Even Brits Can’t Cancel Their Subscriptions

…and, of course, it’s not just AOL who instructs their customer service reps to exhort, pressure, extol even bully canceling customers into staying with the service. The entire industry of cancellation call centers seems to work upon customer retention quotas. And it’s not just in the U.S.

For example, this amazing account of someone trying to cancel their Sky cable television subscription in the UK. In this case, a fast-talking CS huckster named Eddie actually started a discussion on inflation and economics when the stated reason for cancellation was “I can’t afford it.”

    ‘What do other people in the house watch?’

    ‘That doesn’t matter,’ he ties to butt in so I just talk over him, ‘I didn’t ring up to argue with you, just to cancel.’

    ‘I’m not arguing Mr. X, just trying to help; as you have been with us for some time.’

    ‘Well, not any more.’

    ‘You want to cancel because it’s too expensive? But everything goes up in price,’ I wonder where he was going to go with that, but I was annoyed and cut back in.

    ‘Listen, I’m really not interested in arguing with you.’ He tries to talk again, ‘Lets move this to the next stage.’ He pauses and, I’m guessing, senses his bonus flitting away. He sends me back to muzak hell without saying another word, four minutes later Eddie is back and Sky is cancelled.

Why should it take more time to cancel a service than it does to sign up? Easy: they want to aggravate you into submission.

Canceling your Sky TV Subscription [Creation Robot]

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