Getting screwed.

I thought I would post about a recent experience, if only to act as a cautionary tale for other members of the site.

I’ve had my account for a bit of time now and I upgraded to gold status sometime last year. My renewal date was coming up on the 25th and for the last few days every time I logged in an annoying startup screen would display with the options to renew the Gold membership.

I figured I would renew it, I just didn’t want to do it until I absolutely had to and since the account was due up today, I planned for the first order of business this morning would be to renew it when I got up.

Imagine my surprise when I logged in and found that I had been booted back down to “standard” status?!?

Well, not much of a problem. I figured to just go in and renew the account. The one option that had appealed to me most was a renewal at $8 plus per month for six months. The thing was that now when I went to the renewal screen, it was no longer an option?!

So, I sent off a note to customer service and asked what was going on? At this point I still have yet to hear back.

This afternoon, I called customer service figuring whatever the problem was speaking to a ‘live’ voice would manage to resolve the matter in relatively short order. I was still a bit dumbfounded since the Gold status was set to expire today, I imagined I had at least until the close of business if not 11:59pm before my status reverted to standard so it wouldn’t be so much of a problem.

Man, was I ever wrong!

Aside from the fact that the wait to speak to a person is just this side of interminable, I have to acknowledge that I have rarely come up against such unflinching bureaucracy outside of government offices.

See, I figured as a customer... well, customer service was always the goal but, I was mistaken. As the person I spoke with told me, they weren’t customer service, no they were billing!

So, even though I wanted to renew my Gold status for six months at the price I had been offered because my account had lapsed back to standard status this offer was now denied me and there was nothing that could be done.

I pointed out that the Gold status didn’t expire until today and it was still the 25th but, the truth is when you get a notice stating that your account status expires on a certain date the reality is that the service actually considers it expired the day before!

I’ve got this lovely email generated at 3am in my inbox telling me that my account has reverted back to standard status - even though it was supposed to expire today somehow in the world of online personals the day ends at 3am EST.

To say that I’m pissed is putting it mildly. That I wasted my time both on hold and then dealing with one of the most obstinate people I have ever run across just adds fuel to the fire.

See, I had this inconceivable notion that since I was paying for a service there was a certain level of consideration involved but now I find that not to be the case.

I’d certainly like for my ‘gold’ status to continue but, seeing as it’s been made very clear to me that I’m not desired as a customer it may just be I’m better of shutting the account down and going somewhere where they are a little bit more service oriented.

However, you have been forewarned. (1593 Views pre transfer)