Last Thursday, a couple of LoveFilm reps were wandering around various houses in Oldfield Park, getting residents to sign up. This is when they knocked on my door, asking if I wanted to join. Seeing as I'm not going to be doing much else over the Easter break, I was pretty interested in what they were offering.
The reps said that I could have a 90 day free trial of the service. I was only ever aware of 30 day trials before this, but I believed them all the same. Just like any service nowadays, you need to prove an email address, to which I gave them my old spammy Hotmail one.
Then they required debit card details. WOAH THERE *alarm bells ring*. Being a free trial, surely you don't need to put in a debit card? They told me that I'd need to opt out before the 90 days otherwise the card would be charged. This made sense, as I know Spotify operates the same policy. So after I made sure that the reps were definitely from LoveFilm, and that their iPad I was using was definitely on the official LoveFilm website, in went the card details.
Finally, I had to sign the form with the terms and conditions. I thought as this did seem too good to be true, that there had to be a catch, so I made sure I read them. WOAH THERE (#2), "What's this line saying the first payment will be taken out immediately?" I asked. "Oh that's just a ghost payment; they take out a payment then put it back in again, just to check your account has money in it" he said. I thought I'd take his word for it. In summary I had given these reps my email address, name, credit card information and signed a contract. Good work, LoveFilm.
The next day I checked my bank account (as you do), only to find that £9.99 had been taken out of my account, put back in again (as I was expecting) and then taken back out again. WOAH THERE (#3), they told me that payment wouldn't happen! When I checked the My Account section on the website, I found out that I had in fact been signed up to the "3 months for the price of 1" instead.
So, equipped with my rarely heard angry voice and rarely seen angry face, I made a call to customer services. The angry face wasn't necessary, but I wanted to use it all the same.
After they found out who I was, the conversation went a bit like this:
"Hi Daniel. What's the problem?"
"One of the LoveFilm reps offered me a free 90 day trial, but my account has been charged already."
"Do you realise that you're in fact on a 3 months for the price of 1 offer?"
"I do now, after checking the website, but that's not what I was offered."
"All right then, I'll make sure you get a refund and your trial will continue. Is there anything else I can do for you?"
WAIT WHAT? That was easy. I didn't even get to the part where I was going to say that I wasn't happy.
But hey, I got my money back, and the trial continues. Double win :D
So in summary, if you feel misled by a LoveFilm rep selling you a 'trial' and then charging you, give customer services a call. They're really nice.
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