Terrible customer service on the phone! When we called to say my paper had not been delivered, they could not find our account in their computer. Made it seem like this was our fault because we did not know the account number. The person did not speak good English. After a wait, someone came back on the phone to tell me that weI canceled the subscription in 2024! No answer for why we had been getting the paper delivered till July of 2025. We are waiting for a supervisor to call back. We may end up canceling for real. The San Jose Mercury costs half as much. read more

They must not want new customers. Horrible experience trying to get 13 week home delivery started ...

subscription rates over $1100.00 per year for two day old news. Doesn't cover most events until they are over, with little advance notice of upcoming events. Surprised it is still in business! I'm quiting my subscription tomorrow after being notified that rates are doubling. read more

The worst customer service representaves. Cannot take an order efficiently. Had them give me 3 different numbers to call to order the sentinel emwith the TV guide. They HD their system down. And when asked to ge transferred to a supervisor was on hold for 2 min. Got a call from someone saying their supervisor asked them to call me. She was very rude. When calling customer service I told them my frustration at not getting an answer or the paper delivered. They hung up. Truly unprofessional. Just 1 guy named Ensavior. Was helpful and professional. A very difficult experience!​ read more

DO NOT EVER SUBSCRIBE Terrible terrible service. They are owned by "Bay Area News Group" which clearly has no concept of customer service This is NOT your local paper. RUN away!!! Renewal arrived in my credit card notice and I called same day and guess what the response was? " we have a no refund policy" Well, guess what my policy for Santa Cruz Sentinel is no renewal ever read more

I subscribed to the digital edition because I wanted local news, but there is very little local content. Their service is very predatory, making you call in to cancel. When I called their number (831-706-3201) and choose the "Your account," I was placed on hold indefinitely. When I chose the "Something else" option as a different reviewer mentioned, I was connected with a person immediately and able to cancel. I will never subscribe again. read more

Have a friend who wanted extra copies of a paper their business was in so I called. Response was quick and efficient. They took my info and had the copies sent with my regular delivery person. read more

I received an email from the Sentinel asking me if I'd like to renew my subscription, which I had had for more than 20 years. The price increase was unbelievable with the annual rate increasing about 40% to something like $400 per year and I replied no thank you to renewal. Several weeks later I saw a $400+ bill on my credit card for the Sentinel. I called the next day to inquire and was told that I had a credit card on file and was on auto-renew. I told him I had responded no to the email. He said, sorry your card was on file and now that we've charged it, there are no refunds. I argued for 20 minutes to say I'd be happy to pay pro-rated for the 4 papers I had received. "Sorry, no refunds" What a POS company! Think that's the way to keep customers? Too all whom will listen, the paper is a rag and waaaay to expensive and a scam. I wish a swift bankruptcy! read more

Shitty paywall - tons of ads -- most paid news content shops open the wall for certain stories - went there today to find out about the fires - feels gross that you'd charge me to read about something that could affect my safety. read more

Very poor content. Terrible delivery service. Absolutely criminal charges for obituaries. And they DON'T REFUND your balance when you discontinue service. read more

I have to update my review with a downgrade to two stars. The paper seems to be getting worse. Less content, less balanced and objective reporting and delinquent, late stories ....plus the kicker--- a more expensive annual fee. This could be the end of my 40 yr subscription to a local paper. A bit of sad ending. read more

This newspaper sucks.......it is the only local daily paper in the area. The delivery service doesn't deserve "service" attached to it's title. I have to call at least one time a week to find out when (or if) the rag will get delivered. You would think by the number of times that I call the moron that holds down the delivery position would get a kick in the slats and get motivated to perform his one and only duty.......DELIVER THE PAPER before it becomes yesterday's! This has been going on since 2013. I ought to send them my phone bill to have them pay me for my patience....... read more

I have been interested in some of their articles but exceeded my monthly limit. I decided to subscribe online. After I had paid I still couldn't access it. I called the customer support and they told me it would take two weeks before I could access the link, even though I had paid. That made no sense at all, so I called the bank, reported it as fraud and got the charges reversed. The message on the link is completely misleading and any company in the 21st Century that takes two weeks to activate a link after you have paid your money is too lame to even consider. read more

