Smiths News Reviews 

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.

I wonder why this company hasn’t shut down, the service from top to bottom and left to right is awful. More like conmen then professionals. They owe me a huge amount in credits, but they are turning blind eye every time. I give them a call and they transfer me to every tom, dick and harry. Very incompetent.

Smithsnews request customers to provide number of copies of TV magazines required. Smithsnews then arbitrarily cut the numbers after the date for changes. The copies requested are for home delivery, however the WH Smiths shops that DO NO deliveries are filled with an abundance of copies many of which are returned. How is this dreadful organisation Monopoly? Where is the Monopoly Commission? Competition is needed to activate Smithsnews. Whoever manages to start the competition will gain many customers on day 1

Words cannot describe just how awful this company is. They are rude, corrupt, fraudulent, abusive towards customers in their mannerism of speaking and will happily change T&C's and lie to you regarding any agreement you have with them.

I was due to have my deposit back 3 weeks ago, was promised it back 3 times, I finally called again asking where it is (due to hard times I am desperate for my money back to put into other stock) and they have decided that as I missed 2 payments (although I called the following day and paid) they are now going to keep my deposit until June next year "at a minimum" - meaning they have changed the T&C's as it mentions no where that this could happen, and they can't even give me a correct date as to when I can next attempt to retrieve my money.

They will talk to you on the phone as though you are scum, and they are unapologetic when they make mistakes.

If you try and call them, you'll get through to someone if they can be bothered to pick up the phone after maybe 15+ attempts, but don't expect a friendly voice or customer service of any kind. They will transfer you to someone else without telling you mid conversation if they cannot be bothered to talk to you.

Rude, nasty, horrid company. I truly wish there was an alternative company. If there is someone representing an alternative company reading this PLEASE contact me. I need to get away from these horrid horrid people.

I don't know why I'm bothering to write this, because if you're thinking about using Smith's News, you'll know you have no other option. They have no competitors and their customer service shows it.

All the negative comments are correct, this is literally the worst company I have ever come across. They lied to us about the margin we would make when we signed up for them, they took months to set up a Direct Debit, during which time we got our newspaper supply stopped because we hadn't paid them (!) even though we tried to pay by credit card only to find you can never get through to them.

They constantly send us magazines we don't want and don't have space for, we have asked them time and time again not to do so, to no avail.

I would say 'avoid them', but you can't. All you can do is be aware that if you live in the South of England and want to sell newspapers then you'll have to deal with these clowns.

Not even worthy of one star. Stay well clear of this company. They are nothing but a rip off bunch of incompetents. They owe me over £900 for my deposit back but just keep fobbing me off. Saying someone will get back to me but never does. It’s been a month now and still no deposit back. Their customer service is beyond shockingly bad. The orders are seldom right and often short but you have to fight to retrieve the money they take out of my account. Sometimes the vouchers are totally wrong on their part but they charge you anyway for their mistakes. STAY CLEAR OF THIS COMPANY.

Horrible place. after 2 days starting work. 2 performance meetings with management having a go at me and swearing just disgusting behaviour. I was close to having panic attack. they treat you like slaves and robots not humans. i ain't going back to that slavery camp. other that that the team were brilliant just very poor management. they dont care about you just the work. enuff said.

poor service,our local shop central stores plymouth ,has constant problems with smiths. today no telegraphs delivered, despite apromise to redeliver they didn,t.they now don,t deliver the papers till nearly 8 am. utterly useless co ,running a monopoly and don,t they know it

This is fraudulent company. There only goal is to bankrupt shop owners.
They cahrge you, never give credits back. Their staff is rude and lazy and on top of all that their drivers are thieves. They make money off charging shop owners ridiculous amounts and when you ask them not to send something because it doesn't sell they will send you hundreds of those items. I'm so done with them. It's not even a customer magnet as much anymore. If you live in Wales and want to own a local convienence store, I highly recommend looking into another paper company or just not doing them all together.

Terrible experience. They are swallowing money like anything. They are charging delivery charge which grab all of the weekly profit. Sometimes we need to pay them from our hand with loss. Also they are not giving proper return credits. If anyone not aware of it, They swallow around £100 each week. I am not sure how many stores are struggling with them. Even I am watching carefully, I need to have a big discussion with them to get the credits. Also you need to check properly every time the claim is credited. In SNAPP, it is showing the claim is accepted. When you see the paperwork, half or less of the quantities credited. You need to chase them three or four times to get the credit. Please be aware with them.

This has to be the worst company in the world, god only knows how they stay in business (well I do actually it is only because there is no other option) my nearest depot is 10 minutes up the road yet I have to go through a phone line based in India, it has been years since I have actually managed to speak to someone based in the UK, Smiths news will be the death of many small newsagents, I have hundreds of A4 sheets filled with thousands of issues/incorrect credits/over-charges and there seems to be no where to escalate the problems to, at the moment I have 3 major issues on the go including the fact that we have gone from drop off number 2 to drop off number 9 meaning we have to open our shop an hour later every Saturday, how can that be right when our drop off is supposed to be based on our opening time, not the other way round, I hope this company goes under and someone else takes over that actually cares if they damage the business they are supplying. I would put money on the fact if someone does contact me from Smiths they will not be calling me from the UK

Terrible service and terrible staff in the call centre.

Weekly complaints having to be submitted due to their errors with little or no attempt at resolution by the call centre staff.

Papers missing, re-delivery very late which impacts on home delivery and results in us having to do runs twice at our cost.

Return claims regularly incorrect, again requiring chasing up.

We have contacted the CEO a couple of times and he has been helpful but there are no improvements in service after this contact.

Maybe the CEO needs to contact his customers to get a bit of feedback to look at service improvements.

Smith’s News: your customers are paying for this service, is it so hard to just get it right?

Happy to be contacted to discuss.

I have been having problems for last one year . Finally, contacted careline 2 weeks ago and they assured about services ,got 2-3 calls from different dept. I thought may be now they will be sincere towards their work. BUT NO constantly I am having problems with deliveries , accounts . This is the worst company I have ever worked with............

Awfull, awfull, awfull send items you don't want and even credit them. Then the direct debit coms out of you account for £100s of pounds more. Still attempting to reconcile but not having any joy. They just say give us 24 hours to resolve, but after 24 hours to they say the same.

I’ve made a petition – will you sign it?

Please find the petition (Shutdown Smiths News (Most Corrupt Company) on hanks,
The Petitions UK Government and Parliament

Been a customer for many years,there is never a week when everything goes right,but usually gets sorted eventually. This time I've requested my invoice 5 times (5 days consistently) and still not received it! So annoying to say the least,way can't the staff in Nottingham get thing right? Plus customer services is in India & all they can do is email Nottingham,which I'm sure Nottingham doesn't read!

Not even worthy of 1 star!! I have tried ringing with an account query 5 times and each time the operator put the phone down on me! Beyond shocking customer service!! I doubt I will ever get to the bottom of my query!!