Archive for bait and switch
Dear Google: It Ain’t a Free Trial If You Charge Me
Posted by: | CommentsI 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.
Long-term care? Conseco thinks it’s Long-Term Blowoff
Posted by: | CommentsWorking my way through the NY Times today, I was brought up short by a headline alleging systematic Long Term Care (LTC) denial-of-claim problems, particularly with Conseco.
For those of you not familiar with LTC, this is a policy that one purchases long before (ideally) one approaches the age of infirmity, paying regular premiums that, in theory at least, guarantee that one’s time in assisted living or a nursing home won’t bankrupt oneself or one’s family. This worked for my family – my father, bless his heart, paid over $300 a month to insure my mother’s care should she need it. She did. He didn’t buy a policy for himself, since he’d already been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease – he got mom one, though, and it made the last several months of her life a little easier financially. Particularly in the month between dad’s death and hers, since his death ended his large pension payment.
Lest you think that John Grisham’s “The Rainmaker” was an amped-up-for-fiction view of insurance malfeasance, read this – the only LTC insurer that ends up looking good is Genworth Financial.
Caveat emptor, baby.
