| Real Rhapsody makes cancelling service Real Tough |
| Posted by: AceBHound on Feb 1st, 2007 8:58 PM |
 I've been a Real Rhapsody customer for several years now and have been pretty happy with the service overall. The first year I was with them I used the service for a couple months and [knowing that I'd be using their service for a while] finally decided to subscribe to a yearly membership to save a few bucks. All was good until it came time for the renewal -- they offer a "Cancel Subscription" link on the My Account page, which just gives you a customer service number to call in order to cancel the subscription. I tried removing my credit card info from the My Account page unsuccessfully. Seeing as how my credit card on file had old expiration dates and I hadn't updated with the new expiration date or CVV number, I figured the problem would solve itself. WRONG. They charged me again for another year even tho I hadn't updated the expiration date -- how convenient.
So I used their service some more the last 6 months.. but I haven't been using it near as much as I did the first year. So being pro-active I wanted to see if I could cancel my subscription ahead of time (since it's set to auto-renew otherwise) and called their customer service number yesterday -- and without much surprise found out they outsource their call center. I was asked why I was canceling, what brought me to their service to begin with, etc. Then told since I have a yearly subscription I would continue to have access until the end of the subscription, at which time I could cancel. I WANTED to cancel now - and get any pro-rated refund that I could. Well here's their position on that.. Will I get a partial refund if I cancel my subscription before it ends?
No. Subscription cancellations become effective the first day after your current paid subscription ends. For example, if your current subscription is paid through the 17th and you cancel your subscription on the 5th, you will not receive a refund. You will however, have access to the service through the 17th and on the 18th, your service will be canceled. I tried telling the support rep that I wanted to make sure my service was not auto-renewed for another year and he offered his suggestion -- of putting me on a monthly subscription plan after my yearly subscription plan was up! Thanks, but no thanks pal! Beyond this, I was told I would be sent an email, and I could "simply reply to this email" to have my account canceled. Turns out, the email basically tells me what I already knew -- that I'll have access to my subscription until I cancel and can cancel at any time by calling customer service or replying to the email. Beyond pissing off customers with their constant bloated-GUI upgrades, they're no doubt angering more people with making it difficult to cancel subscriptions. Why not adopt a Netflix-style cancellation process where you can downgrade or upgrade service easily, cancel completely, and later rejoin the service with all your settings intact. Probably because they know if they make it difficult enough to cancel the service a lot of people are going to figure "eh, it's only $10/month" and continue with their subscriptions. Well I'm marking my calendar this time.. and one way or another it's getting canceled this year. Don't get me wrong -- I like their service a lot, but it's not a necessity and I want the option of turning it off for a few months when I'm not using it. If they're going to make it this difficult to do that simple little thing, I'd rather not be a customer at all. |
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