Just Cancel the @#%$* Account!

An anonymous reader writes "PC World Senior Editor Tom Spring signed up for 32 online accounts. Then tried to cancel all of them. The most difficult to cancel: NetZero. The easiest to cancel: Consumer Reports Online and The New York Times TimesSelect. His experience was rated on a number of criteria, and highlights the hoops that commercial enterprises put in place to keep their 'customers'. From the article: 'I had a hard time canceling my $5 monthly Gold Classmates.com account, too. I couldn't find any information on how to cancel until I entered the word cancel In the site's search engine. Classmates.com spokesperson John Uppendahl confirmed that there is no other way to find cancellation information. But that was only the first hoop I had to jump through to cancel my membership. Classmates.com also forced me to click through several Web pages reminding me of the benefits I'd lose. Finally my clicking ended at a generic Member Support e-mail contact page containing a blank 'Your Question' field. Though the form said nothing about cancellations, I used it to request that the service cancel my subscription. The next day I received an e-mail message confirming that the service had accepted my request.'"

Comments

Virtual Credit Card Anybody?

[holdenholden]

This is precisely why I use virtual CC numbers. My bank (MBNA, now bought by B of A) allows me to set a limit on the amount of money that can be used, and the expiration date is usually two months in the future. A few companies (most recently Time Magazine) have tried the old trick "Submit a new card number to ensure uninterrupted service", but the truth is, they know that as long as they have a valid CC number they are in a much stronger position.

On a different thread, I personally found Paypal to be the hardest to cancel. The link is buried deep in the Options menu, good luck finding it, aunt Mary.

Re:Virtual Credit Card Anybody?

[Leebert]

I did the same thing, and a company that I tried to quit from sent the "debt" (that I did not renew and tried to cancel) into collection, which to this day shows up on my credit record.

Order a free copy of your credit report from the Big Three (you can do it easily from http://www.annualcreditreport.com/). When you receive the three reports, dispute the debt on each of them following the procedures outlined in the credit report.

The company reporting the negative information is then required to submit supporting documentation, which often doesn't happen.

Sounds like you may have already tried this, but if not, it's not too time-consuming.

Re:Virtual Credit Card Anybody?

[technothrasher]

Let me advise you that this is not as good a defense as you think. I did the same thing, and a company that I tried to quit from sent the "debt" (that I did not renew and tried to cancel) into collection

This is not a bad outcome (assuming you're in the right and don't owe the debt). As soon as it goes to the collection agency, you can send them a letter asking for any and all evidence the collection agency has to back up their claim they have a valid debt so that you can begin your lawsuit against them. Once you do that, they are legally obligated to furnish you with the information within 30 days, and they are not allowed to touch your credit report until after the lawsuit is finished. Unless it's some huge debt, they'd waste more money trying to prove it then it's worth to them, and so they'll fail to respond within 30 days and you're all done, credit report intact.
 
I've done this on several occasions after companies tried to bully my into paying a fraudulent debt. Works like a charm. They only annoying part is that it's the innocent collection agency who loses here, as they've already paid the original company for the debt. But I guess that's a buyer beware situation for them.

Re:Virtual Credit Card Anybody?

[theskipper]

I'd like to add that the link is not "www.freecreditreport.com". Experian has been advertising this link on TV so people think of it before the correct one: http://www.annualcreditreport.com./

For example, in the past year two relatives called and asked me why are the reports $39.95 when it's supposed to be free ("freecreditreport" was burned into their brains). I had to point out the blue on blue text that looks like legalese on the left side. They totally missed it.

Can't blame Experian for trying to hijack the process, but it's scummy enough where folks like us just need to spread the "correct" link.

Consumer Reports

[honkycat]

It's interesting that he mentions Consumer Reports as the easy to cancel. When I was buying a car a few years ago, I signed up with them to read reviews and advice. Their term was a year. After I bought my car (a month or two after I signed up), I canceled the account and was credited the pro-rated cost of the time I did not use. It was so easy and honest that I couldn't believe it was really going to work. After it was done, I felt a little bad for canceling service with a company that got something so right from a customer point of view, even when it costs them money.

