6 ms·

To make it clear: If you were google play music subscriber, which in 2014 offered plan with lifetime guarantee of price: You've been silently cancelled by Googl

by rdslw 6y ago

To make it clear: If you were google play music subscriber, which in 2014 offered plan with lifetime guarantee of price: You've been silently cancelled by Google :) Upon contacting support, the only remedy they offer as for now is to subscribe to You Tube music (higher price and no lifetime guarantee) and are 'investigating' while of course they hadnt provided any solution. Additional info: * you did not get ANY information about this cancellation, up to the moment people starting flooging their support which was yesterday :) * at that moment, you probably got two cancellation mails without any usefull info * this is Google problem/action (not known atm), not your bank or CC Additional info v2: * Google did NOT try to do monhtly charges for the service on the usual date, bank/CC confirms NOT a single charge attempt until, YTM resubsbription on support request. * The problem affects probably (?) subscribers with renewal dates between April 1st and 12th (incl.) as on 13th Google noticed problems and stopped "auto-cancel-feature". Additional info v3: * Looks like that only some subscribers (Europeans for sure) were affected by it, so smaller impact, maybe related to country of subscriber (unknown atm) * It was probably part of the glitched (?) and multi-steps transition of google music to youtube music services (speculation atm)

gullyfur 6y ago
That's disturbing for consumers, and of course Google will attempt to force you to arbitrate for remuneration. Perhaps the Google Music consumers can perform the overwhelming "mass arbitration" denial-of-service against Google that was on the front-page a few days ago?
- jkaplowitz 6y ago
  Unlike most companies featured on HN, including several which compete heavily with Google, the end-user Google consumer and G Suite and GCP terms have never included an arbitration clause. They did have one in their US employment agreement for a while but were successfully pressured to drop it. That said, if they already stopped cancelling customers yesterday (my $7.99/mo is still active) as another commenter said, it sounds like a glitch that they'll aim to fix, so a class action would be premature. Some customers have even reported ad-hoc fixes. They've always been bad about communicating externally in a usefully sensitive way, even when they really need to. This is unfortunately no exception. (Disclosure: I used to work for Google until about 5 years ago, but I have no inside info on this incident and certainly am not speaking for them now.)
  - hexmiles 6y ago
    a bit of topic, but what is arbitration and why is it bad? We don't have it here in Europe (or at least is not very diffused). Can someone eli5 for me? Thanks
    - gowld 6y ago
      It's essentially a private court, where the parties ask a third party to quickly and cheaply settle a disagreement. When used responsibly, it's great. It's bad when a corporation requires arbitration (at the arbiter they choose -- which is a conflict of interest) and bans using the public government court system, as part of the terms of service of the product.
    - pgeorgi 6y ago
      It's a contractual clause that forces you to go to a private court like thingy to resolve issues instead of going to a real court of law. It's not necessarily bad but given that there's usually one party deciding which arbitration provider to use and might even pay the bills and since those providers are a profit seeking organization at the end of the day, it's questionable if they're truly impartial. There's some research that they overwhelmingly decide for the big corp side of disputes but I'm to lazy to look it up and I'm also not sure if that's conclusive in any way (maybe the corp's position really is better?)
    - consp 6y ago
      > a bit of topic, but what is arbitration and why is it bad? We don't have it here in Europe (or at least is not very diffused). You have plenty of arbitration in the EU. It involves a "third party" (supposedly outside of the control of either party involved) which resolves the dispute between the two parties according to the law en possibly some other set of rules which both parties agreed to before entering into a contract. This avoids going to the judiciary and is usually a lot cheaper for the customer as well as the loser of the proceedings. The disadvantage is, that in some cases the use of such arbitration voids legal (civil) cases to be made (e.g. agree to arbitrage, you cannot sue). Some arbitration is set up by law (enacted by law), some is set up by special interest groups to avoid differences between companies within the same line of work and some are set up by companies themselves. In the EU it is mostly the first two. My personal opinion is to avoid them like the plague unless you have no way to go to court (e.g. no money) as they rarely have solid arguments and rule in favor of the companies way more often than not. As far as I am