This newspaper costs far too much. Not only that, but it is impossible to unsubscribe by writing emails the links they provide. I tried two or three links that provided email windows. I filled each out with the demand that they unsubscribe me immediately. The never returned my email. NEVER. Here is how to unsubscribe. Call Subscriber Services at 1-831-706-3201. Wait for the last of the options, that says "something else" and answer that you want to unsubscribe. You will be allowed to speak to an actual person. State that you wish to unsubscribe. Supposedly that will happen. I also asked that they return the last 3 payments due to their failure to respond to any of my emails prompted by their links. They refused to do so! Do not subscribe to this newspaper unless you have 12.99 each month and you elect to spend it on this newspaper. read more

Yesterday's news as the paper has a cutoff time before evening, thus there is no news about what's happened the evening before, which includes NBA game scores, etc. Also the editing is not done by a person, but is automated, thus there are often words and sentences that make no sense. We canceled as the paper had a huge ad for guns, just after a massive shooting....then restarted so months later as we missed the local news. If there was another option for local news, we'd switch, but I don't see any other options. read more

Most impressive was my sales ad with the Santa Cruz Sentinel. For this ad, Sheri Ducharme, a Multimedia Account Executive, skillfully coordinated multiple components that included a super image . She also made important decisions for editing the text and the placement of the ad in the paper. Finally she managed to save on my expenses and duplicate the ad at no additional expense. read more

My grandpa, God rest his soul, called the Sentinel the "Senile" because he thought it did a bad job covering our community. Like everyone below says, the writing is pretty average. And the paper certainly won't be winning any beauty contests or design awards, although I've seen much worse. I think their big problem is that they run a lot of wire stories from the Associated Press or other papers. I feel like people don't go to the Sentinel for world or even national news necessarily - they can get this anywhere else. The Sentinel, therefore, should devote more time and resources to getting better local news and more original content. I will say I appreciate that they let you write obituaries for your loved ones. Not all newspapers do that. My grandma wrote a nice one for my grandpa when he passed away. Ironically, in true "Senile" form, there were typos and misspellings in the copy. My grandpa had the last laugh, I guess. P.S.: The paper is owned by MediaNews Group, one of the largest newspaper chains in the U.S.; it also owns the Merc. read more

Terrible service. Called and waited over 30 minutes to get help a number of times and still can't get my paper delivered. The woman on the phone told me it might take a month to straighten out my subscription. I have no idea how this paper stays in business. read more

I love to read the local news, but God I wish these people could get their act together! Delivery is spotty, and don't sleep in on the weekends, because there won't be anyone staffing the customer service dept if you get up late and find that you don't have the Sunday paper AGAIN. Also, payment is made to some newsgroup out of town (Los Angeles). For some reason, although they have no problem taking your money they seem utterly lost when it come to crediting your account. The local cust. service solution for this is to give them ANOTHER payment over the phone w/ a credit card. Excuse me, but I don't pay twice for the same thing. If you cashed my check then make some damn effort to find out what your did with the money. Oh - did I mention they put some other person totally unknown to me and unrelated to me on my account? I don't even know how something like that happens. I may just need to switch to the San Jose paper read more

STOP CALL MY HOUSE AND ASKING ME IF I WANT TO SUBSCRIBE TO YOUR PAPER. AFTER THE FIRST TWO YEARS I STARTED ANSWERING MY PHONE IN SPANISH SO YOU WOULD LEAVE ME ALONE! Thank god they haven't caught on yet.... although it surprises me they don't have Spanish speaking telemarketers..whatever. I usually get the local news on television. I personally prefer the San Jose Merc.... what can I say, old habits die hard. read more

For a medium size town, the Santa Cruz Sentinel must be one of the worst papers in California. Poor writers writing about subjects that no one cares about. Abysmal entertainment news, how do we ever know who is playing, when and where. You only find out AFTER they have played, not before and what good is that? And when was the last time they have ever broken a truly big story? I literally can't remember. Do they sleep all day? I have never and would never pay for it. It's always available for free at the library or at Gayle's. Besides, you can just get the free papers (Good Times, Metro) if you want in depth local stories and information. SC Sentinel, the internet will kill you off and no one will ever notice. read more

Pretty decent local news coverage. Does anyone actually read it? Seems more people read Good Times and SC Metro. Subscription price is reasonable. Sunday comics are okay, but not as extensive as SJ Mercury News. Regional, National, and Global coverage is lacking. read more

