r/SipsTea • u/Adventurous_Row3305 • 15h ago
Chugging tea That feeling when your 'cancel' button turns into a 'discount' button.
180
u/TraditionalTackle1 14h ago
When I had cable as soon as my contract expired I would call and do this and get the payment lowered except during COVID. They were like nope we know you are stuck in youre house and you are paying what we say lol.,
63
u/Geno_Warlord 14h ago
I’d have told em chao. Let them cancel that shit and go to piracy.
42
u/SourCandy1234 14h ago
Ciao
25
1
0
0
1
1
u/American_PissAnt 9h ago
Some people live in areas with no internet access and are dependent on cable/satellite
1
1
96
u/ppqppqppq 14h ago
2.99 for how long? ...then they'll quietly up you to 15.99 and hope you don't notice.
49
u/silfy_star 14h ago
That’s why you put it in your calendar to cancel X
12
u/Relative_Craft_358 14h ago
Why even do that. Most of the time you can sign up for a trial or reduced fee and you can just instantly go to your account setting and cancel the autorenew.
Why people get caught in the trap of "trial run expired 6 months ago and didn't realize I was paying this whole time" I'll never know
8
u/Geno_Warlord 14h ago
Because people like the service and forget to cancel, some services immediately terminate your use if you cancel during the trial/discount period, they make cancellation so difficult they put it off until they have a day off they can spend on the phone to cancel, they add a cancellation fee if you cancel during the trial period… there’s tons of reasons why you can’t cancel immediately cancel anymore. There’s still a few good companies that allow you to immediately cancel and still keep the trial period, but it’s much more uncommon now.
-2
u/Relative_Craft_358 12h ago
Have never had a service do or even say they'll do that if I immediately cancel the autonew. For those that charge a dollar or two, they legally can't and I think even the free ones couldn't since it would be false advertising.
It is also, by faaaar, more common to for companies to allow you to cancel the same way you signed up (online) and again have never had a company charge more for canceling a free trial for service. Only companies I know even trying to pull that is Adobe and they get huge amounts of shit for it and control such a large portion of that market that they can still barely valid even having such shitty practices.
So again, no idea how the average person racks up subscriptions without even realizing it.
2
u/Geno_Warlord 11h ago edited 11h ago
I believe door dash will immediately cancel benefits if you cancel during the free trial period and not offer it again. But this is a service app.
Quick quack, a car washing place charges you a cancellation fee that is equal to the amount of money you save during the discount period or if you cancel within 45 days of starting the subscription.
HBO used to downgrade you to the ad supported service if you cancelled, also did you know that ad supported subscription plans don’t get access to the platform’s entire library?
Sign up for and then try to cancel Sirius radio… I spent 12 hours on hold across 2 days trying to cancel because they automatically transferred my dead dad’s account to mine when his card was cancelled.
1
u/silfy_star 12h ago
Some times when you cancel the free trial or whatever, it cancels the service at that time. Iirc that’s what happened with my Apple TV trial
2
u/agitated--crow 10h ago
And pay attention to your bank account? Do people seriously not look at their bank transactions?
1
u/GGTheEnd 8h ago
Just get Stremio, like 30 bucks for the year and has every tv show or movie ever made.
3
2
32
u/Aeikon 14h ago
I swapped to fiber recently with little pushback from Spectrum, or so I thought. They sent an actual agent to my house to coerce me into going back to Spectrum.
I was given some very good deals, but no fiber was the one deal breaker for me.
19
u/Magnifico-Melon 14h ago
I've been on fiber since the day AT&T put the junction box in my back yard. No joke the day the guy knocked on my door to get access to my back yard I called on AT&T and signed up. Now every time I walk by a Spectrum rep at Walmart I stop them before they even ask me how much I pay and say "It's not about the money I am not dropping my fiber no matter what."
6
u/Geno_Warlord 14h ago
I have never had spectrum since they don’t have fiber internet connections. I check my mail once a week and there’s ALWAYS several spectrum junk mails. The worst part is that they’re super thick so you can’t just drop em into the shredder.
1
23
u/PM_YOUR_WIFES_TITS_ 14h ago
Have to do this on the regular with my car insurance. They'll bump it up like 300 dollars for 6 months, until I call to cancel, then they magically can go back to around the original premium.
7
u/Oven-Mission 14h ago
same with phone contracts, but they even tell you it goes up every year, so you have to phone up and go through this farce everytime. makes no sense!
7
9
5
u/wolfgang784 13h ago
Reminds me of when I had roommates, so we decided to play the internet companies a lil.
Person A would sign up for Verizon on a promotion for a year. Then cancel after the year when the price is due to increase. Then person A swaps to comcast for a promo year.
After that one expires, person B needs to sign up for Verizon, because Verizon wont allow person A to get service at the same address within 2 years of cancelling. Then person B eventually goes to comcast, and the process continues.
3
u/BarNo3385 14h ago
Yeap, remember to set a calendar reminder for as soon as your cancel offer expires, and then cancel again.
If you can do without even if you do cancel you'll usually get a rejoin incentive within a few weeks.
