Hello all, I am leaving on a trip in a month and knowing that my yearly subscribtion had ended in september I logged on their site to reactivate my device. Once logged in I see that they had kept my account active and billed my card back in september at full price (last year I used the promo code to save 50$) They never sent me a notice, they just renewed and billed my card. Thiey did produce a bill in my account but I had no way of knowing until I logged on in there. Can they even do that? I did not need the service from september to late december and I very unhappy about this.
Did you sign up for auto-renewal? (I believe that it is the default.) If so, then yes, they can as you gave them permission to. -UD P.S. You haven't checked your credit card statements since September?
Read the terms and conditions of your subscription. When I had mine active, auto-renewal was a requirement of the discount offers, and they specified how they would notify.
GLWT! You can't take the credit card off file. My account was coming up for renewal and I put a reminder on my calendar to call them a week prior to renewal time to cancel.
I got an email from Spot this week stating that they will charge my CC $185.93 for my next years service. I'm seriously considering going to the Delorme InReach SE with the Freedom Plan. For the same price I can have 5 months of contract free service but with the addition of 40 Text messages sent/received per month. The text messages would give me extra peace of mind while being out of cell coverage. There are times that I'm not on call but my colleagues need questions answered and the InReach could help with that. Not to mention the ability to download Topo maps to my phone via the InReach. Check out their plans. http://www.inreachdelorme.com/product-info/subscription-plans.php
I believe the fine print on Spot's terms says something about 90 days notice to cancel auto renew. It was a process when I cancelled mine, they don't make it easy...
Easiest way to "cancel" the auto renew might be to report the credit card lost and not update Spot re the CC number change. Anyone try this? Does/might it create problems in that Spot might mess with one's credit rating?
The easiest way to not have it auto renewed is just to give them a call within the 90 or so day renewal period and tell them not to. I did that the last time I had mine active. Reporting your card missing after the fact? Well, it would be kind of hard to win a dispute argument when you had given them the card number the year before and agreed to auto renewal. Plus, your credit card company would issue a new card and if you had any other auto charges, like a cell phone bill, you'd have to go set up the new account.
A lot of companies do this anymore, if your not careful to read the fine print. Anytime I see this I call the company and tell them I would like to subscribe but I want an invoice sent to me through the mail. Some balk, some may charge a small fee (2dollars) but they usually will send me the invoice. At the end of the year they have to send me a bill to renew then I decIde if I want to continue. I had a bad experience with XM years ago and will never do the CC auto renew again. No bill and I don't subscribe.
They confirmed this when I called to cancel. There is supposed to be a renewal notice, which I did receive, that gives you the opt out opportunity. Sometimes the company gives a discount for auto renewal and I've accepted those. SPOT seems to have the opposite model where they penalize current subscribers over new business. I won't support that business model. If the renewal had the discount built in, I would have accepted it. I hope they are listening or reading here.