aware you are always allowed to reject arbitration in the EU and go to court, though that might be more difficult and expensive and not always wise. Contact a lawyer beforehand would be my advise, most EU countries have some form of basic (free/cheap) legal assistance. See https://ec.europa.eu/info/live-work-travel-eu/consumers/resolve-your-consumer-complaint/alternative-dispute-resolution-consumers_en https://ec.europa.eu/info/live-work-travel-eu/consumers/reso... for instance edit: list of all commissions is here and https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr/main/?event=main.adr.show2 https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr/main/?event=main.adr.show... and is about 450 items long edit2: As far as I know, force arbitration is generally considered "unfair" but this differs per country and might not be applicable in all circumstances. Some explanation: https://www.hausfeld.com/news-press/mandatory-arbitration-in-the-united-state-and-europe https://www.hausfeld.com/news-press/mandatory-arbitration-in...
- gambiting 6y ago
  >>of course Google will attempt to force you to arbitrate for remuneration Arbiteration thankfully isn't a thing outside of US much. I would love to see what would happen if you took them to small claims court in UK for instance.
  - yrro 6y ago
    At best I'd expect you would get a ruling that they should restore your free service. But enforcing it would be another matter... I expect to see Google Play Music retired (in favour of YouTube music) first :)
    - jkaplowitz 6y ago
      In most US and Canadian jurisdictions I'm aware of, small claims court can only award money damages, not injunctions or other court orders. I'd guess it's the same in the UK but don't know. So they could probably award damages in the amount of the grandfathered discount from list price for the remaining expected lifetime of Google Play Music, which would be a very enforceable award (at least after any permitted appeals) since Google is too widely present to dodge paying judgments.
  - gowld 6y ago
    Small claims court (which also exists in the US) is almost exactly the same as arbitration, but run through the government court system.
    - catalogia 6y ago
      And a Toyota Prius is almost exactly the same as a space shuttle, except it's not a spacecraft.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  All subscription contracts provide that they can be cancelled by either parties with reasonable notice. If that was not the case we would have open-ended contracts that can never be brought to an end, which would be obviously unfair (and in fact such contracts are deemed unfair in many jurisdictions). In this case it seems that Google's promise was only never to raise the price. That might sound misleading because consumers are not used to have a company cancel on them (they want to get paid, right?) but that's always a contractual possibility.
  - bradleyjg 6y ago
    All subscription contracts provide that they can be cancelled by either parties with reasonable notice. If that was not the case we would have open-ended contracts that can never be brought to an end, which would be obviously unfair (and in fact such contracts are deemed unfair in many jurisdictions). That’s not the case, and it needn’t be the case. In common law jurisdictions courts rarely order specific performance. So for perpetual contracts, which do exist, a party would just need to pay expectation damages to the other party to end the contract.
    - mytailorisrich 6y ago
      That's rather nitpicking. On the consumer side perpetual contracts are unfair, and subscription consumer contracts essentially always include termination clauses on both sides. In the end this usually means having to give reasonable notice, which can also be an implied term. Now, if you consider commercial contracts in general that's different.
  - mijoharas 6y ago
    I basically agree with what you said, but want to point one thing out: > All subscription contracts provide that they can be cancelled by either parties with reasonable notice Apparently no notice was given. Either way, this seems to me like it's a bug rather than a contract issue
  - matheusmoreira 6y ago
    What's unfair is Google offering lifetime deals, getting consumers because of it and then pulling the rug from under them when it's no longer convenient.
matsemann 6y ago
Google maybe (?) had a better track record in 2014, but if there's one company I wouldn't buy anything with a lifetime guarantee from now it would have to be them.
- Fjolsvith 6y ago
  Lifetime guarantees from companies are wishful thinking, IMHO. The company can get bought out, go bankrupt, etc., and your guarantee is worth nothing.
  - rorykoehler 6y ago
    I find myself not buying lifetime subscriptions to stuff because I find them dishonest.
    - gowld 6y ago
      Do you buy the non-lifetime versions from those dishonest companies, or eschew the company entirely?
      - CydeWeys 6y ago
        It sounds like this was effectively a monthly subscription anyway.
  - apexalpha 6y ago
