Advice please - automatically signed into a contract after 12 month free trial

taylor3

Hi,

I am after a bit of advice please. I signed up for a free 12 month trial of an online safeguarding company for my school. After looking at it for 3 days we decided it was not for our school and did not make any access into the programme. The company tried to call whilst I was teaching and I did not call back as I assumed it was all for sales purposes.

12 months later we have been invoiced £700 for their services as our 12 month free trial expired on 24th Feb. The invoice arrived over our school half term so I contacted them on the 27th to explain that we had only signed up for a free trial and had no further contact with the company etc.

However, I had ticked a box to say that I had permission to sign up for the free trial and that I had read the T&C. The terms and conditions state that you will automatically go from the 12month free trial into a 3 year contract that will be billed yearly.
My school cannot afford this bill and have asked me to sort it. As I was only 4 days over the 12 month free trial, am I entitled to a 14 day cooling down period?

DCFC79

taylor3 wrote: »

Hi,

I am after a bit of advice please. I signed up for a free 12 month trial of an online safeguarding company for my school. After looking at it for 3 days we decided it was not for our school and did not make any access into the programme. The company tried to call whilst I was teaching and I did not call back as I assumed it was all for sales purposes.

12 months later we have been invoiced £700 for their services as our 12 month free trial expired on 24th Feb. The invoice arrived over our school half term so I contacted them on the 27th to explain that we had only signed up for a free trial and had no further contact with the company etc.

However, I had ticked a box to say that I had permission to sign up for the free trial and that I had read the T&C. The terms and conditions state that you will automatically go from the 12month free trial into a 3 year contract that will be billed yearly.
My school cannot afford this bill and have asked me to sort it. As I was only 4 days over the 12 month free trial, am I entitled to a 14 day cooling down period?

Could be wrong but it might be classed as a B2B(Business to business) contract so your rights may be different.

waamo

You effectively signed the contract 12 months ago how can there be a 14 day cooling off after 12 months?

This does indeed sound like a business to business contract. I think it would be difficult to argue otherwise. That lessens your rights anyway.

In fairness they did attempt to get hold of you too. I don't see a way out of this.

naedanger

taylor3 wrote: »

Hi,

I am after a bit of advice please. I signed up for a free 12 month trial of an online safeguarding company for my school. After looking at it for 3 days we decided it was not for our school and did not make any access into the programme. The company tried to call whilst I was teaching and I did not call back as I assumed it was all for sales purposes.

12 months later we have been invoiced £700 for their services as our 12 month free trial expired on 24th Feb. The invoice arrived over our school half term so I contacted them on the 27th to explain that we had only signed up for a free trial and had no further contact with the company etc.

However, I had ticked a box to say that I had permission to sign up for the free trial and that I had read the T&C. The terms and conditions state that you will automatically go from the 12month free trial into a 3 year contract that will be billed yearly.
My school cannot afford this bill and have asked me to sort it. As I was only 4 days over the 12 month free trial, am I entitled to a 14 day cooling down period?

Are you in a union? If so I would speak to them.

It seems to me your employer should be offering more help as I think legally the problem is theirs in the first instance. (Since it seems to me you signed the contract in a business capacity, i.e. on behalf of the school, rather than in a personal capacity.)

Of course the risk is that your employer takes disciplinary action against you, for creating the problem, if you don't sort it out. And I don't know what disciplinary action would be reasonable in the circumstances.

Manxman_in_exile

Did your employer (the school) authorise you to enter into the 12 months trial?


If they did not, it's probably your problem to resolve.


If they did, then it is probably their problem, unless they said something like "by all means let's try a free trial, but whatever you do, don't sign us up to a renewable contract until we've been able to assess the trial period".

naedanger

Manxman_in_exile wrote: »

Did your employer (the school) authorise you to enter into the 12 months trial?


If they did not, it's probably your problem to resolve.

I very much doubt the supplier company can hold the op personally liable if it was clear the contract was for the school. (If the supplier company thought they were supplying the software to the op in a personal capacity that would be different.)

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

Remind me again why I gave teaching a miss!