[ssmoot]

You're trying to claim fees for services not rendered for a pre-paid monthly service are rightfully yours (again without addressing the email) because you've made a claim in a ToS.

And you think that'd stand up in small claims. I'd like to be a fly on the wall when that gets tested. ;-) And the collection agency willing to sign on as a co-defendant? That better be some monthly subscription fee.

Also, there's no way you win a chargeback claim in this case: https://www.fdic.gov/consumers/consumer/news/cnwin1213/stopp...

You're going to have a rough time explaining why you thought you were within your rights to ignore her cancellation notice. Do you also think your ToS would allow you to ignore certified mail? You might want to talk to an actual lawyer.

[Silhouette]

You're talking hypotheticals. We actually do this, and we actually do talk to real lawyers. On the rare occasions when someone has tried their luck, we have never lost so much as a chargeback.

Of course, most of the time it never gets that far, because as I said before, we try to provide very good customer service. Among other things, that means we are up-front about our pricing and we give our subscribers quick and effective ways to manage their subscriptions. I wouldn't want to run a business that did the sort of shady things mentioned elsewhere in this discussion. We get very few complaints in the first place, and in reality it's far more common for us to help out someone who made an honest mistake and then get a nice mail back.

All I'm saying here is that we don't have any obligation to go beyond what our terms and the relevant laws require, and in particular, we don't have to accept some random e-mail as cancellation when we explicitly say we won't, for good reasons, and when we provide a quick and effective alternative that is readily available to all subscribers. I honestly can't see why anyone would have a problem with that.

[tamana]

Why are you investing so much effort in debating a straw man argument? Is there a particular real world case you are thinking about?

[ssmoot]

Boredom? I dunno. Didn't feel like watching TV I guess.

Since he/she cited a specific case however, doesn't seem like "strawman" qualifies.

A company representative is notified of cancellation. A company offering a month to month pre-pay service isn't entitled to anything else. End of story. IMO. Anything else is unethical.

That seems perfectly reasonable. No you're not within your rights to dick with people in bad faith, no matter what a ToS says. You can put whatever you'd like in there. Doesn't mean it'll pass muster when you're in front of a judge.

Beyond that she (the customer) is perfectly within her rights to cancel at any time. So the "but but but, I spent money!" is the real straw-man here. Silhoutte would have considered it his/her obligation to spend that money either way, the customer could have cancelled at the literal last second, through her/his preferred online method even, and that doesn't change a thing. There's a strawman.

Mostly it's probably because I had AT&T try something similar on me in the past year, trying to hold me liable for $1,300 for UVerse service at an address I've never lived at, going as far as to pursue collections against me.

They and the collections dropped their claim pretty quickly when I made it clear I'd be taking them to small claims over this.

Those are different circumstances. I suppose it just irks me that some people think they have a "right" to your property because you were rude?

It's nobody's "right" to dip into your wallet for a prepaid service. It's not moral. It's not ethical. Can you think of another service where that'd fly? I can't. The utility companies only seek to recover services rendered. Prepaid phone services will simply suspend service until you pay up. It's your right to suspend payments on your credit card to your MVNO whenever you like. It's their right to suspend service if you do. It's not their right to do much else.

That seems totally fair.