    On the other hand a lot of companies have these kind of offers when they're trying to reach critical mass. Buying it in the early stages of a companies lifetime can be rewarding. But it is always a gamble, yes.
  - Angostura 6y ago
    It's always a good idea to determine what object is that we are measuring the lifetime off. Is it you, the customer? The offering company, or the 'lifetime of the offer' - which can be any number, as here.
markus_zhang 6y ago
reason I never opted in any lifetime offer. Company may fail, they may renegade.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
  Never? What if the offer is appealing at the time and you can cancel whenever you want.
  - markus_zhang 6y ago
    There was one time I as really into a lifetime offer from Manning but decided to pass it.
dannyw 6y ago
It's quite possible that what happened was a glitch with their technical billing tables. Even Google would not silently cancel a paying customer's subscription without some communication.
bobo_legos 6y ago
I am one of the original $7.99 lifetime subscribers. I received no emails or cancellations. My payment for the month was processed last night. Music apps in the browser and mobile still recognize my account.
- sjs382 6y ago
  Same but my billing date is tomorrow.
- logosmonkey 6y ago
  Same, mine was processed a few days ago. So I dunno, I'm guessing it's not a total cancellation of all folks with that plan.
- jhart99 6y ago
  Same, mine was charged on the 28th, but I had this exact same problem once before where I was switched off and they cancelled my subscription. I used the Google One support people to get connected to the right tech support people inside of Google and got everything fixed in less than an hour.
throwaway9d0291 6y ago
> Upon contacting support, the only remedy they offer as for now is to subscribe to You Tube music (higher price and no lifetime guarantee) and are 'investigating' while of course they hadnt provided any solution. This isn't the case. From the link: - "So I've managed to rectify the issue and they've renewed my Google Play/YouTube Premium subscription for 9.99USD a month (slight increase from the 9.99AUD I was paying, but hey, still a discount)." - "I got my subscription reactivated through chat this morning at my original rate." - "I had no choice but to use the link to get YouTube Premium subscription at my original price 7.99."
- rdslw 6y ago
  1. In many countries the lifetime guaranteed price from 2014 was lower than 2020 price of YT Music. E.G. in most of Europe. 2. Did you have the original grandfather plan of Google Music? 3. Besides, YTM does not have guarantee of lifetime price.
  - throwaway9d0291 6y ago
    1. Though people are being asked to purchase YT Music, they're being given their original, grandfathered price. They're not being asked to pay more (aside from the person who moved from AUD -> USD). 3. The modern public terms don't seem relevant here. YTM also doesn't have a $7.99/month plan, yet that's what's being offered to you. Is there any compelling evidence that accepting Google's purchase links means surrendering your lifetime price guarantee?
- chillfox 6y ago
  There is a large difference between 10 USD and 10 AUD, about 50%
  - throwaway9d0291 6y ago
    True but that only applies to one of the users. The other two got their original price, unaltered.
raverbashing 6y ago
Maybe when the plans were grandfathered their duration was set to 5 (or 6) years with a //FIXME and the FIXME part was forgotten
VHRanger 6y ago
Isn't that a breach of contract? You could class action them
eVeechu7 6y ago
I'm not sure when I subscribed but on 8th March and 8th April I was charged 9.99 AUD and as far as I can tell I still receive Google music and ad-free youtube. It says "GOOGLE *MUSIC" on my credit card statement.
zenexer 6y ago
My USD$7.99/mo grandfathered Google Play Music subscription is scheduled to renew in 2 days. There's no indication on my account that it will be cancelled. If I recall correctly, I did run into an issue in the past where it was incorrectly cancelled, and I had no trouble getting it restored at the same price by contacting support, but that was a long time ago, so it's hard to remember. And I'm pretty sure it was partially an issue on my end--my bank was declining the charge or something. When the charge finally went through, it was $9.99 instead of $7.99. I think. My memory is terrible.
rdslw 6y ago
I just got official reply from google: I received an update from our specialist. To set your expectation, we understand that you want to keep the old pricing for your membership. However, as per our specialist they no longer have a link that you can regain the promotion pricing. To compensate this, we'll grant you a 3 months free time for your membership. WTF Google??!?!?! I of course rejected their "offer" and asked to reinstate things as they were before their mistake, I'm now waiting for their response. As someone wrote, this might be dark pattern of 'how-to-get-rid-of-lifetimes'. I'm really disgusted by Google. Anyone can help on this?

