Customer ReviewsforVentura County Star

On December 11, 2023, I found a charge for $99 on my bank account by the Ventura County Star to renew a digital subscription. I called their customer support number, told them I wanted to cancel the subscription (I just don’t read it) and asked for a refund. I was told by the customer rep that they had a policy of no refunds. I asked to speak with her supervisor, who repeated they didn’t give refunds. My bank is now working to reverse the charge but I’m not sure how successful they will be on my behalf. In addition, I never received a notice by email, mail, text or telephone call advising me of the upcoming renewal. Despite the apparent legality of this “no refund” stance, I find the Star’s position an affront to the concept of good customer service.

The Ventura County Star Obituaries says on their website 45$ to start… but apparently it’s actually 116.77$ (which it does not give a price break down or what you will be charged until way later) for their actual base rate (which literally in includes nothing), 69.95$ for ONE picture on top (is 69$ for each additional photo), oh and they don’t tell you that each line is an additional cost… they wanted to charge me 420.01$ for an obituary for my father. Literally such a scam and they should be ashamed of themselves for that pricing. This is exactly why the newspaper business is failing. -5 Star review.

Received my yearly bill due 7/31 which jumped to 614.75 although they changed delivery to exclude Saturday paper mid year. Called to complain and was offered 346.44. Problem arose when I requested it in writing before I paid it. The next day when I did not receive the paper, I called and found out my account was canceled. They were to investigate and call me. Same thing happened today. This time Sarah said that my expiration date changed to March because of the discount granted last year although there was no mention of that in price negotiated over the phone and my new invoice covered 7/31/22 to 8/1/23.

continuous delivery problems.............no delivery............or sections missing.....to add insult to injury..........have been told..............you will be credited or a complete paper will be delivered within a half hour. at first blamed the carrier who has been superb.......cannot imagine how much harder his job has become. to older, long time customers........this is more than annoying. understanding younger folks get their news digitally.....if at all........not the same.

The residents of my residential Community for Seniors in has purchased an annual, 7 day a week, newspaper subscription from the Ventura County Star for at least the past 10 years. However, when the Covid-19 pandemic began we put our VC Star subscription on-hold. Approximately, two months ago we contacted the VC Star to restart our newspaper subscription and we were told, after talking to multiple people and spending several hours on the phone, that the VC Star would honor the eight (8) month pandemic hold we had earned. They went ahead an agreed to an eight (8) month credit for the newspaper. So, this seemed very fair, and we were very pleased. However, over the next two months we received only a few newspapers, delivered on an intermittent and random basis. When we called to complain about this problem, we were transferred to multiple representatives again and spent many more hours on the phone. There was no resolution. Then we started receiving billing statements, stating that we owed the VC Star $336.34 after two months with perhaps 5 newspapers delivered and a mutually agreed upon 8-month credit, due to the pandemic hold. The billing notices stated that our account would be cancelled if we didn't pay our bill immediately. So, I personally called the VC Star and was told by their representative that at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic our representative (committee secretary) had agreed to pay for an online newspaper subscription when the hold was placed our regular subscription. This accounted for the $336.34 owed amount. It is funny that the VC Star bills never mentioned anything about this. I was also told by this representative that our account had been cancelled because we had failed to pay the owed amount. As the president of our resident activity committee, I talked to the person (the committee secretary) who called the VC Star to place our account "hold" and that person informed me that she never discussed or agreed to the purchase of an online subscription when our account was placed on hold. She stated that she would have bought this to the committee’s attention if this had occurred. I already knew this to be true before I talked to her. I have talked to many friends and neighbors recently who, like me, had subscriptions to the VC Star for 30, 40 or even 50 years back (most of that time the newspaper was named the Ventura County Star Free Press). Like me, most of my friends, and neighbors have cancelled the subscriptions to the VC Star over the past several years because the VC Star has caused them so many frustrations and so much stress through misbilling, failing to deliver newspapers and by having extremely poor customer service representatives, who fail to solve customer's problems. Unfortunately, I have seen this happen many times when hometown newspapers are acquired by giant corporations (as the Ventura Star recently was). I would have given zero (0) stars for this review if I could have. I highly recommend that you don't subscribe to this newspaper unless, at some future date, the giant corporation that now owns this newspaper makes some major changes (which giant corporations our not known for).