Smiths News Reviews 71

If I could give NO stars
that would be the best description of this place and what they call smith news and managers
Was told by a so called manager I will not be paid for 15days work in my car with my petrol
DO NOT WORK FOR THIS COMPANY

Worst company I have ever dealt with. 2weeks on and still didn't receive my credit. All they give is the reference number. Absolute rubbish of a company. How the he'll they have the monopoly in print media industry.

If I could give no stars I would.
Absolutely pile of W**k, can’t speak to anyone who can understand what you’re saying, paid a large deposit and then never got back to us.
We chased them up but with out a customer number they wouldn’t help!
This process is beyond s**te.
Months this has taken and still nothing.
How they survive is beyond me!

It is now nearly 9am and no papers again , some people have to work and can’t get them later very poor service

For the 3rd weekend Yeovil depot have messed up. Missing titles, wrong order delivered. Had to drive 30 miles to collect missing items last Saturday. Today another fouled up delivery and no driver could be found to help.
Try getting through the switchboard in India. Very obstructive and don't understand customer needs and expectations. Don't even respond to voice messages.
The AI that thinks we need less papers because of return number variations is frustrating. Numbers will vary if customers go away at short notice. Also, if you have a late delivery, customers will abandon a purchase and go elsewhere.
I have spoken to many other retailers from small shops to large supermarket chains and not one has anything good to say about Smiths News.
As far as I and many others are concerned, Smiths News does not adhere to its own policy of putting customers first and delivering a good service.
A totally rubbish service all round and I think thus is reflected by the general dissatisfaction of their delivery drivers who also criticise the company.
Summing up in one word like Ofsted do -
INADEQUATE
NEEDS VAST IMPROVEMENT

Worst company I ever worked. Becoming Smiths self employed driver basicaly means you are their cheap working force. Takes money from you when they can, you need to chase them all the time. Also they give you additional unpaid work to do because in their words "you already there" (thats the last diamond-you need to pick not only newspaper returns but rubish from the shops too). Some people still does it without a license because they are forced to do it and threatened to loose their jobs.

2400pounds “deposit” just to sell newspapers that I don’t really want and 140admin fee for the using them gosh what an awful company

Rubbish service, even complaints many time and no change. This company should be bankrupted.

When we have missing titles we claim missing ones,
but! smith news always doing the claim recharge same day. front page they credit the claim and same day they claims recharge with goods delivery.
basically we are not getting missing papers claim.
credit in front page and recharge at back side of paper.
what an robbing service.

Always has issues especially with credits. And more say when you return stickers, trading cards, albums etc. Have had these issues with them on numerous occasions. Feel like they purposely don’t give credit for high value items .. DEAL WITH CAUTION

every week there is at least two to three issues with missing papers or magazines, the claim system does not work and the customer service is awful and might as well not be available at all. delivery drivers do not care at all and they are taking stock/ or not delivering it

After even updating my store opening timetable smiths news still did not deliver the newspapers and when I spoke to them they told me your store is closed for XMas week. Useless company they know that only they supply the papers in Englend that's why they can do anything. I'm really disappointed.

This company does not even deserve one star. Worst on earth. I am retailer. Trying to reduce magazines for last three months. All the time I phone them or email them, they say it is now sorted. But in fact nothing has happened. Chaps on phone clearly from abroad don’t have much information. I am surprised such rouge firms operate in UK.

The service is totally built up like how to cheat the customers and on which basis. They are very customer invoices and bill payments. If you do not pay on pay on time, they cut the service in 3 days and after some time send to the debt collection department. But try to cheat you on return credits. If you are not concentrating on those, they slowly grab your money by crediting your returns. They miss several days. if we found one day, ask for the missed credits, then it is too late to ask (when you ask next week). i already lost more than £800 with my knowledge unnecessarily. I am not sure how much I missed without my knowledge. Sometimes, they don't send the return slips for magazines. If you return the magazine after some days when you realize it is sitting on the shelf for a long time, They simply say you are returning too late. I believe they are having a proper plan to cheat the customers. Please let me know if any other newspaper service we can move with. I really not interested to continue with them. But only considering our newspaper customers not to be disappointed. Very very.......worst experience

I am not a newsagent but a customer of Tesco and for the last three weeks on a Saturday I have been unable to purchase my paper as the deliveries have not arrived. I usually get there at around 8 am and leave around 9 am. On all three occasions I have sat and waited for them to arrive but gave up in the end. It is appalling service. I gave emailed the CEO, Jon Bunting, and am waiting for a reply. Tried ringing several numbers but only got India. Disgraceful.

Without doubt the worse customer experience I have ever had, I have just read the Smiths-News mission statements, how they do business etc and the reality is that in mine and many others experience they actually achieve not a single aspect in any criteria, the reality is they do business with no regard to customer, promises and assurances of solutions are worthless as without exception Smiths Fail ,I requested a complaints procedure on 6 separate occasions and received nothing, 3 call backs promised , 3 times I waited for a call and 3 times I heard nothing. The Federation have tried to get Smiths to stop ruining my business and they have been ignored by the team from Nottingham who clearly have no care for customer, give zero value to the Federation because clearly there is no consequence to anything they do, The Smiths senior team should be asking not why customers are treated so badly but why they didnt know. The one certainty is that unless action is taken Smiths News will become just another large company that no longer exists. This maybe nothing but every week on my Summary invoice I see the total cost of my Sundays papers, underneath this there is a product summary which shows the cost of my papers minus any claims which by definition makes this total lower or if no claims made equal to the cost on the DPDN but without exception my total is allways higher, only by 3 or 4 pounds per week but if every customer is defrauded of a similiar amount, over a year this represents a large sum, but more worrying is the supplies sub total which again represents your total cost minus any claims but this total is allways greater than the total cost which again by definition cannot be true, each week between 25 and 150 pounds so approx £5000 per year but this is where the magic happens because the cost of the initial suppply minus returns and claims is the net value (what you pay ) but wait, my net value is exactly the same as my initial supply every week irregardless that I made claims and sent back the endless over supply, this is achieved by simply adding the cost of claims and returns then minus the same total, every invoice I have checked follows the identical number manipulation, I may be totally wrong but it seems pretty clear and worth checking your own invoices

MD think customers paying about £40 a week delivery carriage for deliveries to be regularly left outside even when it's raining causing the shop to have to sell wet newspapers isn't deserving of compensation and they'll just email the depot who will continue to "have a word with the driver" without any consequence or resolution. Very poor customer service!

They only help the supermarkets, don't support small businesses, have no competition and a complete monopoly over the newspaper supply chain which means you can't take your business elsewhere.

Smiths News are they worst company on the whole planet and this is no exaggeration I have dealt with them now for 15 years and have never ever ever had a good word to say about them everything about the company is awful.
Hopefully with the demise of the printed word the writing is on the wall for this company to go as well

Worst service. Don't know where to escalate the complaints. Didn't recieve newspaper and calling them to find out the reason is a nightmare. 4 people answered the call from India with different answers . No one knows the reason . Started this newsagent a year ago and this happens on and off. They are not reliable and do not understand about a newsagents responsibility and abuse they go through when you can't deliver the newspaper to your regular customers. Very poor service and just wondering how they could survive with all these regular complaints. I hope someone could look into this.

My direct debit payment didn't clear on Wednesday.
I paid on Friday but Smiths had already stopped my deliveries of newspapers and magazine delivery.
even though I offered 6/7 part payment on Thursday and was told pay it all Friday and my deliveries would not be effected.