by rdslw 6y ago

gullyfur 6y ago

That's disturbing for consumers, and of course Google will attempt to force you to arbitrate for remuneration. Perhaps the Google Music consumers can perform the overwhelming "mass arbitration" denial-of-service against Google that was on the front-page a few days ago?

jkaplowitz 6y ago
Unlike most companies featured on HN, including several which compete heavily with Google, the end-user Google consumer and G Suite and GCP terms have never included an arbitration clause. They did have one in their US employment agreement for a while but were successfully pressured to drop it. That said, if they already stopped cancelling customers yesterday (my $7.99/mo is still active) as another commenter said, it sounds like a glitch that they'll aim to fix, so a class action would be premature. Some customers have even reported ad-hoc fixes. They've always been bad about communicating externally in a usefully sensitive way, even when they really need to. This is unfortunately no exception. (Disclosure: I used to work for Google until about 5 years ago, but I have no inside info on this incident and certainly am not speaking for them now.)
- hexmiles 6y ago
  a bit of topic, but what is arbitration and why is it bad? We don't have it here in Europe (or at least is not very diffused). Can someone eli5 for me? Thanks
  - gowld 6y ago
    It's essentially a private court, where the parties ask a third party to quickly and cheaply settle a disagreement. When used responsibly, it's great. It's bad when a corporation requires arbitration (at the arbiter they choose -- which is a conflict of interest) and bans using the public government court system, as part of the terms of service of the product.
  - pgeorgi 6y ago
    It's a contractual clause that forces you to go to a private court like thingy to resolve issues instead of going to a real court of law. It's not necessarily bad but given that there's usually one party deciding which arbitration provider to use and might even pay the bills and since those providers are a profit seeking organization at the end of the day, it's questionable if they're truly impartial. There's some research that they overwhelmingly decide for the big corp side of disputes but I'm to lazy to look it up and I'm also not sure if that's conclusive in any way (maybe the corp's position really is better?)
  - consp 6y ago
    > a bit of topic, but what is arbitration and why is it bad? We don't have it here in Europe (or at least is not very diffused). You have plenty of arbitration in the EU. It involves a "third party" (supposedly outside of the control of either party involved) which resolves the dispute between the two parties according to the law en possibly some other set of rules which both parties agreed to before entering into a contract. This avoids going to the judiciary and is usually a lot cheaper for the customer as well as the loser of the proceedings. The disadvantage is, that in some cases the use of such arbitration voids legal (civil) cases to be made (e.g. agree to arbitrage, you cannot sue). Some arbitration is set up by law (enacted by law), some is set up by special interest groups to avoid differences between companies within the same line of work and some are set up by companies themselves. In the EU it is mostly the first two. My personal opinion is to avoid them like the plague unless you have no way to go to court (e.g. no money) as they rarely have solid arguments and rule in favor of the companies way more often than not. As far as I am aware you are always allowed to reject arbitration in the EU and go to court, though that might be more difficult and expensive and not always wise. Contact a lawyer beforehand would be my advise, most EU countries have some form of basic (free/cheap) legal assistance. See https://ec.europa.eu/info/live-work-travel-eu/consumers/resolve-your-consumer-complaint/alternative-dispute-resolution-consumers_en