Aug

Dear Google: It Ain’t a Free Trial If You Charge Me

I have been a Google brand advocate for over a decade. Fell on their search engine like a starving dog when it launched in beta in ’98 (even then, they really were better than everybody else), and have enthusiastically jumped in on all their web-based tools as they’ve rolled out.

Since I switched to an Android-powered phone recently, and am trying to find the right tools to sync my Outlook contacts (almost 2K) with both my Droid and Google Contacts – backups to the backups, always available – I decided to investigate Google Apps.

Their Premier (paid) Edition looked like it was worth a try. And they offer a 30-day free trial. Or at least they say they do.

I signed up for the free trial. They asked for my credit card number, and I gave it – I’ve taken advantage of many free trial offers the same way. I use it, if I like it, I stay and pay. If I don’t like it, I cancel during the trial period.

Has always been easy…until Google Apps.

I was concerned when I saw a charge appear on my credit card account online almost instantaneously after I signed up for the “free” trial. How is it free if you’re charging me for it?

I followed the “Support” thread in an attempt to find why they’d charged me. This is all I got:

In case you can’t make out the text at the bottom, it says that even though it looks like I was charged, I wasn’t.

I beg to differ. $50 that has been taken out of my account is $50 I don’t have access to – which sounds like “charging” to me.

I canceled the trial immediately.

The charge IS STILL ON MY ACCOUNT ALMOST 36 HOURS LATER. Trying to engage with Google as a customer gets you lots of bot-generated “do not reply to this” email, but no actual customer service.

I’m very much not the only person to have been bait-and-switched by Google Apps. BTW, Google Apps Power Poster LMckin51 is answering lots of questions (badly) on this topic, but doesn’t seem to understand the concept of listening. Since s/he is a volunteer, I’ll observe that Google seems to like getting stuff for free themselves. To be fair, they do offer lots of free tools – but bait-and-switch makes me madder than Dick Cheney at a PETA meeting.

Sorry, Google – you have officially become the giant soulless representation of crappy customer service. I realize that, to you, I don’t even qualify as a gnat to your elephant. However, there are more of me (small business owners) than there are of you (giant soulless global corporations).

And I call bait-and-switch – saying something is one thing (in this case, free) when it’s really something else (in this case, $50 plus possible overdraft fees) – the essence of evil in business.

Don’t be evil? Don’t make me laugh.

That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it.

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Categories : Business, Web/Tech

Nathan Toft

Hi, Casey: I have done free trials in the past also, and this doesn’t sound good at first glance. Did the charge on your credit card say “pending” next to it? Because if it did, then you haven’t actually been charged yet — Google just was making sure you have the credit and your card was legit. Many companies (not all) do this. At the gas station before you pump your gas, some companies pre-authorize your card for $1 and then when you get your gas, they change the amount.

Sometimes your bank will count that pending charge against your credit limit even though they won’t charge you interest — that’s the bank’s way of helping you make sure you don’t go over your credit limit. So it might decrease your available credit, but you shouldn’t have been actually charged. You might want to ask your bank if the charge cleared.
MightyMouth

Thanks, Nathan – I did talk to my bank, and the charge MAY go away, but removing $50 from my account availability is the same as charging me in my world. Ergo, bait-and-switch. This is the first time this has happened with a free trial of online services – have signed up for many, never had them hit my account before the trial was over.
Nathan Toft

Oh, gotcha. I’ve definitely had many trials that “authorized” money up front as a security measure, so for me, and with a company like Google that allows people to create accounts with little verified information, it’s something I’d personally expect. Totally understandable, though, if you’ve never experienced this with a free trial before.

My bank (BoA) lists those “authorizations” clearly as “pending” — differentiating them from cleared transactions. They do count against my “available balance” (or, “credit limit”) but that’s the bank’s choice. The point I was trying to make is that it maybe wasn’t Google doing something unconventional but just a decision by your bank on how to view the transaction.

However, TOTALLY agree with the lack of customer support for Google’s products in general and thought your post did a good job of highlighting the trials and tribulations of dealing with them. I had to return my Nexus One under warranty a while back and it was a very convoluted process. Similar situation with similar radio buttons, none of which gave me the choice I wanted! They need to fix that or they will be leaving money on the table, IMO.

Dear Google: It Ain’t a Free Trial If You Charge Me

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