I'm trying to cancel a long list of subscriptions, donations, etc, that were made by automatic payments. These continue to be incredibly difficult if not impossible to cancel. There is never any online means of doing so. Often you make a call to a number which never answers, you leave a message, and they never return your call. That was the case with Texas Organizing Project (TOP). I emailed and called for them to cancel my donation, and they never replied and it never got cancelled. Finally I asked my credit card to cancel it, and they refused to do so. Finally I just let the credit card expiration date hit, I never gave TOP the updated date (though I got an automatic email asking for one) and it finally stopped. Strangely some subscriptions I've had in the past automatically updated the expiration date somehow, so I worry about even this method.
To cancel XM radio in the early 2000's, I spent 3 hours in 3 very intense phone calls to their offshore "customer service" before it got done. There had been at least another 3 hours of preparations, getting all the relevant information. And there had been an entire month of agony, just thinking about it. I was gratified when XM radio was bought out by Sirius. I had previously found Sirius much easier to cancel than XM.
To cancel my ADT service (which was running $90/mo) I had to make two phone calls taking a total of about one hour. They gave me a list of proposed rate reductions to keep the service, and I refused them all (knowing from past experience that rates are jacked up the moment any rate reduction offer expires). That wasn't too bad, as these things go. To cancel my AT&T landline, it took one phone call and about 40 minutes. With both ADT and AT&T, they stuck me with an additional month of "service" but I was glad when it was finally over and I didn't see my checking account hit with the automatic montly charges anymore.
Currently I'm trying to cancel my "Windtricity," which is a contribution to the development and deployment of wind power in Texas, managed through my utility CPS. When I signed up in 1997, Wind Power was barely a thing in Texas, now it's huge. I've done my bit, and now I can't afford any extra subscriptions, so I'm trying to cancel it.
The easiest thing would be if they provided a website tool to cancel, but they never do. IMO this should be a requirement. I could cancel the automatic payments of my entire bill, but not the Windtricity charges within it. To cancel that, it tells me I need to email a special department in CPS called "Products and Services"
I emailed products and services on September 25. In two days I had not gotten any response, and it looked like I might have used an incorrect address because my Yahoo email reduced the address to a token so it was hard to figure out where the message had actually been sent. So I sent a second cancellation email. Now it used the same token, and I was able to figure out that it was going to the correct address after all.
On October 7, I finally got an email from Products and Services which said my Windtricity contributions had been cancelled.
But my bill dated October 17 still showed me being charged the full amount.
Needless to say, the CPS customer service line is useless. Then have endless menus and options, none of which apply to Windtricity. This is typical of automated phone answering systems, they never have an option which applies to you. If it were something simple, like the options they give you, you would have probably handled it already. And there is never any way of talking to a real person anymore. I tried pressing 0 and that did not work.
