[anotherview]

I had a different experience. I played with Shopify, and canceled my account.

They kept charging me for years. I eventually noticed, and asked for a refund on the completely empty, completely unused account which was being charged to an expired and canceled card (something I didn't even know was possible until this incident).

Support said no, and offered a discount if I wanted to use Shopify in the future. I said I'd have to resort to a chargeback and I'd let my credit card company see if they agreed with my interpretation of the situation or not. The head of support literally yelled at me the moment I used the word chargeback, revoked his previous offer, and said they had no need to return my money, even though they hadn't earned it.

I wound up in touch with their VP Revenue who agreed that he didn't want to take any money they hadn't earned. But instead of refunding my money, he just dropped contact with me and never responded again.

If they were to respond to this publicly, they'd say I was angry with them. And that's true. I became angry after their head of support yelled at me. I still can't believe that happened, it was the worst customer service experience of my life. My blood pressure goes up a little just remembering how I was treated.

So basically, I'm glad you're happy with them, but they stole a couple hundred bucks from me and lied about their intention to give it back. My experience makes me believe that anybody who had good experiences is, almost certainly, just lucky. That or I'm in the .001% of supremely bad luck.

If I'm truly in the .001%, their vp revenue can circle back and give me the money he promised (I'd be easy to identify on their side, since if they never yell at customers, and never lie to customers, then it should be super-easy to remember a time that they yelled at and then lied to a customer).

[shostack]

Did you end up filing a chargeback?

[anotherview]

I don't believe so. I think I found out that chargebacks can only go back 60 or 90 days, and I also found out that (shockingly) it's not illegal to charge an expired and cancelled credit card on a recurring basis, and I decided to devote my energy to something more useful.

[freejack]

I'm aware that they are going through an overhaul of their customer service systems, process and probably the people. Its tough to grow as fast as they are, especially in this area. It is exceptionally hard to find great people, maintain culture and values while still providing great support. I'm not making excuses for them, except to say that I am certain they are aware of the issues they have had had in this area and are working on getting better.

[anotherview]

I'm simply sharing my experience, which involved their head of customer service yelling at me, and their vp of revenue flat out lying to me.

If I'm truly an outlier, I'd welcome outreach from them (in the form of the refund they promised me long ago). But I don't expect it.

Running a startup is crazy hard... but establishing cultural norms like 'don't yell at customers' and 'don't lie to customers' isn't hard. That's easy. And either I had a wicked outlier experience, or they failed to do that.

[mtrimpe]

Were you 'transferred' to the head (or even VP)? Transferring to a colleague pretending to be a supervisor is a common hack support reps use.

If that was the case the chances are this 'cultural norm' might've been limited to two neighbouring support reps going off book.

[anotherview]

This wasn't a transfer game. There were bidirectional emails and phone calls. (e.g. vp of revenue calling me in response to an email sent directly to his email.)

The whole situation made me wonder how much revenue would Shopify lose if they stopped charging expired credit cards. It must be material if they're willing to engage in a billing practice that essentially no upstanding SaaS company engages in. Or at least it must've been material at the time.

[aikah]

> I'm not making excuses for them

Yes you are. If the OP story is true, you just don't yell at your customer. It doesn't make me want to try Shopify if they really use these kind of practices. Only shady pornsites do that stuff.

[mtrimpe]

Have you ever actually worked as a customer service agent? Getting low-paid employees to consistently be courteous to angry customers is actually really hard to get right.

You probably aren't; but lots of customers are assholes. Lots of people become utilitarians when they're dealing with customer support: when they want an outcome all means to that end become justified. I can't tell you how many insults I've had hurled at me during my few years as a support rep.

And as far as this customer is concerned; my guess is that he never got the chance to speak to the 'head of customer support.' He got pissed off at one employee; asked for the supervisor and was transferred to the support rep sitting next to him.

That shit happens all the time; heck I've been the 'supervisor' several times and had it work. Call it a 'social hack' support reps often use.

Now the guy should never have yelled and the VP should've followed up on his promise but downvoting someone who politely advocates cutting Spotify some slack based on a single report isn't fair either.

/ex-customer-support-rep-rant