(Archived) Draconian Billing Policies

[slamont 7]

I am very disappointed with Evernote's billing policies and practices. The subscription default is for automatic renewal and Evernote never sent me a warning saying my renewal point was approaching and I would be automatically renewed. I did get an email saying my renewal payment was processed after the fact, and I had no opportunity to undo that.

Your product is fine, but overkill for what I need. I did not want to renew. But your billing practices are like those of AT&T Wireless -- designed for the company rather than the user. I have written Evernote to complain, request a refund, or even just get a description about why their billing policies are so draconian. No reaction from Evernote.

Come on. Get with the Web 2.0 community strategy. Your users are supposed to be your friends. Maybe I would have been a candidate for an Evernote "light" version sometime later. Now I cannot wear you T-shirt anymore, and will have to use it to wash the car.

[engberg 89]

If you're not happy with your Evernote subscription, our Support folks will always give a refund if you open a support inquiry at the bottom of:

http://www.evernote.com/about/contact/support/

To the best of my knowledge, we've never turned down a request for a refund.

I don't see any record of a support inquiry from your account. When you opened the support case using that form, you should have received an auto-reply email with a case number in the subject line. What was the case number?

Regarding Evernote's recurring subscriptions -- we tried to follow the same model of most other subscription-based services by making it clear up front that you're signing up for a subscription that will bill every month or year:

If someone wants to purchase a one-year subscription and not have it automatically renew, they can hit the "Cancel" link from the Settings page at any time. Your account will stay Premium until the end of the paid period and then revert to Free.

[rshs 0]

As a longtime Free user and a brand new Premium user, I think both sides have a point. I accidentally signed up for an annual subscription when I wanted a monthly subscription. I wrote Evernote support even though it was a Sunday. They got back to me within minutes and canceled my purchase, no questions asked. I thought that was fantastic support.

On the other hand, it's clearly a bit disingenuous to automatically renew accounts without warning and claim it's not just in the company's best interest. And by the way, if you use Google Checkout, you receive a warning that your account will be automatically renewed. But if you use a credit card? No warning at all. In fact, that's what brought me to the Forums today.