So, unsurprisingly, I've never really trusted those subscription clubs like Columbia House. I've never actually subscribed to one, only heard rumors about them-- like many sensible people, I figure the ridiculous deal is too good to be true. Well, I'm sure Columbia House is much worse than my little Internet company, and today, I found out that even my little Internet company can be a little difficult to get refunded from.* Clearly if it was easy to get refunded, the company would lose tons of money, but it's still a pain in the patoot to obtain your refund.
People visit one of our websites and sign up online, agreeing to pay a monthy fee for access which they can cancel anytime. Only, if you send us email to attempt cancellation of your account, we reply asking you to finish out your trial period, and if you still insist on cancelling, you have to call us to get refunded.
So people have to call us to get refunded, but our phones are very busy. We eliminated voicemail yesterday, so they have to speak with us personally to get a refund. The only way you could get your money back was by calling and talking to us. Naturally, that afternoon the phones went down, so nobody could reach us at all. Dastardly bad luck.
The most amusing part of this saga so far came today, when we found a small error in one of our emails telling people that they must call for a refund. The emails are built on form-letter formats since we have multiple products, but this form letter wasn't changed from the generic letter, so we sent out around a hundred emails telling people that they only way they could get their money back was to "call us toll-free at: 1-888-XXX-XXXX."
As an added bonus, a few of the people receiving this email didn't realize it was an unmodified form letter, so they tried calling that number with seven X's at the end. And what do you think they heard at the other end of the line?
[sultry voice] If you are under 18, you must hang up now. Welcome to Intimate Connections...