Bad GetResponse Experience

Yesterday morning, GetResponse autobilled me for another month of service.

I've been disappointed with GetResponse since their new interface. I did major software product rollouts for a living just a couple months ago, and had been doing it for almost two decades. They did it wrong. I could belabour the point at length, but it would bore you. Suffice to say that a company of this size and reputation should have done a lot better, and could have with little expense or inconvenience.

When I was autobilled, it surprised me. I didn't realise they were going to do that. I had looked in the terms of service when I signed up, and didn't see anything of that nature.

So I contacted support. Response time was slow, even though I was the only one in the queue. Once I explained the situation, support didn't respond for several minutes, then offered to cancel my account and request a refund.

This was about the best that could be expected, and I was pretty happy. Response time could have been better, but I'm not going to complain too much about that.

This morning, I received email from the billing department advising me that I needed to cancel my account two days before billing, per item 12 on the terms of service. Furthermore, I should have known I would be autobilled, and no refund would be provided. (The phrase "processed automatically" must not have translated to "billed repeatedly" when I read the terms.)

I made a somewhat regrettable response including the word "moron." It wasn't profane or abusive, but it was still rude. Can't take back an email after you hit "send," though.

It seems to me that the support department should have known this. It feels like they deliberately made an offer they couldn't honour to get me off the line.

I don't care about the $18. It's no big deal. But honestly, I expect better service. By way of comparison, about 24 hours after I signed up with AWeber, they called me on the phone to ask if I needed any help getting set up. (Okay, it was probably just to see if I gave them a legit phone number, but still.) I'm no longer happy with GetResponse customer service.

Your mileage may vary, as they say. Sometimes you just happen to get the idiots in an organisation all at once, by pure chance, and every organisation has a few idiots. But all the same, it would have cost $18 to have a happy customer... and they chose not to do it. They burned the bridge.

If you're looking to sign up with an autoresponder, I don't recommend GetResponse. I've tried very hard to give them the benefit of the doubt, and they've been very good to some of my friends, but it honestly seems like they're going down the tubes.