https://ec.europa.eu/info/live-work-travel-eu/consumers/reso... for instance edit: list of all commissions is here and https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr/main/?event=main.adr.show2 https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr/main/?event=main.adr.show... and is about 450 items long edit2: As far as I know, force arbitration is generally considered "unfair" but this differs per country and might not be applicable in all circumstances. Some explanation: https://www.hausfeld.com/news-press/mandatory-arbitration-in-the-united-state-and-europe https://www.hausfeld.com/news-press/mandatory-arbitration-in...
gambiting 6y ago
>>of course Google will attempt to force you to arbitrate for remuneration Arbiteration thankfully isn't a thing outside of US much. I would love to see what would happen if you took them to small claims court in UK for instance.
- yrro 6y ago
  At best I'd expect you would get a ruling that they should restore your free service. But enforcing it would be another matter... I expect to see Google Play Music retired (in favour of YouTube music) first :)
  - jkaplowitz 6y ago
    In most US and Canadian jurisdictions I'm aware of, small claims court can only award money damages, not injunctions or other court orders. I'd guess it's the same in the UK but don't know. So they could probably award damages in the amount of the grandfathered discount from list price for the remaining expected lifetime of Google Play Music, which would be a very enforceable award (at least after any permitted appeals) since Google is too widely present to dodge paying judgments.
- gowld 6y ago
  Small claims court (which also exists in the US) is almost exactly the same as arbitration, but run through the government court system.
  - catalogia 6y ago
    And a Toyota Prius is almost exactly the same as a space shuttle, except it's not a spacecraft.
mytailorisrich 6y ago
All subscription contracts provide that they can be cancelled by either parties with reasonable notice. If that was not the case we would have open-ended contracts that can never be brought to an end, which would be obviously unfair (and in fact such contracts are deemed unfair in many jurisdictions). In this case it seems that Google's promise was only never to raise the price. That might sound misleading because consumers are not used to have a company cancel on them (they want to get paid, right?) but that's always a contractual possibility.
- bradleyjg 6y ago
  All subscription contracts provide that they can be cancelled by either parties with reasonable notice. If that was not the case we would have open-ended contracts that can never be brought to an end, which would be obviously unfair (and in fact such contracts are deemed unfair in many jurisdictions). That’s not the case, and it needn’t be the case. In common law jurisdictions courts rarely order specific performance. So for perpetual contracts, which do exist, a party would just need to pay expectation damages to the other party to end the contract.
  - mytailorisrich 6y ago
    That's rather nitpicking. On the consumer side perpetual contracts are unfair, and subscription consumer contracts essentially always include termination clauses on both sides. In the end this usually means having to give reasonable notice, which can also be an implied term. Now, if you consider commercial contracts in general that's different.
- mijoharas 6y ago
  I basically agree with what you said, but want to point one thing out: > All subscription contracts provide that they can be cancelled by either parties with reasonable notice Apparently no notice was given. Either way, this seems to me like it's a bug rather than a contract issue
- matheusmoreira 6y ago
  What's unfair is Google offering lifetime deals, getting consumers because of it and then pulling the rug from under them when it's no longer convenient.