I'm writing this as a paid subscriber to their eEdition, preferring to read the "local" paper each morning on my iPad or iPhone. I've done this for almost three years, and quality keeps going from awful to awfuller. eEdition is a typo-ridden nightmare: broken articles, chopped up headlines, typos in every article, and no integration with digital resources. I've been reading for almost three years, and it only gets worse. It's appalling that the Sentinel considers this to be an acceptable product for us PAID CUSTOMERS; I guarantee that if the printed paper went out with 10% of the errors of the eEdition, heads would roll until it got fixed. PLEASE SENTINEL, treat your eEdition as an important product and FIX IT. What you've been putting out for years is very bad and only getting worse. Who is accountable for this? One star, because frankly anyone paying attention would be ashamed to let this out the door. read more

The sentinel has always been a subpar newspaper with sometimes awful writing. Also, it has not been based in Santa Cruz since sometime at the end of last year. Their website says their new address is 1800 Green Hills Road, Suite 210, Scotts Valley, CA 95066 read more

This is THE most pathetic newspaper I've ever seen for a town of Santa Cruz's size. The only decent thing about it is they do a somewhat decent job covering the "major" local news but it ends there. And you can read that stuff online. The Business section was OK - especially on Sundays - except they recently slashed that section so you get about 1/2 page of business during the week and a page or two at best on weekends. In fact, they called their recent design an enhancement but all they did was increase the font size so they could include less news and sell the same ad space. The paper is not even located in Santa Cruz as they print it over the hill. And the HQ is out of state I believe. Go to Google News and save the coin. read more

We canceled our subscription after a 13 week trial. We did not receive any further papers after we canceled. Today we realized we were being charge for the last few months, costing a few hundred dollars. Call the sentinel and they won't reimburse us saying we never canceled...umm you are no longer delivering the paper so obviously we did. This place is an absolute SCAM. Do not subscription with them read more

Don't believe what they say. Julie Copeland, City Editor, said she'd "be happy" to run a feature story on a local nonprofit's 20th anniversary. We had faith in their word and depended on them exclusively to run this one chance story on time. Then she didn't reply to followup emails. And the assistant city editor Donald M. Fukui also didn't consider this promise worth keeping. Financial problems are understandable. An organizational lack of integrity is not. read more

It's not the New York Times. It is a local paper with a fairly small population. It does a reasonably good job on local affairs. Entertainment must be looked for. Regional coverage is gotten from the Murky News, sometimes. The rest is off the wires or are op-ed pieces gotten from the NY Times, actually. If you want to track Santa Cruz politics and other goings-on, subscribe. read more

Pretty lame paper but one of the only places to get local coverage. After near perfect delivery for over fifteen years I couldn't get the paper delivered to my driveway anymore. I called and called to try and solve the problem. I was on a first name basis with the staff at the call center. They never corrected the issues!! When I finally canceled the subscription they miraculously had interest in solving the problem. No way!! Service is everything and without that I won't support them in anyway. Don't bother subscribing to the Santa Cruz Sentinel. read more

My family has been in Santa Cruz county for 150 years and we have always gotten the local paper. We have stopped the delivery in the past. We are now retired and would love to receive the paper. I called 2 weeks ago and still have not received the paper. I just called and cancelled.... terrible service, a real disappointment.... they just lost our business... where did The old Santa Cruz go? read more

Mostly regurgitated wire service news. The local news it does carry usually has incorrect facts with a definite editorial bias. Hardly any in-depth investigative reporting, just press releases of whatever organization in vogue that has their current "in" factor. The Senile gives attention to the most inane, the most destructive of our community and by doing so, gives them a certain amount of legitimacy. read more

Horrible non-existent service with less than half of my newspapers delivered. Called many, many times. Snotty customer reps always lied about correcting the problem. After a month of mostly missed papers I called and cancelled, asking for a refund. They could not care less, and for good reason. They will issue NO refund if you cancel your subscription for any reason. These crooks keep your money even if they failed to deliver your newspaper. This is their exact quoted policy: This subscription is non-refundable and not redeemable for any other form of compensation, credit, or cash. No unused portion of a subscription term will be refunded. They provided three weeks of spotty delivery out of a three month subscription. Now they get to keep my entire payment for the three months. What a racket! Who else can get away with such a business practice? read more

This used to be a decent newspaper with articles and events for the SC area. Now, I only use their website and that's going to change! Their content is always 2-3+ late! I now go to the Mercury news online for up to date info. Sorry Sentinel, you are worthless now read more

