A newsagent recently received a bill from Nine Media claiming a refund for papers not delivered going back eight years. Nine Media, and prior to them, Fairfax, had been paying for delivery that was not done. Many thousands of dollars involved.
Another newsagent was direct debited by News Corp twice for the same amount for the same product. Making the situation challenging is that there is no name on the communication from News Corp – making it hard to work out the contact point. News Corp, to their credit, organised a refund once the issue was escalated.
While each situation is different they speak to the same issue – apparent issues with internal billing / accounting systems at Nine Media and News Corp.
What these companies need to understand is the possible impact on a small business from such unexpected action by a big supplier. This is an issue of social responsibility. Big businesses owe it to the small businesses they supply to quickly and easily resolve issues such as these. In each of the situations outlined above it is not playing out this way – creating considerable stress for the newsagents involved.
Footnote: the newsagent impacted by the Nine Media move could have seen the situation and corrected it years earlier had they audited their home delivery revenue against actual deliveries – a highly recommended business practice.