matsemann 6y ago

Google maybe (?) had a better track record in 2014, but if there's one company I wouldn't buy anything with a lifetime guarantee from now it would have to be them.

Fjolsvith 6y ago
Lifetime guarantees from companies are wishful thinking, IMHO. The company can get bought out, go bankrupt, etc., and your guarantee is worth nothing.
- rorykoehler 6y ago
  I find myself not buying lifetime subscriptions to stuff because I find them dishonest.
  - gowld 6y ago
    Do you buy the non-lifetime versions from those dishonest companies, or eschew the company entirely?
    - CydeWeys 6y ago
      It sounds like this was effectively a monthly subscription anyway.
- apexalpha 6y ago
  On the other hand a lot of companies have these kind of offers when they're trying to reach critical mass. Buying it in the early stages of a companies lifetime can be rewarding. But it is always a gamble, yes.
- Angostura 6y ago
  It's always a good idea to determine what object is that we are measuring the lifetime off. Is it you, the customer? The offering company, or the 'lifetime of the offer' - which can be any number, as here.

markus_zhang 6y ago

reason I never opted in any lifetime offer. Company may fail, they may renegade.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
Never? What if the offer is appealing at the time and you can cancel whenever you want.
- markus_zhang 6y ago
  There was one time I as really into a lifetime offer from Manning but decided to pass it.

dannyw 6y ago

It's quite possible that what happened was a glitch with their technical billing tables. Even Google would not silently cancel a paying customer's subscription without some communication.

bobo_legos 6y ago

I am one of the original $7.99 lifetime subscribers. I received no emails or cancellations. My payment for the month was processed last night. Music apps in the browser and mobile still recognize my account.

sjs382 6y ago
Same but my billing date is tomorrow.
logosmonkey 6y ago
Same, mine was processed a few days ago. So I dunno, I'm guessing it's not a total cancellation of all folks with that plan.
jhart99 6y ago
Same, mine was charged on the 28th, but I had this exact same problem once before where I was switched off and they cancelled my subscription. I used the Google One support people to get connected to the right tech support people inside of Google and got everything fixed in less than an hour.

throwaway9d0291 6y ago

> Upon contacting support, the only remedy they offer as for now is to subscribe to You Tube music (higher price and no lifetime guarantee) and are 'investigating' while of course they hadnt provided any solution. This isn't the case. From the link: - "So I've managed to rectify the issue and they've renewed my Google Play/YouTube Premium subscription for 9.99USD a month (slight increase from the 9.99AUD I was paying, but hey, still a discount)." - "I got my subscription reactivated through chat this morning at my original rate." - "I had no choice but to use the link to get YouTube Premium subscription at my original price 7.99."

rdslw 6y ago
1. In many countries the lifetime guaranteed price from 2014 was lower than 2020 price of YT Music. E.G. in most of Europe. 2. Did you have the original grandfather plan of Google Music? 3. Besides, YTM does not have guarantee of lifetime price.
- throwaway9d0291 6y ago
  1. Though people are being asked to purchase YT Music, they're being given their original, grandfathered price. They're not being asked to pay more (aside from the person who moved from AUD -> USD). 3. The modern public terms don't seem relevant here. YTM also doesn't have a $7.99/month plan, yet that's what's being offered to you. Is there any compelling evidence that accepting Google's purchase links means surrendering your lifetime price guarantee?
chillfox 6y ago
There is a large difference between 10 USD and 10 AUD, about 50%
- throwaway9d0291 6y ago
  True but that only applies to one of the users. The other two got their original price, unaltered.

raverbashing 6y ago

Maybe when the plans were grandfathered their duration was set to 5 (or 6) years with a //FIXME and the FIXME part was forgotten

VHRanger 6y ago

Isn't that a breach of contract? You could class action them

eVeechu7 6y ago

I'm not sure when I subscribed but on 8th March and 8th April I was charged 9.99 AUD and as far as I can tell I still receive Google music and ad-free youtube. It says "GOOGLE *MUSIC" on my credit card statement.

zenexer 6y ago

My USD$7.99/mo grandfathered Google Play Music subscription is scheduled to renew in 2 days. There's no indication on my account that it will be cancelled. If I recall correctly, I did run into an issue in the past where it was incorrectly cancelled, and I had no trouble getting it restored at the same price by contacting support, but that was a long time ago, so it's hard to remember. And I'm pretty sure it was partially an issue on my end--my bank was declining the charge or something. When the charge finally went through, it was $9.99 instead of $7.99. I think. My memory is terrible.

rdslw 6y ago

I just got official reply from google: I received an update from our specialist. To set your expectation, we understand that you want to keep the old pricing for your membership. However, as per our specialist they no longer have a link that you can regain the promotion pricing. To compensate this, we'll grant you a 3 months free time for your membership. WTF Google??!?!?! I of course rejected their "offer" and asked to reinstate things as they were before their mistake, I'm now waiting for their response. As someone wrote, this might be dark pattern of 'how-to-get-rid-of-lifetimes'. I'm really disgusted by Google. Anyone can help on this?