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One of the coolest things about being a regular contributor to the _floss is this: when something unusual happens, I feel like I have an outlet – a captive, appreciative audience to share it with.
So freak on this for 2 minutes, if you will.
A year ago I called MLB.com (that’s Major League Baseball for the athletically-acronym challenged) and asked them to cancel my monthly subscription that allowed me to watch out-of-market games online. A calmly man informed me it would be taken care of. After thanking him for his speedy attention to the matter, he replied with the new version of you’re welcome – “no problem.” and I foolishly took his word for it.
Now, fast forward to this past summer and I start to notice a monthly charge of $19.95 appearing on my credit card again. I start a series of disputes with them, and, after some annoying paperwork and a few calls to my credit card company, the charges are reversed. But they start showing up again last month. So I called MLB.com again, and was directed to the following voice-mail:
Is it me, folks, or is that a baby crying in the background??? Can you believe they asked this poor woman to record the outgoing message? Now, I know what it’s like when your nanny doesn’t show up, or your daycare is closed – when you have no option but to take your infant to the office. But come on now! Couldn’t they get someone else to leave the outgoing message? Couldn’t this poor woman ask a colleague to watch the baby for a minute?
Has anyone ever heard anything like it from a major corporation’s outgoing message? And if you want to commiserate with your own “Help! I’m trapped in a monthly auto-bill and I can’t get out!” story, feel free. Lastly, here’s an equally funny outgoing message I recorded from a smaller, fly-by-night Internet phone company that suckered me, too. (click here for a recording of the actual recording I heard).
One of the owners of the ad agency I worked for burped in the middle of his company voicemail greeting and left it like that. I guess he just couldn’t be bothered to re-record it. (Even though he works from home!) Its not a major corporation but its still unprofessional!
posted by Marta on 11-17-2008 at 8:24 am
I always thought ‘no problem’ was the new version of ‘you’re welcome’.
posted by Mike on 11-17-2008 at 8:35 am
That person obviously works from home. It is still unacceptable though.
posted by Mike on 11-17-2008 at 8:38 am
I moved and cancelled my Verizon internet and no matter how many times I call and they tell me it’s taken care of, I end up with a fee for $19.95 every month. Strange, since I was paying $24.95 when I was actually subscribing to the service.
posted by Bri on 11-17-2008 at 9:19 am
I worked out of town a lot a few years back and my wife had a security system installed that was monitored by the company. Turns out you must notify them of your intentions to discontinue service in writing within 15 days of the anniversary of the original contract. It took over 2 years, frequent rude phone calls, and many certified letters to put that one to rest. (We moved.)
posted by Kev in GA on 11-17-2008 at 9:46 am
We are told to specifically not use “no problem.” You should not use negative words like “problem” and “no” even if together they are positive. Its a subliminal thing.
posted by Marty on 11-17-2008 at 10:07 am
whoops mike! typo, thx.
posted by David K. Israel on 11-17-2008 at 10:50 am
We had a hellish experience trying to get out of our AOL contract a couple of years ago. We would call and it would seem that everything was fine, but then we kept getting the monthly charges. Turns out they had us under THREE accounts, so even if one was cancelled, we kept getting billed for the other two… even though we had never been billed for three accounts before. Whatever. I will never use AOL again.
posted by stacy on 11-17-2008 at 11:03 am
I called to order a pizza once and heard a baby crying in the background. I always thought that customer service calls went to a call centre (an assumption made considering I used to work in one for a very short period of time), but it appeared this particular pizza company employed people to work out of their homes. I wonder if any other companies or organizations don’t have a call centre, but rather a system where employees can stay home but still make a living? I don’t know if I could do it…I would never get out of my pajamas!
posted by Kyla on 11-17-2008 at 11:19 am
Me and a friend of mine both had websites hosted by this company called Globat a couple years ago. I had been using them for about three years when suddenly I received an email saying “Your credit card has been charged $34.99 for an automatic hosting plan upgrade.” What??? I never signed up for a hosting plan upgrade!
So I called them, and after a hellish hour on hold, I finally talked to someone about it. Apparently, hidden near the bottom of their weekly newsletter emails, there was something that said, “Next week your account will be upgraded to Super-Mega-Account! To be as easy as possible, we’ll go ahead and upgrade you automatically for a small charge of $34.99! If you don’t want the upgrade, please send an email to this address and say you wanted to be opted out of this great deal!”
So basically, this company was charging me money, unless I told them not to! What kind of company does business like that?
So I told this guy on the phone that I was pissed, and they should never, ever charge me like that again. THEN, a month later, they do the same thing! I couldn’t believe it. I was absolutely furious.
Turns out they did the same thing to my friend at least twice, and he didn’t even realize it. Total BS.
