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That’s far from the worst atrocity that EE committed. What sent me over the edge with Expert’s Exchange is the fact that to sign up for a “free trial”, you had
by debaserab2 13y ago
That’s far from the worst atrocity that EE committed. What sent me over the edge with Expert’s Exchange is the fact that to sign up for a “free trial”, you had to enter in credit card information. That kept me away from the site for a long time, until one day when I was desperate for an answer and it appeared that EE might have one. I bit the bullet and quickly signed up, not reading over the fine print. Next month, lo and behold, I see a charge on my credit card for a full membership rate at EE.
Shame on me for not assuming this would happen when I signed up, but shame on EE for implementing this scammy business practice in the first place. What percent of EE’s revenue model came from unwitting free trial memberships that rolled over into “VIP” memberships?
- andy_adams 13y agoI was under the impression that pretty much any company that took CCs on signups assumed you would stay signed up until you explicitly cancelled...there are tons of examples of beloved companies doing this, so I don't agree that this was so bad. I suppose they could've made it clearer...
- jackmaney 13y agoAnd that impression is completely wrong. Gods, how I wish I had enough karma to downvote on HN...
- andy_adams 13y agoI just went through a list of companies that I personally use or have considered using that take CC information on signup. All but one assume that you'll be continuing unless you explicitly cancel. I don't think my impression is so far off the mark, but eh, I could be wrong.
- debaserab2 13y agoWhen it's worded "free trial" and the details about rolling over into a membership are shelved away in the fine print, it certainly doesn't give off that impression to me. Although, you're right, at the end of the day any company that is taking credit card information up front like that is probably doing this.
- Zarathust 13y agoMaybe it is the case and it should be expected. But while it is a great tactic to increase short term cashflow to pay for employee's snacks, I fail to see how customers can like this. How many months do you think debaserab2 suscribed to the service? My guess is either 1 or 0 if he managed to reverse the charges. Yet he hated EE for years after that. EE failed because they had tons of little annoying practices like this that made it grow in the minds of their tech savvy customer as a company to hate and not a company to love.
- radmuzom 13y agoThis is a very common practice - even followed by Oreilly Safari and Linkedin for example. Anyone complaining about this is clearly biased without a reason.
- qu4z-2 13y agoAh, LinkedIn. That bastion of class and good practices.