Automatic Subscription scams
 

Dammit I just got burned again. Sent some old 35mm slides out to ScanCafe to be digitized. When I went to download the images I noticed that I had been signed up for a $10 a month storage plan - for a dozen photos! Bastages!!

Last year Experian signed me up for monthly credit monitoring when I contacted them to do a credit freeze. $17 a month for a service I didn't ask for and do not need. Experian made canceling the "service" so difficult I had to cancel the credit card to get it to stop.

I keep an eye on my credit card bill for charges that show up 2 months in a row, but Vicki signed up for a service that charged $50 every three months. She tried to cancel but they have such an arcane cancellation procedure that it took 3 tries to get it stopped. Customer service is generally poor, but the "customer service" at the cancellation desk is basically nonexistent. The only way we knew we had not stopped the service was when another charge showed up.

While (in our experience) credit cards won't stop a recurring charge, PayPal will. It was only because she paid with PayPal that we were able to stop the $50 quarterly charges.

Be careful out there. The sharks are constantly circling.

I do know that in the past it was a real pain to cancel most of those sorts of things. They seem to have gotten much better, even with the improvement, I still need to REALLY want the service to sign up. I also set an alarm for before the end of the "free" period to ensure that I cancel before I get charged. And when I cancel, I always keep a screenshot of the cancellation.

I think it is wise to "misplace" one of your CC's every 2 years or so. When you call the 800 # to report a card missing, all of you know they cancel the card immediately and send you a new number. Nothing changes on your end but any auto pays will bounce on that new #.

I won't let my computer 'remember' my CC, but eBay has it and Amazon has it. It seems it's just a matter of time before it is breached.

Unfortunately some companies have made it so difficult to cancel an auto pay you might as well 'lose' your card. I don't see any harm.

I had a problem with Amazon automatically enrolling me in Prime. I cancelled and tried to reorder the item without Prime and was super careful to be sure that I didn't check any of the authorization boxes and yet it did it again. The Amazon customer service agent insisted I was making a mistake so we did it while he was on the phone and it did it again. He claimed he had never seen it happen before but I later found info online that it is a problem with Amazon.

I am sure that there are many scams out there but, my company regularly gets complaints that people didn't renew their program and I pull put an image of the enrollment card they signed that says "I understand that my program will automatically renew... ( it is underlined and italicized on the card so it will stand out). No reflection on anyone here but I am continually amazed at how many people don't read what they are signing.

^^^^^ I got signed up for Prime a couple times. They seem to slip the agreement into an order or something. Kept it the second time for a while because I was buying a lot of stuff for a project. That project is done and so is my Prime account.

I'm glad your company is honest, but there are plenty of them out there that deliberately obscure their "disclosure" about the subscription and then make it nearly impossible to cancel. Losing your card every couple of years is probably not a bad way to go.

We switched from Verizon to AT&T last August. Two phones and an iPad. The phones were removed from Verizon, but not the iPad. I’ve called every month to cancel the iPad and get refunded, while verifying every phone/iPad and account is closed.

We just got another invoice.

Verizon is beyond incompetent.

There needs to be a law that says that you can cancel auto renewals in the same manner that you signed up.

So many of them, like gym memberships you have to send a certified letter or show up at their offices to cancel, but you can easily sign up by a phone call or email.

Great idea!