Over the holiday weekend, tens of thousand of travelers planning to hop their way around Europe were met with some unplanned delays after a systems outage caused British Airways’ operations to come to a screeching halt. Turns out the hundreds of canceled flights were the result of someone simply inadvertently switching off a power supply. [More]
canceled
Vonage Reaches $3 Million Settlement With 32 States
By 11.17.09
If you had trouble canceling your Vonage account in recent years and ended up getting charged for services you didn’t want, you might be eligible for a refund under an agreement Vonage just made with the attorneys general of 32 states.
24 Hour Fitness Sued For Charging Ex-Customers Fees
By 10.23.09
The gym chain made famous on NBC’s “Biggest Loser” is being sued for continuing to debit the bank accounts of customers who have canceled their memberships. The US Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, has given the green light to a class action lawsuit that says the chain is violating both the RICO Act and the Electronic Funds Transfer Act by keeping these zombie memberships active.
CitiBusiness Strands Customer In The Middle Of The Pacific With No Credit Card
By 4.15.09
Skye is on a boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean without any way to pay for things, because Citibank canceled his card due to a security breach and didn’t bother to warn him first. What’s worse, they’re making him call repeatedly to try to fix it, which is costing him $3.50/minute because he’s in the middle of an ocean.
Google Checkout Just As Bad As PayPal
By 3.27.09
Web brokers Google and PayPal don’t believe in human-to-human communication, and one place where you really need that is when you’re troubleshooting financial transactions. An interface designer/developer who used Google Checkout to sell an ebook has just been given a huge serving of suck by the “don’t be evil” company—they closed her account on her without warning and refuse to tell her why the closed it. The $200 in earnings that hadn’t been paid out yet are unretrievable, and she can’t open a new one.
AMEX Surprises Traveler By Canceling Card Without Warning
By 1.21.09
It looks like American Express is still in the throes of its “risk management” craziness and closing accounts without visible reason. Did Chris, who was just left stranded while on a business trip, shop at the wrong store? Did he fail an internal financial review that nobody told him about? Whatever the reason, it’s a good example of why you should have more than one credit account when traveling, so you don’t have to rely on the whims of any single faceless corporation.
Vonage Says "If You Hang Up We'll Cancel Your Account"
By 1.10.09
We don’t know what the hell happened with this customer service situation, but somehow the CSR for Vonage decided that when Sarah abruptly hung up on him, she agreed by default to a service cancellation and $92 cancellation fee. That sounds like the kind of angry-CSR “mistake” that can be fixed with a second call—but according to the next CSR Sarah spoke to, that’s just Vonage policy. What?
Bally Cashes Cancellation Check, Continues To Bill For 15 More Months, And Now Demands "Past Due" Payment
By 4.12.08
Ashoka just found out that Bally never canceled his membership, even though they cashed his $50 cancellation check a mere 5 days after he mailed it to them last year. They’ve said there was no date on the paperwork, but Ashoka has a printout that proves otherwise. And they said they tried to contact him last year about the “problem,” but not by phone—even though they called him promptly this month when he changed his credit card info and the automatic billing didn’t go through. Bally, just admit it: nobody gets out, ever.
Walmart Slaps Down Super Smash Bros. Brawl Pre-Orders
By 1.12.08
Don’t worry avid gamers, Walmart has “received your request to cancel” your pre-ordered copy of Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii. Oh, you didn’t ask to cancel the order, you say? $19.82 is an amazing price for a $50 game?
