I was really shocked by their behavior. I didn’t think until then that a legitimate business would even dream of treating their paying customer that way.

Something is very lacking there, like common decency.

Vance

I didn’t know that you talked to someone on the phone who really told you that! As I said, that’s only what I like to think, and only because I can not imagine why WA should not give you a refund after you have been a member for over a year.

The Work From Home Project will give customers a refund in these cases, because it just makes sense. But maybe I see these things a little bit differently than other people, who knows

Best,

Marc

You are very kind to WA and I don’t really know how the two guys who started it feel but the lady I talked to on the phone told me that she’d talked to them and the reason they wouldn’t give me the refund was that I could have taken advantage of all the goodies and that wouldn’t be fair to them. This was one day after they charged me for yet another year.You tell me how much new stuff they could have had in that one day.

They showed absolutely no regard for me but were only thinking of themselves and how to keep my money.

What did you subscribe to? Email or my RSS feed? In any case I appreciate that very much.

Have a great day too and I’ll be looking forward to your next comments.

Vance

I totally agree, no company should assume that their customers are thieves, that kind of contradicts the purpose of offering a service to help people.

But I also don’t really believe that this is how WA feels towards their customers, I can’t say for sure of course, but I think they might just not really thought it through if these clauses in their terms are the best way to handle situations in which customers simply forgot to cancel

I feel that some companies should not insist on their terms too much, the terms are there to protect the company and the community, not to hurt your customers.

In the end the service you are offering is there to help people, it’s about the community and the terms are just the device to protect your assets so you can continue to help your customers with your product.

Have a great day Vance,

Marc

P.S: This time I subscribed ;o)

I’m glad my post was helpful to you and that it contributed to your better terms and conditions. Assuming that everybody is a thief and criminal which is what Wealthy Affiliate does is ridiculous. Most people are still honest. If somebody has been a member for one year already he or she has proven that they aren’t trying to rip anybody off. It is the Wealthy Affiliate that is doing the ripping off in such a case.

I appreciate your comment very much.

Regards,
Vance

thanks for this post, I was reading your post this morning and since we are shortly releasing a project that has similarities to WA I have added an exception to our Terms for exactly a case like yours. It’s not fair to charge for a whole year when the customer really just forgot to cancel.

But on the other hand you also have to understand that membership sites have to protect their business and also the attached communities of “serial refunders” that pay, download/print/save most of the valuable content and then cancel immediately. That’s why these no-refund policies are in place in most of the cases (When we talk about serious offers, not free-trial scams or the like).

I think WA is a good project and really helps people, I myself have never been a member there but from what I have read it’s a great community that really helps people to make some money.

Anyways, I just wanted to let you know that your post was the reason for me to adjust our own terms of service to protect people from something like what you have experienced, but I also wanted to say that these no-refund policies are almost a must-have for digital-products these days

But in the end it should be about the consumer, so letting customers easily cancel if they decide it’s not for them, or giving them a refund if they were already member for a year and forgot to cancel… should also be a must!

Welcome to my blog and thank you for the comment. This post created a good response because a lot of people have been burned by WA. The majority of membership sites that I’ve had a chance to look at allow people to cancel their membership very easily and without obstructions.

It’s businesses like WA that give everybody else a bad name. A membership site is not necessarily a bad thing as long as people are free to cancel and aren’t forced to pay for the whole year if they cancel one day too late.

Gym memberships are very rarely used as intended. The worst kind are the so called lifetime memberships where you pay a big chunk of money to start with in order to get a guaranteed fixed low rate for life.

Anyway, I look forward to your next visit and comment.

Vance

This is my first visit to your blog.

This post really did create allot of response and it’s clear being ripped off spurs a lot of emotion in people.
It also really does highlight the best and worst bits of the web.
The best bits being peer recommendations, consumers can seek reviews from other consumers as a validation before purchase.(I’m sure there is a term for this but the words aren’t coming to me this morning)
The worst bits being online scams, everyone hates them but they seem to be common in this medium.

I don’t like businesses that operate a membership model as they clearly pray on consumers singing up, use the service a couple of times and forget about the renewal and are tied in. Take gym membership for example, how many of us can say they make the most of the monthly fee??

I’ll certainly be back!