service auto renew

[reaper]

What is this BS. You sign up online for something that says 1 month or 6 months, or 1 year, then they charge you the next month because the auto renew feature is on by default.

Why is this not illegal?

[[BTF]Sigma]

It's in the fine print. If you lodge a complaint firmly where the sun doesn't shine, call your CC company to claim unauthorized charges you can have them reversed. Likewise you can claim your card was stolen/lost at the time (like in a video store where it's pretty easy for someone to get your home address for authorizing online) and have the charges reversed and a new card issued.

Went through something like this for a sleep aid pill (natural my (_)_) ) where they charged me for a full year's supply, ~$600, because I didn't read the fine print when I signed up for their no commitment trial period. I tried them and they didn't work then bingo a whole case showed up with an invoice that was charged to my account the next month. Just make a big stink and you should be able to get your shit back on track.

Good luck

[The Happy Friar]

or.... next time know what you're buying.     If you call the CC & they prove you're lying, then you could be charged with fraud, and you are liable for the charges + interest.

it's not illegal because it's always stated what they do.  Everything I've seen that's done an auto-renew unless you call & say otherwise even says on the front page.

[QwazyWabbit]

Expect anything you buy month to month or over a period of time to be auto-renew. They must notify you but they often put it in the fine print. If you are stuck with it the best thing to do is cancel the membership. You can file a protest for the autorenew but you will probably be stuck with it depending on the vendor. A disputed charge will usually be refunded because these internet vendors want to keep their accounts with the CC companies and if they rip off customers the CC company can cancel their vendor accounts and destroy their ability to do business.

NEVER claim to lose your card if you didn't actually lose it. Claiming the card was lost will land you in trouble if a "fraudulent" charge occurs on a lost card but a "legitimate" charge came after it. Duh. This makes you the fraud suspect if you are that dumb.

Falsely accusing a vendor of stealing your card information where it was really a legitimate "autorenew" is equally bad. If the card was presented at time of purchase and later renewed and you claim fraud or theft, you will have to file a police report with the local authority and if proved false, you will be in big trouble.

Better to dispute the charge and hope the vendor backs down and refunds the money when notified by the CC company. The CC companies know what the game is, they play along because it's good for them, after all they get a percentage kickback from the vendors for every transaction.

[The Happy Friar]

Odds are you can contact the company who's autocharging & tell them to stop.  Also, odds are you're stuck with the charges already made but will avoid future ones.

[reaper]

I called the company, and they did stop the charge.  I did this right after I saw the statement (the one where they billed me everyday and got declined because that card didn't have any money). But to me that's not the point, I feel cheated, and I feel that's scumbag behavior.

They could easily:
1) leave it off by default, and clearly let you know you can turn it on if you want
2) maybe put that in somewhere other than a TOS that i'm not going to take the time to read ( I still think that's BS and option 1 should be law)

You can select auto renewal if you want it, just like I selected 1 month instead of 6 months when signing up.............  Can someone explain to me what is wrong with that.

It's scumbag behavior plain and simple.  If you're not trying to screw people over you shouldn't have a problem.

[[BTF]Sigma]

Well, that's Capitalism. :-) (waits for threaderuption.)

[The Happy Friar]

what's the service?  I've never dealt with a service that didn't straight up tell you it's auto renew unless you stop before the auto renew.

[UUD-40]

Enzyte, the once daily pill for natural male enhancement.

[reaper]

I'm sure they did say it was auto-renew, probably somewhere behind the big golden box that says 39.95 for 1 month.

How hard is it to put a radio button on off that says "auto-renew"?

[[BTF]Sigma]

Dunno. From what I have learned it's harder to program that into their business than it is for someone to read what they are getting into.

I fell for it too. 

[The Happy Friar]

How hard is it to put a radio button on off that says "auto-renew"?

because people are stupid & if they wanted to autorenew & didn't then they'd call the company complain how they wanted their porn/drugs/tv/internet/phone but now have to pay an extra fee to start the service back up.

[[BTF] Reflex]

I had this with satellite radio, came free with the car for a year.  We were offered over the phone after our year ran out to buy it for a reduced price,  15 bux for 3 months.

We said sure,  but after the three months they (unbeknown to us) kept it up at the normal price.  Shut off eventually and we thought that was the end of it, all we wanted was 3 months,  figured the extra month was a delay in turning it off.  When the year had run out it took 2 months to disconnect us.    Bugs us that we never got a bill for the extra,  it went straight to collections.

Never did/will pay that one, went away with my wife's bankruptcy.  hope they didn't get anything.