Moral of the story: don’t use Globat for web hosting.
posted by Steve on 11-17-2008 at 11:45 am
I have a story that actually has a happy ending.
My boyfriend gave me a subscription to Vogue three years ago for Christmas when we were in college. I graduated, moved, and we both thought the subscription was up at the end of the year. Well, turns out two years later they have been renewing automatically and the girls that live in my old house have been enjoying my vogue for almost two years! So we called vogue, they cancelled the subscription and are sending me a years worth of Vogue for free to make up for the ones he paid for and i didnt receive. Thanks, Vogue!
posted by WarTiger on 11-17-2008 at 11:53 am
I’m still battling with Sky Italia. You see, I lived in Italy for 2 years and had satellite cable service. Well, I cancelled it, sent in a letter and returned the receiver. It’s been 9 months and I’m STILL getting charged 65 dollars every 2 months.
Yup.
posted by Jeanine on 11-17-2008 at 12:22 pm
You are certainly not alone my friend. I had the same problem with MLB, I spent hours on the phone, sent letters, and finally received resolution only after contacting the BBB (Better Business Bureau). The mother-f’ers have a terrible record with many similar complaints. My whole ordeal spanned over a 2 year period. I guess when you’re a monopoly you can get away with crappy and borderline criminal customer service.
posted by Bob Bobert on 11-17-2008 at 1:21 pm
I’m not sure about the rest of you, but I’ll be singing “Baby on Board” by Homer Simpson and the barber shop quartet he had with Barney, Chief Wiggam, and Apu back in the early 90’s.
posted by Stacy the Amazing on 11-17-2008 at 1:36 pm
I’ve been having an issue with Stamps.com for well over a year. I tried the service for the month (the “free” month), decided against it, and called to cancel before my time was up. The next month, there was a charge on my card from them! I called my credit card company, filed a dispute, then called Stamps.com to straighten it out. They fixed it that month. Next month, same thing all over again. This time I call and write a letter. Next month, my card has expired, and I figure that it was taken care of. Wrong! I get a letter saying that my card had been declined and I needed to call them with my new card information. So I call them, tell them I’ve cancelled twice already (confirmation numbers in hand), and the nice girl says that it’s taken care of. To this day, I’m still getting letters saying I owe them because my card was declined. I will never use Stamps.com again.
posted by Amy D. on 11-17-2008 at 2:34 pm
My two suggestions:
1) Call your CC company and tell them that any future charges from MLB are not authorized, and should be rejected by your CC company.
2) Inform your CC company that if they do not comply with the above, you will cancel your account with them.
I figure it’s easier to cancel the card and either get a new one with another company or even with the same company.
Or….tell the CC company your card was stolen. That will get you a new number that MLB doesn’t have.
posted by Dawn on 11-17-2008 at 3:12 pm
When the Iphone came out, we broke off our Verizon contract to get one. The customer service guy said, and I quote, “Don’t worry about the cancellation fee, no one ever pays those” And so we didn’t.
Turns out, 8 months later, they had been sending angry letters to the house we hadn’t lived in for over a year (nevermind our billing address was correct in their system). When we finally found out what was going on, we paid the cancellation fee, was told there would be no credit repercussions and thought that was the end of it.
Fast forward 3 months…we now can get no loans and our credit is shot for the next 7 years.
Thanks Verizon.
posted by KerriH on 11-17-2008 at 3:20 pm
I once had a huge saga with Lufthansa Miles and More airpoints… basically in New Zealand you cannot just spend your airpoints online, you must go through a call centre. So I rang up the call centre, wanting to book a flight to Fiji for the New Year holiday. The lady (who sounded like she was in a call centre far away from New Zealand) said I didn’t have quite enough airpoints for the flight and suggested I buy additional airpoints online to avoid incurring a $100 transaction fee over the phone in addition to the $400 I would be spending on more points. So I did just that, called them back to book the flight, and the SAME WOMAN said there were no flights available for purchase with airpoints, as this is a very busy time for flights to Fiji. So I had 8000 useless points, I was out of pocket, and she could have told me that when I called the first time. On top of that they charged me twice for the airpoints. Angry emails and calls to Lufthansa in Germany ensued, and i still haven’t straigtened it out. Yep the Germans might be efficient… at ignoring my complaints and taking my money twice, anyway!
posted by dangermouse on 11-17-2008 at 6:19 pm
Just think of the amounts of money these companies take in doing this…I would bet there is no one in the whole country who hasn’t paid at least one month to someone after they had cancelled. Tis my opinion that they do it on purpose and we need to find a way to fight it.
posted by Sharron on 11-17-2008 at 7:15 pm
I had almost the exact same problem with MLB.com earlier this year! They would only refund one month’s worth of charges and I am so livid!
posted by JHop on 11-19-2008 at 4:28 pm