4 ms·

Well from the user's perspective, it does seem a lot like fraud. You sign up for a free trial of a service just to try it out, end up not really liking it so yo

by swebs 8y ago

Well from the user's perspective, it does seem a lot like fraud. You sign up for a free trial of a service just to try it out, end up not really liking it so you forget about it. A few months later you see on your credit card statement that you've been being billed for something you never even authorized. Now technically it is not fraud since it says in the fine print that you'll be billed automatically at the end of the trial. But we all know people don't read the fine print.

jasonkester 8y ago
For what it's worth the service we're talking about does not ask for a credit card during the trial. After your 30 days, you need to come back and add your card details to activate your subscription. Thus the frustration of watching people who have done that come back a few months later and charging back all 3 months of service.
- wccrawford 8y ago
  Then you're talking about a different thing. Your "fraud!" customers are people who have actively chosen to pay for your service, then actively chosen to claim fraud and get their money back. Everyone else is talking about people who were forced to put a CC on a free trial and then were automatically charged for a service they either forgot to cancel or couldn't cancel through the channels. (Or decided not to bother with the channels since they're almost always a pain in the ass.) It's a different situation entirely.
- dhimes 8y ago
  Is this something a competitor might do?
- nkrisc 8y ago
  Sounds like they're trying to defraud you, not just cancel their service.
  - jasonkester 8y ago
    The irony is that I do in fact offer multi-month refunds for Twiddla subscribers who "forgot to cancel". All they have to do is ask. I actually just processed one of these this morning, refunding 5 months worth of payments for a user. Just because they asked.
    - speleding 8y ago
      I feel your pain. We have a very similar policy at SuperSaaS (we don't ask for a credit card to trial and once they do commit to paying we make cancelling and getting a refund easy). Still we get the occasional chargeback: we lose the €6/month our service costs and get dinged an additional €30 per chargeback by Braintree. So we lose half a year of customer value for each chargeback. I really wish they would make those chargeback fees more reasonable.
Silhouette 8y ago
There are laws in some parts of the world, including throughout the EU for example, to protect people who are victims of subscriptions that weren't properly advertised up front. I doubt any of us here today would defend the kind of business that tried to hide that sort of commitment in the small print and then relied on making it unreasonably difficult to cancel. However, that's a very different scenario to someone knowingly signing up for a service on reasonable and clearly advertised terms, failing to comply with those terms, and then blaming the service provider.

by swebs 8y ago

jasonkester 8y ago

For what it's worth the service we're talking about does not ask for a credit card during the trial. After your 30 days, you need to come back and add your card details to activate your subscription. Thus the frustration of watching people who have done that come back a few months later and charging back all 3 months of service.

wccrawford 8y ago
Then you're talking about a different thing. Your "fraud!" customers are people who have actively chosen to pay for your service, then actively chosen to claim fraud and get their money back. Everyone else is talking about people who were forced to put a CC on a free trial and then were automatically charged for a service they either forgot to cancel or couldn't cancel through the channels. (Or decided not to bother with the channels since they're almost always a pain in the ass.) It's a different situation entirely.
dhimes 8y ago
Is this something a competitor might do?
nkrisc 8y ago
Sounds like they're trying to defraud you, not just cancel their service.
- jasonkester 8y ago
  The irony is that I do in fact offer multi-month refunds for Twiddla subscribers who "forgot to cancel". All they have to do is ask. I actually just processed one of these this morning, refunding 5 months worth of payments for a user. Just because they asked.
  - speleding 8y ago
    I feel your pain. We have a very similar policy at SuperSaaS (we don't ask for a credit card to trial and once they do commit to paying we make cancelling and getting a refund easy). Still we get the occasional chargeback: we lose the €6/month our service costs and get dinged an additional €30 per chargeback by Braintree. So we lose half a year of customer value for each chargeback. I really wish they would make those chargeback fees more reasonable.

Silhouette 8y ago

There are laws in some parts of the world, including throughout the EU for example, to protect people who are victims of subscriptions that weren't properly advertised up front. I doubt any of us here today would defend the kind of business that tried to hide that sort of commitment in the small print and then relied on making it unreasonably difficult to cancel. However, that's a very different scenario to someone knowingly signing up for a service on reasonable and clearly advertised terms, failing to comply with those terms, and then blaming the service provider.