For months, Lloyd Walker would regulary get a new coin in the mail. Eventually, Walker says he didn’t bother to look — he already knew what was inside the padded white envelopes.
The packages from the Bradford Exchange, an American company that’s been selling collectibles, trinkets and jewelry since the 1970s, had been coming to his St. John’s home since July.
Walker said he didn’t knowingly sign up for any subscription program, nor does he want the coins he received. But despite writing to the company to cancel, Walker continued to be charged.
With the exception of Ontario, which is beefing up consumer protection legislation, Canada has poor consumer protection legislation, said Tamblyn Watts.
I know it can get you in trouble but things like this, a gym membership, your NYT subscription… anything that’s harder to cancel than commence should let you reverse the charge without penalty.
Asymmetric enrollment systems need to fucking die. If I can subscribe online but need to call some understaffed hotline that’s been instructed to try everything to keep me from canceling between the hours of 3:23 and 3:24 AM local time then fuck you, fuck you with a rusty dildo.
A dozen years ago I worked at a call centre. One of our clients was a company that pulled this crap. Every one of us who worked that account dreaded those calls, mostly because we understood their anger … but it was hard having it directed at us (Canadians) by American customers.
I hated that job.
I am extremely glad you got out!
Me too. :)
Spectrum does this with service downgrades. I can upgrade with a click online, but I have to call to downgrade, and they inevitably try to persuade you to at least keep your current tier if not upgrade again.
Interestingly a lot of gyms now refuse to charge a credit card and insist on providing ACH access to a bank account, because the credit card has more consumer protections on it.
Yup… fucking scumbag businesses!
I don’t know how it is in Canada but in the US I have been able to call my bank and have the charges reversed. They simply ask “did you attempt to cancel?” And I say “yes, on this date” and they block all future charges and reverse any charges after the date I attempted to cancel.
He’s 92 and he wrote a letter of cancellation to the company
I don’t think he knows all the ins and outs of getting out of subscriptions he never signed up to
A letter should be enough really
Not to mention that some shittier companies actually only take opt-out/cancellation by mail, in order to make it more difficult.
A properly addressed and tracked letter should absolutely be enough
For all we know he wrote a letter like this:
Could chargebacks be the answer here?
I have a junk Visa Gift Card that I use for many online subscriptions and purchases. You load it up with the money you expect to spend and if anyone gives you trouble with not cancelling an account you just stop loading money and get a new card. They can’t do fuck all.
It really should be trivial to tell your bank to stop giving them money. What are they gonna do? Cancel the service?
With the exception of Ontario, which is beefing up consumer protection legislation, Canada has poor consumer protection legislation, said Tamblyn Watts.
Just a side note, for a long time now companies have refused to sell items in Quebec due to the strict legislations surrounding consumer protections. Maybe Ontario is catching up but I wouldn’t say they are the exception in Canada.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Both Walker and CanAge CEO Laura Tamblyn Watts says his experience shows a weakness in the laws that protect consumers in Canada, and are calling on companies to be held accountable for what they consider to be questionable business practices.
It started in July when Walker says he believed he ordered a single Platinum Jubilee coin of Queen Elizabeth II as a keepsake for his great-granddaughter’s birthday, after spotting it in a brochure from the Bradford Exchange among other flyers in the mail.
A social media page has been created specifically for complaints about the Bradford Exchange’s business practices, with many customers lamenting the difficulty in cancelling automatic renewal subscriptions that they didn’t want in the first place.
In an email to CBC News, Bradford Exchange spokesperson Bobbi Fitzsimmons said the issue was related to a rewards program that was managed by a third party and not the coin collection subscription.
A separate class action lawsuit was filed against the company in August in California, alleging the Bradford Exchange unlawfully enrolled consumers in recurring subscriptions without authorization.
The issue of seniors facing automatic credit card charges has become endemic in Canada, CanAge CEO Laura Tamblyn Watts said, with calls coming into the advocacy organization almost weekly.
The original article contains 1,613 words, the summary contains 205 words. Saved 87%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