I agree with Jerry B. I called to discontinue our subscription because the subscription cost kept increasing ($52.44 a month) and the paper was getting smaller and smaller. Four days after, our bank account was debited $52.44, which I understood because I thought we might have a 30 day cancellation clause. However, the paper delivery stopped immediately. I called to ask what period the $52.44 covered, and the CSR said until the end of August. I asked her then why are we not receiving our paper anymore if we had paid thru August? Her response was that she could restart our subscription, but it would be MY RESPONSIBILITY to call to cancel again. No paper, no refund (because there is some no refund clause in the subscription agreement which I would have been fine with if we would have continued to receive the paper for the period that we had paid thru), NO NOTHING. We have been a customer of Santa Cruz Sentinel for over 20 years, and this is the treatment that we received. read more

The Santa Cruz Sentinel is a daily newspaper published in Santa Cruz, California, covering Santa Cruz County, California, and owned by MediaNews Group Inc. MediaNews Group, based in Denver, Colorado, was one of the largest newspaper companies in the United States. It operated 56 daily newspapers in 12 states, with combined daily and Sunday circulation of approximately 2.4 million and 2.7 million, respectively. In August 2006, the company took out around $350 million in loans to purchase four newspapers from McClatchy Company. Among those providing the loan was the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.[7] The loan was mostly used to help pay for the acquisition of two significant San Francisco Bay Area newspapers (and some smaller papers), including the San Jose Mercury News and the Contra Costa Times, the dominant papers in the San Jose and Contra Costa County, California markets; in total, the purchases amounted to roughly $737 million. Hearst Corporation owns 31% of MediaNews publications outside the San Francisco Bay area. ..............And there you have it! The 1% of the 1% who owns you feeding you precisely the propaganda they love you to feed on. read more

when you get no paper on a monday and on tuesday you get monday and tuesday its pretty stupid . they do this so they don't have to credit you. we never get a credit ant way. done i would rather buy my toilet paper worst paper ever read more

Wow Santa Cruz Sentinel way to lose a customer. Maybe in the future you can pretend to care. All we asked for the 10000 time was to have the paper here on time. Rudest customer service ever. Wish they had negative stars. read more

Terrible service have to call once a week because my new paper is not delivered. Then you talk to them all they can say is sorry about that. They tell you the paper will be delivered that day and they never deliver it. Never will get the news paper from them again don't ever call for me to come back. read more

As a follow-up to my post of 08/24/16 concerning phone solicitation from the Santa Cruz Sentinel, this afternoon I received another call from the Sentinel's minions trying to sell a subscription. I asked why he is calling in light of my unpublished number, he responds that I was a former subscriber and he is following up to see if I would like to renew. I informed him that he is a liar. I have never subscribed to the Sentinel and based on their sales tactics and lack of value as a newspaper, I never would. I then asked him for his home number so I can call him at his residence. He responds: "do you have a pen? Because I don't answer my phone." I can only assume that is because bill collectors are probably calling him every five minutes. Most importantly, I have an unpublished number. It is against the law in California and other states to make obscene, harassing or threatening calls. (California Penal Code section 653m, Penal Code section 422-422.1) which is what these calls constitute. Aside from the fact that it is an extremely shoddy, low-life business practice. read more

Been a reader many years. Want to share a treasure with you. There's a very special group in Scotts Valley in Spring Lakes Mobile Home Park called the Spring Lakes Choir. They are professionally directed by Larry Sampson. There are 36 members, all talented Seniors. They perform twice each year, Spring and Christmas. Their performances are so well attended they've had to add extra ones to accommodate everyone. This week they will perform Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday with two performances on Wednesday 2pm and 7pm. On Thursday they will travel to De Anza Mobile Home Park where 40 residents from Dominican Oaks will be bussed in to enjoy them as they do each concert. They will fill De Anza's Clubhouse at 2pm. They performed at Brookdale formerly Oak Tree Villa last Wednesday to a full house. For more information, please call Larry Sampson 438-2664 Please let folks know about this fabulous Choral Group of Seniors. They are Fantastic. I've been singing since the age of 12, I'm now 81 and this group keeps me going. Larry reminds me of Richard Dreyfus in the movie "Mr. Hollands Opus". His choice of music and enthusiasm have given me the best voice I've ever had. Fran Stekoll read more