Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Other Local Voices on the Tennessean Littering Our Yards and Neighborhoods with their Uninvited Paper Products

In response to my trek to the Tennessean's Broadway offices this morning to return newspapers from the last two Wednesdays, I received this from a Salemtown neighbor via e-mail:
I picked up two newspapers in front of my house and in front my neighbor’s this morning because I knew the renters would let it sit there and rot. I should have gone with you this morning on that run. I have also visited the Tennessean office a couple of years ago when two week’s worth of newspapers were delivered during a vacation stop request. They were delivering papers even on days when I don’t normally get the newspaper. I demanded to speak to someone in a management position, and they sent a V.P. out to me. I did have a few more issues with them after that and threatened to cancel the paper. I think there is finally a competent delivery person assigned to this neighborhood now because I haven’t had any problems in about a year. I wasted too much time talking to at least three people in management to resolve the vacation stop issues.

It baffles me that they pay someone to deliver this weekly “local” edition to people who don’t want them, and they are trashing our sidewalks. This certainly isn’t very economical or environmentally friendly.
Christian Grantham offers this response to those who defend the Tennessean's financially irresponsible and anti-environmental waste of resources [my editorial comment removed from this clause at the request of a reader]:
When those advertisers are told their ad was delivered to a qualified subscriber and circulation auditors are told the same thing, advertisers and investors are defrauded.

People whose lawns are littered by unwanted Gannett newspapers are not looking at these ads, and Gannett seems to be the only company engaging in this poor business practice.

Personally, I’d encourage people to skip calling the Tennessean and wasting time with them if they are receiving papers they never asked for. I’ve done several times with no results. I finally filed 2 complaints with the Better Business Bureau and then got personal phone calls from the Tennessean.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cgrantham/2628917225/

Luckily for them, it’s never happened again for me OR my entire neighborhood. I feel sorry for them if it happens again, because it could very well be the start of the end of Gannett because I’ll spend every hour of free time making sure defrauded advertisers and investors get the message and maybe even some court ordered class action remedy for massive fraud.
There are also supportive comments added to my original post on the Tennessean's raggedy, litterbugging ways.

3 comments:

  1. To be fair, Mike, I didn't say anything about SouthComm. Those comment are specifically about the Tennessean. I have never had SouthComm through products on my lawn and suspect they don't do that, right?

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  2. They don't do that. SouthComm has a different set of issues.

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  3. The more I think about, the more I think city councils should take up legislation fining companies who throw their unwanted products on people's personal property. Litter laws are one thing, but this needs specific legislation imposing a specific fine for companies that willfully trash people's lawns under the guise of solicitation.

    It's just a bad business practice. If you cannot make direct contact with a home owner, you should not have the right to then toss your product on their lawn and hope for business. It's an entirely seperate issue with what that business is promising advertisers and investors, but I suspect both are being told thousands of unwanted newspapers were actually delivered to qualified subscribers when the fact is they were not.

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