For no particular reason I created account on LoveFilm.com. I just wanted to check what they offer. I was attracted by their 14 days of free trail and so decided to join. I checked for Bollywood movies but couldn’t find many titles. Most of the titles were old classics – Sholay – type films. And Hollywood movies I can always watch on TV sooner or later. So I didn’t see any point in spending money on LoveFilm.com and decided to close the account.
I was aware that they will take credit card details and if I forget to cancel they will automatically start sucking money out from my credit card. I’ve seen plenty of such scams. I call it scam because this is sneaky way to drain out someone’s hard earned money. By default you should not take money automatically but allow members to decide if they want to continue membership further or not.
I thought I would login into lovefilm.com account and click on a link to cancel the account. I clicked on Cancel My Account link from my account page and to my surprise there was not link to cancel the account. To cancel account I have to call them on free phone.
On the account cancellation page they write
At LOVEFiLM we are proud of the service we offer..
If they are so proud of their services then why don’t they just provide a link in my account section to cancel the account?
The good thing is that at least they have offered free phone number – 0800 091 1514 to cancel account. This free phone doesn’t work from mobile phone. You need BT line to call this number to cancel. So basically this is not so easy as it seems.
So I decided to call them to cancel the account. After a while, and to my surprise, I was put through a call center in India. Bloody hell!
The girl, Janani, back home (from accent I can tell she was from South India) took the usual details in the name of security, starting with post code, full name, first line of address and put on hold to pull out my record. After record retrieval she confirmed that I’m on free trial and I can still access free stuff such as free 120 minutes of online movies. I insisted on cancelling account. She played her card further buy saying that I must be busy and may be didn’t get time for which I replied I’m bloody all free for movies I just don’t want to use it so just cancel it. I thought I was going to boil over, I’ve very short temper with call center coolies, so last time I politely request to cancel the account. She understood and finally canceled the account.
However account was not cancelled immediately. She said it will take another 24 hours to cancel the account. So I’ve to be vigilant just in case they decide to take out money from credit card and then apologies that the account cancellation didn’t go through. It is classic rip off story which I know very well.
What a bloody mess! It should have been a single click, 10 secs, of work to cancel account online and it took me 5 minutes to cancel on phone.
Finally I received e-mail confirming the account cancellation.
Dear Ajay,
We are sorry to see you go but we can confirm that your account is now cancelled and no further discs will be sent out to you. We hope that you have enjoyed using the LOVEFiLM service and the door is always open for you to come back to us whenever you wish. Simply login to www.lovefilm.com using your usual details and you will be able to reactivate your account online. Hope to see you back with us in the future.
With regards
Customer Services
LOVEFiLM London UK
www.lovefilm.com
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