Deezer automatic subscription renewal - beware!

[TonyP]

Just a heads up, last year on 2nd Jan '16 I took out an offer of £25.00 for a years Deezer Premium, I didn't really need it as I have Spotify Premium bundled with my mobile phone contract but at £25 it seemed worth having a 2nd music streaming service.

Fast forward a year & Deezer have automatically renewed my subscription on 2nd Jan '17 for £119.88, the first I knew about it was the PayPal transaction email, I immediately emailed Deezer & requested an immediate refund & to cancel my account, I didn't receive a reply.

I thought I'd try & claim the money back via PayPal but they rejected this & so I emailed Deezer again, of course, I've not had a response.

In Deezers defence, looking back at the email from last year when I paid the £25 it did say that it would automatically renew on 2nd Jan '17 with the amount but my beef is that there was no courtesy email that the subscription was about to be renewed giving me the opportunity to cancel.

Now I find that there is no option to cancel your automatic subscription renewal within my Deezer account, the only option is to delete the account at which point I'd have paid nearly £120 & would lose the music streaming as they clearly state that once deleted it is permanent.

For those of you that have a Deezer account & took up an option of a cheap years subscription, please take the time to login & make a note of when the renewal date is & to delete your account a couple of days before renewal if you don't wish to renew for a complete years subscription up front.

[Ducklakeview]

I've had a few deals with Deezer, and make a point of setting a reminder in my planner to cancel. That said, I've just gone "full fat" with the family plan, which I think is great value @ £14.95 a month, for 5 accounts to use on different devices. Previously I was paying that just for my own use, now the wife and 3 eldest kids get their own accounts too.

Mike

[TonyP]

I've had a few deals with Deezer, and make a point of setting a reminder in my planner to cancel. That said, I've just gone "full fat" with the family plan, which I think is great value @ £14.95 a month, for 5 accounts to use on different devices. Previously I was paying that just for my own use, now the wife and 3 eldest kids get their own accounts too.

Mike

Hi Mike,

If they don't refund then I shall certainly be making sure I cancel a few days before the renewal date, my fault for not doing this last year, but I wish I knew more about consumer law, I would have thought there would have been a cooling off period or been covered by distance selling regs, maybe that doesn't apply as Deezer appears to be a French company.

[Ducklakeview]

I think it's because you "agreed" to that renewal in advance? Maybe they had no obligation to remind you. I'm sure lots of companies "gain" customers in that way - Amazon's "Prime Trial" springs to mind, I know a few who have fallen for that one and not cancelled on the 29th day..

Mike

[Vonlipvig]

That does sound rather hefty, an email before would have been nice as it had been so long since the first one. I haven't run into that with deezer myself, but then again it's paid on the work phone bill so I never see it

[Hilly30si]

A lot of Insurance companies do this using your card to auto renew. When ever I take out any insurance I make sure there is no auto renewal. I had one company who said it was company policy to do it, I just said you are not getting my business goodbye They do it so you have to call them to cancel and then they have a chance to keep you

[TonyP]

An update....

On Sunday I sent another email to Deezer & explained that whilst their business practice may be legal I thought it was immoral not to remind users to cancel their automatic renewal if no longer required, I also stated that I thought that the only method of communication with Deezer (via email only) was poor, why no webchat or phone number etc.

Late last night I had a lovely email from them explaining why the subscription had been taken but also that they are going to refund the full amount taken & reduce my service from 'premium' to 'free'.

In the end I thought Deezer were very fair.

Still worth checking your automatic renewal's though folks just to make sure that they take what you think they are & when.

Tony

[Ducklakeview]

An update....

On Sunday I sent another email to Deezer & explained that whilst their business practice may be legal I thought it was immoral not to remind users to cancel their automatic renewal if no longer required, I also stated that I thought that the only method of communication with Deezer (via email only) was poor, why no webchat or phone number etc.

Late last night I had a lovely email from them explaining why the subscription had been taken but also that they are going to refund the full amount taken & reduce my service from 'premium' to 'free'.

In the end I thought Deezer were very fair.

Still worth checking your automatic renewal's though folks just to make sure that they take what you think they are & when.

Tony

Result!

Mike

[BMWZ4MC]

This may be of interest:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... ongoi1.pdf