Streaming, lesson learned
 

Be sure to carefully read the terms of agreement for streaming services. My mistake, I didn’t do so and just recently charged for an entire year of a service I don’t use enough to justify the expense. They did not send me notification that the annual fee was coming due, which would have been nice. Of course, when I reached out to the customer service, they pretty much said, screw you and pointed me to the terms. Would not even prorate a refund. My mistake, I won’t make it again. I asked that they ensure I am not to renewed next year. We shall see.

Which service was it, Suzanne, if you don't mind saying?

I too would appreciate to know what streaming service this is. Thanks!

Pilates by Lisa. I just got an email, advising that the canceled my subscription and it will not renew in 2019. I’ll try to log in later this week to see if they removed me from access despite my unwittingly paying for another year.

Most are an automatic renewal without any notice. In fact, I can't think of a single one that isn't any more. I've started marking them on my calendar about a month ahead of renewal time, after what happened with my Barre3 renewal.

Carol

That’s disappointing.

Yes, it was. Customer service was of course of no help.

Carol

I believe that Chris Freytag's site, and maybe Cathe's, reminds you that your annual fee is coming up. Don't quote me, as I'm not a member of these sites, but I have heard that to be the case in the past.

Most of the subscriptions that I have auto renew - I make sure now to put a reminder in my phone ahead of the date that the auto renewal is coming up. This has saved me a lot of aggravation.

You know, normally, I understand this policy. Although some companies, like Amazon Prime, send you a reminder that it is about to renew before they charge you.

But in the case of Pilates by Lisa (whose workouts I love and do subscribe to), I think this is poor customer service, because there is NO place on their website where you can see your account and when you last renewed, and to cancel you have to email someone. I think that until they make their website a little less clunky in that regard, they should have refunded your money. In fact, I contacted them to renew me for a year because it NEVER occurred to me that they would charge me for another year without my specific okay, since it is all done via email. :(

Is there any way to pay with a prepaid card for some of these sites? It might be worth trying. Using PayPal might also prevent this, but many sites don’t use it.