Get Out of my Pants!

I hate subscriptions!

Why is everything a subscription these days? "We'll sell you this handy-dandy doodad cheap. All you have to do is pay this monthly fee!" I hate that!

I'd rather pay more up front for something and then not have to pay any more. I hate having hands in my pocket taking my money every month. After a while, you have so many hands in your pocket you can't get your own hand in there anymore! (Don't go there.)

One of the things I do to improve my cash flow is to look at my expenses every month. One of the easiest ways to reduce expenses is to eliminate subscriptions whenever possible, unless it's actually cheaper (over the long run!) to subscribe than to do it another way. The easiest way to avoid subscription fees is to not subscribe. I have found that stopping a subscription isn't always easy.

I just canceled my XM radio subscription. It wasn't easy. I couldn't find on their website how to cancel. Finally, after hunting all over it, I Googled "cancel XM" and found the phone number to call. What's especially annoying is that you can't cancel online.

There's a reason you can't cancel online. When you try to cancel, their representative goes through a script that has them ask you all kinds of questions and tries to talk you out of cancelling. I don't want to argue about it, I just want to end it! (I bet you've had dates like that.)

Have a cancellation story of your own? Rant about it in the comments!XM isn't the only service that does this. Try cancelling AOL. Or ancestry.com or your cellphone service. It amazes me how many services you can subscribe to easily by simply filling out a form online, but when you try to cancel they make you call in. "Oh, that's for security purposes," they say. Skunk manure! If that was the case, you'd have to call in to subscribe in the first place, when you're telling them your address, phone number, credit card info. To cancel doesn't reveal anything.

Here's something you can do to avoid traps like that: Before you subscribe to a service, see how hard it is to cancel. Check their website. If there's no link to cancel your account, run away! If you can't cancel online, run away!

Before you buy a car, call the dealer's service department and ask some questions. Like, "Do you do service on Saturday?" "Do you have loaner cars?" Ask about the things you'd rather know now, rather than after you've bought the thing. If you don't get the answers you like, run away!

Finally, if you had a moment of weakness and fell for the sales pitches anyway, here's one more thing you can do to make things better... Rant about it on your blog.

Worked for me!


Blog Tag: Opinion