Mikha'El
Jedi
Ok, so I've always prided myself on my ability to detect scams and I've always stayed away from free trials.
However I recently found out about Usenet and the interesting and rare things that you can find there.
Usenet is an old form of peer to peer file sharing, similar to torrents.
In order to download files from usenet you need to belong to a usenet server group. There are numerous services available and almost all of them offer a free trial.
Usenext is unique in that their free trial lasts only fourteen days and if you do not cancel the subscription within that fourteen days, they will charge your account for a full year's worth of the service, which equates to about $120 US.
I don't have an issue with that policy, buyer beware, right? The problem is that they make it very difficult to cancel the trial. You complete an online form which instructs you to call their customer service line to complete the cancellation. Unfortunately, being in the US the time difference creates a real problem and nine times out of ten when you call it's outside of business hours.
However, if you attempt to reason with this Germany based company and get that money returned, they will basically spit in your face and tell you to take a hike.
According to my research this is technically illegal according to EU trade laws and yet this company gets away with it and they have been doing this for over a decade.
What's worse is that I have no use for the usenet bandwidth that I have now been forced to accept. I will never use it.
So now I am out over $100 and am sitting on 30GBs of data transfer bandwidth that is just going to go to waste.
Now, if I had used either Paypal or a prepaid credit card, I would have been able to cancel the transaction altogether and saved that money, but I used my debit card. My bank will do nothing to dispute this quasi-illegal transaction.
So, word to the wise, never purchase anything on the internet using a debit card or your checking account, you actually have way less power using those methods than you would using a credit card or a Paypal account.
However I recently found out about Usenet and the interesting and rare things that you can find there.
Usenet is an old form of peer to peer file sharing, similar to torrents.
In order to download files from usenet you need to belong to a usenet server group. There are numerous services available and almost all of them offer a free trial.
Usenext is unique in that their free trial lasts only fourteen days and if you do not cancel the subscription within that fourteen days, they will charge your account for a full year's worth of the service, which equates to about $120 US.
I don't have an issue with that policy, buyer beware, right? The problem is that they make it very difficult to cancel the trial. You complete an online form which instructs you to call their customer service line to complete the cancellation. Unfortunately, being in the US the time difference creates a real problem and nine times out of ten when you call it's outside of business hours.
However, if you attempt to reason with this Germany based company and get that money returned, they will basically spit in your face and tell you to take a hike.
According to my research this is technically illegal according to EU trade laws and yet this company gets away with it and they have been doing this for over a decade.
What's worse is that I have no use for the usenet bandwidth that I have now been forced to accept. I will never use it.
So now I am out over $100 and am sitting on 30GBs of data transfer bandwidth that is just going to go to waste.
Now, if I had used either Paypal or a prepaid credit card, I would have been able to cancel the transaction altogether and saved that money, but I used my debit card. My bank will do nothing to dispute this quasi-illegal transaction.
So, word to the wise, never purchase anything on the internet using a debit card or your checking account, you actually have way less power using those methods than you would using a credit card or a Paypal account.