The Wall Street Journal Reviews 361

I tried to cancel my subscription, but then I was directed to call. All the phone numbers available for Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan etc are not working.

I followed the advice from the other comments here, changed my credit address to a CA USA valid address, then the cancel link magically shows up! I have just made the cancellation, let us see if that really works...

For a billion dollar public company this is just very shameful business practice, whoever executive planned, executed and signed off on this, it is not worth the negative PR the WSJ will be getting in return.

I enjoy the WSJ content and digital articles--- the print delivery is awful. I go weeks at a time without receiving the printed copy with no explanation. I submit "missing delivery" forms to WSJ and nothing is done.

Wall Street Journal makes it extremely difficult
to cancel your subscription. You cannot cancel on line- you have to call their “retention” department. I originally called and after almost an hour of holding, attempting to answer personal questions like my account number (I have no idea what or where that is), getting transferred and ultimately getting hung up on, I called back and was told my account would be canceled. Not surpisingly it was not canceled and I kept getting auto debited. I called back- more delays, more holds. They said they had received my cancellation phone request by the line had been disconnected. At this point if I wanted a refund I would have to continue to hold. I called my ban to address that issue. Stay tuned- let’s see if I can ever sever myself from this tar baby. It is so sad- I actually liked reading the paper

Some how I signed up to pay $1 for an article and now two years later am getting charged over $40/month. I have no emails about the account, just some junk mail that tells me nothing. And their help center in Manila is not able even transfer to a supervisor. It is a SCAM.

Agreeing with the other reviews - this is close to fraud and highly questionable business practice in an attempt to trap people in subscriptions. Shameful.

If you wan't to cancel subscription then it can't be done online on your customer login where they could have made a button for it, you have to call in by phone. That is only to prevent people to unsubscribe, it's really bad customer service. The newspaper is okay, but the inflexible customer service makes it bad, could be nice to cancel and resubscibe again easily. I have tried several phone numbers they have listed as customer service i europe and they where out of service. This IS a scam.

Horrible company. Easiest way to sign up and take your money then it’s pretty much impossible to cancel the subscription.

Please stay away from this company look at all the other reviews.

Cancelling is designed to be as inconvenient as possible to deter customers from leaving.
Advice: don't ever subscribe in the first place.

I canceled the account on October 31 2020 over the phone. Started getting charged again THE NEXT DAY and didn’t notice. Now here I am, almost 2 years later, having just canceled “my second subscription” that supposedly I RENEWED! Why on earth would I cancel, and then renew the next day? Obviously it was a mistake, or someone didn’t do their job right. Now I’m waiting for a call back. I spoke with a rep and a supervisor who both told me there’s nothing that can be done, we have a 0 refund policy. Yeah, let’s see about that.

Terrible. Cancelation is borderline scam! Don't sign up with this company, save yourself the trouble.

The process to unsubscribe is purposefully designed to be inconvenient to deter people and squeeze more money out of them. Where I would have resubscribed to WSJ again in the future with a respectful and transparent unsubscription process, now I will never be a return customer. Poorly done, WSJ.

Only getting one star as newpaper info itself is good. Beware -- they will lure you in with a $4 per month rate, then it will creep up to $20, then they will start doubling that (they recently just randomly charged me $38.99 without prior notification) -- all without notification. If you can get past a virtual chatbot, to a live human outside of the USA, they will also attempt to not let you cancel until after they have taken another month from you at the doubled higher rate. All the while, the out of our country agent, will not provide you with a copy of your agreement they say you signed online, nor will they provide you with proof of cancellation with the actual date. It will refer to "Cancellation at the END of your term" which is left open-ended and vague to suit their crooked subscription practices. Turns out that means the end of another month. Consumers need to make sure they turn off automatic payment each month, as they will keep charging your card. Let them fight you for your money just as hard as they try to prevent you from cancelling after they choose the amount they want to charge you. They should be prosecuted for predatory, unscrupulous consumer subscription tactics. At least California has a subscription cancellation law in effect due to companies such as the WSJ/Barrons.

As mentioned, they have a horrible cancellation policy. For a purely digital subscription to only offer cancellation via phone is ridiculous in 2022. Plus, I get an email saying my rate will randomly increase to almost $40/month with no renewal date. It just says "will renew soon." Very shady for an industry that's having to battle nonstop stigma and bias. Avoid completely. You can find that article somewhere else.

Signed up for a trial promo of $4 a month for a year. After the 3rd month they charged me the full rate of $38.99 without notification. I called customer service and spoke to a csa who verified my account with several questions. I was on hold for 37 mins when she transferred me to their retention department. After waiting that long I had to call back and start all over again. After a second transfer the agent tried to convince me to take another promo instead and refused to refund the overcharge. Currently disputing through PayPal. How can their employees in good conscience work for WSJ knowing their unethical practices?

I read one article paying one dollar (at least according to the service rep). Unbeknownst to me a subscription continued for three years amounting to almost $1500. Admittedly this was at least in part due to my lack of oversight, one could even call it stupidity, not checking my statements thoroughly enough. I don’t know how I missed it.(I do have a major health issue that has taken much of my attention.) however I never received even one email from the Wall Street Journal with information about the subscription nor that it was being renewed year after year. When I called, the first agent was unable to help me and transferred me to another agent. That agent tried to convince me to continue the subscription for a cheaper price. No chance of getting the $1500 back. Very very very expensive lesson. The Yiddish word for the wall street journal is ganav, thief.

Someone had sent me an article on Barrons. The only way to access that article was to sign up for a membership. I did so, but decided to cancel as soon as I finished the article because I was unimpressed.

Unfortunately, the cancellation never happened and I have been getting charged monthly since Dec. I just realized it and tried to cancel the subscription and they make you call to do so.

I called and asked for a refund since I only read that one article and they refused to do so.

Buyer beware! +$150/article later, I can promise you it's not worth it.

Terrible. Very hard (near impossible) to cancel.

Don't sign up for a free subscription. They will automatically convert you to a paid subscription without any consent, then bill you.
It's impossible to cancel. You will need to call them, wait on hold, be transferred to two different departments, and even after that they will simply not cancel your subscription. It's a complete scam.
One thing that works is going to your payment method, changing your billing address to a California address, then saving. Then you can cancel your subscription online (this is CA law).

I typically prefer to keep negative reviews to myself as a choice, but I couldn't help writing this one.
So I tried to cancel my subscription and I was told that I must call to cancel for security reasons.

Now, I have an idea of risks, and I do not see any such security risks or concerns that exist at cancellation, that didn't exist, even more so during subscription. Rather, I only see an effort to make cancellation of existing subscriptions difficult and force subscribers to stay.

Therefore, I think it is rather disingenuous and a very poor service to have an available service for SEAMLESS online subscriptions, but then have a compulsory requirement to make a call (with applicable charges) to cancel an existing subscription.
I honestly do not know why actions such as this are not termed illegal. As I write this, I have not been able to reach the contact number I was asked to call, not to mention that I have do make this call internationally considering where I live.
All I can say is, if you are planning to subscribe, note this little detail before you go further.

Not possible to cancel subscription online.
This should be illegal. It is a total scam