Quick Rant About E-Vendors - Blue Mountain Ecards in this Instance
E-vendors. Some are great, some are not. Today, Blue Mountain e-cards is added to my list of "not great" e-vendors.
Why? I've learned to live with vendors that clearly and in big letters insist you go on line, register with most of your life history, and then we must do all the typing in order to buy services that include an "automatic renewal" term of service (a/k/a contract of adhesion). With customers having done all of that once, the vendors could then at least make it easy to cancel service ( or return goods). In fact, a few do operate in that way But, too often, when a customer wants to cancel a service that uses an "automatic renewal" approach, the path to cancel service is often obscured behind multiple layers of screens and links, and the website fails to include or offer a "cancel service" option to match the ease of "unsubscribe" for emails.
One such vendor is Blue Mountain e-cards. Early this morning, the firm sent me a reminder email that our family account was about to renew for another year. My girls and I never send their cards anymore, so I decided to cancel. I then proceeded to click on the link in the email. That took me off on a goose chase to sign in and find the information on canceling (of course it was not an easy to find subject). After wasting a couple of minutes, I finally found the right spot. What did I see ? A message (see below) telling me that the only way to cancel is to make a phone call. So, why weren't those instructions and phone number placed in the email reminder about subscription renewal ? Obviously the needed instructions were omitted due to Blue Mountain's hope of obtaining another annual fee.
Worse yet, when I called to cancel, the process also was poor. To starty, a acouple fo minte wait, followed by an automated voice insisting that I tell it my home phone number so that I could be helped faster. So, I complied, but of course the call center person did not have access to the record despite my providing the number. Thus, more wasted time to repeat the process.
Blue Mountain of course will never ever generate more revenue from my family. My hope is that this quick rant in some way costs Blue Mountain some revenue by reaching someone who decides not to subscribe, or by encouraging someone else to cancel. I presume some financial engineers have concluded that revenue generated from unwanted renewals will exceed the revenue lost from making people mad, losing them forever, and causing them to rant. I hope their calculations are wrong - it's a lousy way to do business, in my book.
"To request a cancellation of a subscription, please contact our membership support center by calling 1-888-254-1450, Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. EST.
Customers outside the United States and Canada should click here for further instructions
Your rant works for me. I've read/heard enough. I'm outta there! I'll call and cancel tomorrow. Too much competition these days for companies NOT to listen to the consumer.
Thanks!
Thanks for the BlueMountain.com cancellation phone number. I'm putting it in my phone book now - for when I need it.
As well, I did sign up on a promotion earlier this year I believe, but I'm having trouble finding where it tells how the recurring is done. They do not make it easy, I will agree with you on that!
Thanks for writing this blog post, it did help me.
Roz
The phone number for BlueMountain that is posted is automated. You will NEVER, EVER, EVER talk to a real person. They did the same to me with a 'free' trial account and I want money back from a year of credit card payments that were NOT authorized. The phone number posted is useless because eventually, it just refers you to the website then disconnects. Anybody interested in a class action suit?
The ONLY way to avoid recurring charges with Blue Mountain is to tell your bank you lost your credit card. They will send you a new one thus cancelling the one they are charging to. It worked for me but the whole thing was a very unpleasant experience. This is a scam if there everr was one and they should be investigated a put out of business.
The biggest crooks I've ever dealt with. Finally cancelled check card and maybe it will stop. Don't do business with these crooks. We've tried many times to cancel and nothing worked.
Following advice I read elsewhere, I got through quickly by saying "new membership" at the opening prompt. I was then able to cancel with the person who answered.
If you plan to cancel, do so now. They won't refund any prorated amount, and your account will remain active until the end of your year. This will hopefully make an unpleasant surprise renewal less likely.
Don't even open an account with blue mountain. The cancellation headache and the automatic renewal of $14.99 are reasons enough not to even get involved. Their e cards are no more special than their competitors. Don't do it!!!
I have been having trouble getting the personal message to attach to the e-mail card on the Preview. Today one anniversary card and one birthday cards would not attach after 4 or 5 tries each. I sent one once when it didn't show and it did not show up at the recipient's end either.
Also, please remove that aggravating request of Adobe asking permission to store space on our computer. We don't pay you for that! Besides it takes at least 5 hits of the cursor to make it go away. I resent having to deal with it time after time.