Desperate Measures Online
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
I love the way you sign up for free trials and the company “accidentally” or under some other deceitful manner continues to bill you. The following is an actual e-mail series of transmissions I recently had with such a company. I signed up for a trial period to list my vacation rental. I didn’t see good results so I cancelled the account. Yes, I’m sarcastic, but I think one needs to be to see any action.
Greetings,
I received a notice that my free trial was up and I replied to cancel. I now have a charge for $29 on my credit card. Please credit back the charge and make sure this account and all my personal financial information is removed safely "please. My e-mail for confirmation is **********.
Thank you,
Carol
Hi Carol,
I do not see any account under the email address of *********. Please provide me with the email address you used to create your account and the last name of the credit card holder so that I can pull up your account.
Best Regards,
Kristen
Customer Care
Hello Kristen,
Thank you for your response. The e-mail address is **********. We
recently changed e-mail addresses. The card charged in my
name, Carol *****.
Thank you,
Carol
Hi Carol,
Thank you for your email. I took a look at your account and did find the email request to cancel - however, a representative did call and leave a voice mail for you and also sent you an email informing you that your account was extended on the Free Trail for an additional 60 Days.
Your Free Trial ended April 21st - and you also received an email 7 days prior to the completion of the extended Free Trial. At this time I am not able to refund the last charge of $29.99 - however, since you already did pay for this month - would you like to keep it live on the site until May 20th - which is the last day before your next billing date?
Please let me know how you would like to proceed.
Best,
Danielle
Hello Danielle,
Thank you for your e-mail. Now please do not be telling me you received my
request to cancel this account and did not do so because you say you left a
voice message which of course was never received. I asked you to cancel and
I appreciate that I need to do no more than that. Otherwise, one might
perceive this as a gimmick, or fraud. I know your company wouldn't want to
be viewed that way.
Also, I have a new e-mail address as you can probably see from our
messaging.
Please remove the charge immediately. I will accept this has been done by
one e-mail from you stating so.
Thank you,
Carol Denbow
Carol,
Thank you so much for your email - I am sorry you never received the voice mail or email sent to you regarding your 60 Day Extension. At this point I have refunded the last charge of $29.99 and have canceled your account.
Please note that at this time everything has been deleted - If you do decide to re-list - you will need to start from the beginning.
Best,
Danielle
Danielle,
Thank you and have a beautiful day.
Carol
10 comments:
Yessss! That worked wonderfully. Usually they still try to fight it!
Well it finally worked out for you which is good. I've had similar situations and it always amazes me how they get away with these things. I have found when all else fails just say "lawsuit" and the situation is cleared immediately.
This sounds shockingly familiar!
Malcolm
This is so true! I've gone through this too many times myself.
I may have to borrow some of your text for my future spats. You seem to have the magic touch that I lack.
I have had much better luck getting them to reverse the charges and it happened a lot until I got smart and stopped getting trial samples of anything. It's the classic bait and switch. I call directly and when I don't get what I want, I ask to speak to a supervisor and let them know I am a nationally syndicated journalist. That always helps.
Jogging through.
Yes, I have had an experience or two like this. Enough to convince me not to take "advantage" of trial periods anymore! wb
Hey, Carol, interesting blog. Good for you for persisting.
Marilyn (my wrong blog is going to show up)
Because of this I never do free trials anymore. Ends up being such a hassle in the end.
Ugh! I feel for you! Anytime I have to call Qwest (phone company) to make a change I can guarantee you my bill will be messed up for 4-6 months. The service is great - my phone always works, my DSL always works...but their billing department? Forget about it.
(hope this doesn't duplicate...won't let me post)
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