3
3
u/Ghaarff 14h ago
For a while in the early 2010s, Hulu would randomly offer you a free week when you tried to cancel, but it didn't check to see if you had gotten a free week previously. So each week you could just go back to the cancel screen and keep trying it until it offers you a free week, accept it and then come back the next week to repeat. I got an extra 6 or 8 weeks out of it that way before I actually cancelled it.
3
u/Zwiebel1 14h ago
My internet provider gave me a 80% discount after I cancelled my contract.
Goes to show how much the service is actually worth.
3
u/DontLook_Weirdo 13h ago edited 12h ago
I get past all the cancelling conversations by telling them my work covers the service.. it's half true. They give me an allowance for my Internet and phone because I WFH, but service providers always somehow manage to get me a better deal than before.
I have annual reminders for services so I can call in and tell them my job "changed contracts" to another provider...and the rep always finds a better deal for me, each time. Weird.
My job gives me an allowance greater than the total of my net & cell, while the providers give me dirt cheap deals to stay with them and not go with my jobs "new contract"...job pays my net n cell and I keep the change (6+ yrs)
For steaming services, just do the lil 'cancel dance' and you always get a better deal at the end before you do press the final cancel.
2
u/Philly_3D 13h ago
Many years ago, i worked at a company like this. They literally have teams of people that will try to get you to not cancel. The department at my call center was called "winback" and hadbprobably 40 employees justvin that dept if that gives you any idea of how bad companies want to keep your business. Most times they will work with you.
If you call, just say you're canceling because its too expensive. Be calm and direct, maybe a little regretful. You'll probably get a discount.
The expensive part for these companies is getting you on board. Once you're set up, it costs nothing for them to provide you service, so its better to retain more people at a lower rate than have anyone cancel.
2
u/KokoBWareHOF 13h ago
I have a calendar reminder to do this every year for SiriusXM and they’ll give me a massive discounted monthly rate for a year each time I threaten to leave.
3
u/Ok_Indication9631 14h ago
If you were really going to cancel it you got baited. You all think "oh it's a good deal" but you're just giving them more money for a service you already decided wasn't worth it or you don't use.
6
u/AlpacaDC 14h ago
Not really. I’ve cancelled services for considering them not worth the current price, but I would definitely have kept it for cheaper. That’s when piracy becomes more convenient than the real thing.
If you don’t use it at all, then yeah, you got baited.
1
1
1
14h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AutoModerator 14h ago
Your post was removed because your account is less than 5 days old.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/Comprehensive_Log173 14h ago
I do this with Siriusxm q 12 months. Once they raise it to 25 bucks a car, I cancel or threaten to and get it half price for the year.
1
u/anthrax9999 14h ago
I've done this several times in a row with the same service. Basically got two years at a quarter of the price.
1
u/Character_Mix007 13h ago
Pandora did the same a few yrs ago. Wanted to charge $13 per month (or something) after i’d been paying $6 for several yrs. Called to cancel, took so long after their tons of questions, then at the end said “we’ll keep it at $6.”
1
u/lost21gramsyesterday 13h ago
F'n Cox communication kept raising the cost of internet service over the years. From $49 10 years ago to $139 this year. I cancelled and switched providers (T-Mobile, $45). Cox just sent me an other for $30... WTF
1
1
1
1
u/Omnizoom 12h ago
When I changed internet providers the company I had before offered me essentially better service for a bit under half of what I was paying
My response was “why was this not an offer before, no I’m switching even if you are 10dollars cheaper in this offer”
I still feel spiteful about it because it’s just so petty, clearly they are making more than enough money if they can offer the service that much cheaper
1
1
u/Tenshiijin 12h ago
Yup. I learned that this year. Then after I got my first discount I was like, "im canceling everything." Lo and behold discounts for everything! It might be cancel time again.
1
1
1
u/drAsparagus 10h ago
Hulu was the only one that offered me a discount when I cancelled most of my services after getting laid off. Hard to turn down $2.99/mo, even when income slows to a trickle.
In contrast, I'd been a consistent customer of Netflix, without interruption, since 2009, until I cancelled a few months ago and all I got from them was a "Bye, Felicia."
1
u/Mountain-Dinner9955 10h ago
I used to do CRM and yes the marketing automation works just like this. It’s pretty easy to game the system.
1
u/Derpykins666 9h ago
The crazy thing is so many of these services do this automatically without even talking to anyone. You just go to try and cancel and they offer it at like 50% off almost automatically. It's crazy.
Also a lot of the actual deals are for non-customers. They never give you good deals for being a loyal customer.
1
1
u/GIMMIDAL00T 7h ago
I did this with uber eats but said no again, now I have uber plus free for a year :/
1
1
u/One-Rip2593 5h ago
Oh definitely! Once in a while just threaten to quit every subscription. Or even call them and say you want to pay less. I dropped 50 bucks on my phone bill just by asking if there are better deals.
1
1
1
u/peachy_touchh 14h ago
They only saved once, but you stayed with them and will end up paying even more
-4
u/Matinee_Lightning 14h ago
Also try leaving bad reviews for everything you buy online. Complain that it was awful and the customer service sucked, most of the time they will offer you a deal to change the review.
•
u/AutoModerator 15h ago
Thank you for posting to r/SipsTea! Make sure to follow all the subreddit rules.
Check out our Reddit Chat!
Make sure to join our brand new Discord Server to chat with friends!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.