforSacramento Bee

I have never left an online review for anything but this was just an absurd experience. I was being charged $20 a month for the newspaper. I was unemployed and decided this did not suit my financial situation. I decided to cancel. During my cancellation call, I was told I qualified for a promotion to reduce my rate to $1.99. I was shocked at the drop in price. However, understanding this amount was something I could afford, I maintained the subscription at the lower rate. I love supporting local journalism. Then, a few months later, I get a confirmation email about my payment of $19.99. I was shocked. I checked my previous month statement, and it was also $19.99. I searched my email for notification of an increase and there was nothing. When I called to let them know I was not told about the increase, the representative asked if had checked my spam folder. Here is the thing. I get article updates and payment confirmation emails from them each month. Why would this rate increase notification email even end up in spam if they are a regular sender? Regardless, I was very upset at this point. I asked to just cancel the service at this point. Then, the representative then tries to give me a $7.99 deal for the "online paper". Wild! Here is what I would say in brief:(1) They will NOT return any money once it has been charged. (2) They will ALWAYS try to sell you a better subscription rate when you try to cancel. (3) **************** is outsourced and talking to anyone with any real ability to help is unlikely. McClatchy ************* seems to be the parent company. I do not recommend this subscription service. Do not pay for this. Very dissapointed because I love my local papers. SO disheartening.

Thank you for contacting the Sacramento Bee. We would like to discuss your account with your directly one of our agents from a specialized team will be reaching out to you. We would like to get this resolved for you. Offers are valid for a limited time and will increase after each promotion letters of increase should be mailed or emailed to our subscribers 30 days in advance of that change. We will be following up to see why you did not receive this information as you stated in your review. We will be reaching out to our shortly. We apologize for any confusion on this matter. 

Online-- absurdly difficult to read.-- Not being able to scroll through the online version and having to click onto each page is a feature better suited to the dark ages.

My elderly father and elderly stepmom was receiving the paper for over 30 years when I found out that they have been paying $410 every 3 months for a measly paper I was beside myself so we called the Sacramento Bee my dad and I and we wanted to cancel Will they refuse to cancel us until we said it like 17 times that we wanted to cancel they told us that they were going to charge us for the digital paper we told them no just cancel we're going to charge you for the Sunday paper only which will be $185 every 3 months we told them no just cancel also my dad had $125 that he did not use in money and they refuse to refund that they don't do refunds they were so aggressive I practically had to yell at them and tell them my dad is not giving them any more money and to cancel the card and the subscription right away she ended up hanging up on us and not telling us that she canceled us which we had to call back and we found out that they she did cancel us and they finally sent my elderly father which is 78 years old a cancellation notice please be warned for the elderly and for anybody else who wants to get the paper it is a total rip off and they are ripping off not only people but the elderly thank you

Thank you for contacting the Sacramento Bee. We apologize for any issues you have experienced with trying to cancel a subscription. We have sent an email to the address on this complaint to get further information and ensure any issues are resolved and work to improve the experience you have when contacting the Sacramento Bee.

After my father died, I took over handling ***'s financial affairs and paying her bills. She lived in an assisted living home and continued to receive the Bee. I noticed that the newspapers in her apartment, were unread. She was at the time 86 years old. I asked her if she read the paper and she said she did not. I asked her if she wanted me to cancel it and she said she did. When I tried to cancel it, the contact person tried to talk to me out of it with a "good deal," but I told him I wanted to cancel her paper. They apparently did, but a week or so later, the paper began to be delivered again. It turns out the Bee had called Mom directly after I had talked to the Bee agent and had talked her into renewing her subscription. She didn't understand what she was agreeing to. I called the Bee again and told them to cancel the subscription and not to call Mom to try to get her to renew it. I told them I would consider it a form of elder abuse if they did. The subscription was finally cancelled. The Bee is a newspaper that is failing financially and otherwise for many reasons. It is too bad that it is also failing in its ethical obligations. If it wasn't the only game in town, it would have been gone a long time ago.

Thank you for the message to The Sacramento Bee. We do apologize for the experience you had with your mom's account. In order to confirm the phone number has been placed on the do not call list, someone on our team will contact you separately. Please feel free to contact us at ************ or ************************** if you have any further questions or concerns.Thank you

I signed up for the digital version, for 1 year on 1/10/2022. I wasn't planning on renewing the subscription as I wasn't happy with the format. I saw on my credit card, a charge for the renewal on 1/14/2023. I contacted them saying I didn't want to renew , please cancel, and I would be happy to pay for the Jan 2023 month. My response was that I was getting a good deal, and the price was for a short time, and would that work. I responded that I preferred to cancel. They responded with 'Sorry', you will be billed for the year.I called them, and said: 1) i received NO email reminding me that my renewal period was coming up, 2) no text alerting me to that effect. I told them, i would pay the pro-rate for ***, they said no. I told them they are like so many other subscription services who count on paperless billing and people forgetting to cancel. BUT, I've never heard of business that didn't allow cancelaltion/pro-ration.I called my credit card to dispute the charge. I received a letter from a collection agency saying i owe them.Very unprofessional. When i did a ****** search, it appears I'm not the only one whose experienced this sort of thing.

Thank you for your message to The Sacramento Bee. Our records show your subscription expired on 1/7/23. The account was set up on an automatic payment cycle every 52 weeks. The renewal was charged 1/9/23. We do apologize if you were unaware of your account being on an automatic payment. Since we bill in advance and do not stop subscriptions automatically, the account continued until we heard from you on 1/14/23. On 2/6/23, we received a request to have your payment canceled. This was processed by ****************. As of today, 3/20/23, the account has been cleared to a zero balance with The Sacramento Bee and ARM Solutions. Please note, ARM Solutions is a non-reporting collection company and this will not appear on any credit report. There should be no further calls or letters indicating there is an amount past due.Please feel free to contact us at ************ or ************************** if you have any further questions or concerns.Thank you