Re:Consumer Reports

[staticdaze]

I'll second the great service with Consumer Reports. Last month, I bought a gift subscription for a family member. A couple weeks later, when I actually informed them of the gift, it turned out they already had a subscription. So I called Consumer Reports up, got through to a human in under a minute(!) and asked if I could get a refund on the gift subscription. After a few basic details (name, address, etc), she simply said "You will be credited within a week. Anything else?" I was in shock and even verified that the process was truly completed. First class service all the way.

.Mac & iTunes

[R3d M3rcury]

I signed up for the free .Mac trial when I got my Mac. While I didn't get charged anything when I didn't sign up, my .Mac account is still buried within Mac OS X and it pops up from time to time when attempting to configure stuff (iChat, Mail, etc.).

iTunes is the more entertaining one. When I set up my iTunes account, it filled in my .Mac account. When I didn't renew it, I set up another iTunes account. So I have a bunch of songs purchased with one account and a bunch of songs purchased with another account. This sometimes confuses iTunes and a batch of songs are unplayable until I reauthorize my computer with one of the accounts.

(This is why I laugh whenever some MacHead tells me about how they "buy" their music rather than "rent" it. Cancel your iTunes account and see what happens to those songs you "bought".)

MySpace won't cancel mine.

[Shag]

I signed up for MySpace (yeah. I know.) from an email address with a plus in it.

Wanted to cancel, and the confirmation email never came.

Tried changing my email address (to something without a plus) and the confirmation email never came.

Wrote to privacy@myspace.com like MySpace says to in this situation... it's been 2-3 months and the account is still there.

For a couple of those months the account's name has been the uncensored version of "F*** MySpace" and its profile has been a description of how broken MySpace is in this regard. This hasn't gotten it canceled either.

Once I manage to move the account's few friends somewhere else, I think I'll have to update its publicly-visible goodness with some choice commentary on "Tom," Rupert Murdoch, barnyard animals, drugs, Al-Qaeda, minors, and whatever else, to see if that helps.

Re:OMG that is annoying

[gb506]

I wonder what would happen if a subscriber didn't update their credit card info once their card expires to let the account lapse.

I actually reported my card lost and had it replaced in order to get rid of an Earthlink DSL account a couple of years ago. Even though I (or anyone else) hadn't lived at the DSL location for 6 mos, and the phone line asociated w/ the acount had been disconnected for the same amount of time, they would not cancel the acount, so I did what I had to do.

I Worked At A Company

[aplusjimages]

That sold websites to small to medium sized businesses, but they did it like a telemarketing company. They were told it would be a trial period and if they didn't like it then they could cancel at any time. The company made lots of money because a lot of the businesses totally forgot about the website and wouldn't know they were being billed until the next quarter when they saw the bill. Some businesses were billed through their business phone company and wouldn't even notice the charge. My friends in customer service said it was stressful because they were required to retain an insane amount of customers and the customers would just go off on them. The company got sued several times, so they ended up audio taping the customers saying yes to the website trial.

Re:OMG that is annoying

[xigxag]

I just canceled a real Superpass account I'd been meaning to cancel for ages. It was dead easy. I told them I wanted to upgrade to Rhapsody. It so happens the memberships aren't directly transferable so they have to de-register you from Superpass and then you have to manually sign up for Rhapsody. So they canceled my Superpass but, of course, I never signed up for the Rhapsody. In fairness to them, I understand the Rhapsody service itself is pretty good as far as those subscription music plans go, and also it ties into one of the Sansa products. Their Superpass was also a decent deal (it included 10 purchased downloads a month) until they decided to tack on some useless bonus software as an excuse for jacking up the price. So I think they've got some decent offerings at their core, but if Real ever want to compete with iTunes, they're going to have to quit with the silly/sleazy business practices.

One other thing. People here keep trotting out that VISA Terms and Conditions which says the merchant is not allowed to bind you to XYZ terms (e.g., they can't penalize you for using virtual cc numbers) But if you contractually agree to the penalty, I wonder if the Visa T&C will be a valid defense? After all, just because they've breached their contract with VISA doesn't mean you (necessarily) get to breach your contract with the merchant. Presumably your defense would be fraudulent inducement? Any case law on this?