Sandra is paying ~£25/month for something.
To cancel, she has to phone them.
She phoned them.
She is now paying £5/month for six months, then £15/month.
Aaaaargh.
Discussion
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@neil sounds just like Virgin Media AKA The Whore of Babylon.
Their representatives refused and ignored my instruction to send a final bill after I disconnected them, so I stopped payments as they were in breach of any reasonable understanding of their contract, by ignoring my clearly given instruction to send a final bill. They stopped sending debt collectors after complaints to OFCOM which OFCOM are still claiming to investigate years later.
@neil Phone contracts in Ireland worked like this (big increase without further notice on expiration). Then after complaints to the regulator this was outlawed.
The chief offender (former monopoly) had been privatised, loaded with debt used to pay extravagant sums to VCs, and left on life support. It's USP now is that phones are answered in Ireland, not Egypt, the Philippines or India.
@neil Business as usual nowadays in the UK it seems for so many things including cancelling trials. It's absurd that companies are able to treat their customers with this level of contempt in terms of renewals IMHO ... At least for (some) insurance services they've got to remind you about other options.
Although for your example how much will those charges jump in in April each year which is something else that shouldn't really be allowed in the communications sector ...
@neil If you can subscribe with a click, you should be able to unsubscribe with a click. That should be the rule.
@neil Automatically treating on-going customer relationships right isn't profitable enough.
@neil is this mostly a commentary about the "inertia tax" pricing philosophy, or that the cancellation was not completed successfully?
@damien The former, as the offer was within the scope of what Sandra was willing to pay, and she would have cancelled if not.
@neil there's more than one service I've cancelled on principle due to not wanting to support such practices, but it relies on their being a suitable competitor to switch to (if required).
Alas, there's a certain sports broadcaster where we have an understanding: I threaten to cancel every 6 months; they keep me at a (just about) acceptable price point. I've paid them below 60% of full price for the last 18 months on this basis.
@neil If the tricks didn't work, the bastards wouldn't use them.