Tastecard Auto Renewal Policy

Brendan90210

I joined taste card through my employee benefits over a year ago, I seldom used the card and assumed it would expire. In the meantime I have changed jobs and no longer have access to the email address used to create the membership. I noticed recently my bank had taken £39.95 from tastecard. I made some enquiries and was told the company auto renew my service and I would have been aware of this when I initially subscribed. I was also informed I would have received an email prior to auto renewal. I asked for a refund under the circumstances as a) I did not see any email, b) I cannot use such a service under the current climate and c) requested cancellation as soon as I saw the money taken from my bank account. I was effectively told thats tough, you signed up to those terms and its your responsibility to cancel before auto renewal. 

My point is auto renewal is a good thing for a car insurance policy should you for any reason become unaware of when a policy expires, this is to ensure you are still roadworthy and legal. Taste card doesn't fall in this use case and therefore should be such a great service that people choose to renew or request autorenewal to save any inconvenience rather than automatically be signed up to those conditions. If a customer contacts Tastecard immediately to notify of their decision to not renew then surely it would be better customer service to refund and work up the product to entice me to renew again when I see fit. I feel they have taken money for something they know I will no longer use and feel very let down by this company. 

Has anyone else encountered this with Taste card? Is there anything we can do to campaign against non important organisations using an auto renewal model? Or can we ensure that others do NOT fall into this unethical trap? 

JJ_Egan

Its normal with many services and part of the initial contract .

You can certainly start a campaign .

Aylesbury_Duck

Brendan90210 said:

I joined taste card through my employee benefits over a year ago, I seldom used the card and assumed it would expire. In the meantime I have changed jobs and no longer have access to the email address used to create the membership. I noticed recently my bank had taken £39.95 from tastecard. I made some enquiries and was told the company auto renew my service and I would have been aware of this when I initially subscribed. I was also informed I would have received an email prior to auto renewal. I asked for a refund under the circumstances as a) I did not see any email, b) I cannot use such a service under the current climate and c) requested cancellation as soon as I saw the money taken from my bank account. I was effectively told thats tough, you signed up to those terms and its your responsibility to cancel before auto renewal. 

My point is auto renewal is a good thing for a car insurance policy should you for any reason become unaware of when a policy expires, this is to ensure you are still roadworthy and legal. Taste card doesn't fall in this use case and therefore should be such a great service that people choose to renew or request autorenewal to save any inconvenience rather than automatically be signed up to those conditions. If a customer contacts Tastecard immediately to notify of their decision to not renew then surely it would be better customer service to refund and work up the product to entice me to renew again when I see fit. I feel they have taken money for something they know I will no longer use and feel very let down by this company. 

Has anyone else encountered this with Taste card? Is there anything we can do to campaign against non important organisations using an auto renewal model? Or can we ensure that others do NOT fall into this unethical trap? 

Quite a few statements relating to personal choice there, plus an assumption.  The critical one was your failure to notify them of your change of email.  You would have received a notification of the renewal had you done so.  I can't see that that's the provider's fault.

A campaign is all very well but until consumers take responsibility to read and understand what they're signing up to, and maintain personal administration when you change email provider, these schemes will be effective for the provider's income.

Brendan90210

I totally get the onus is on me to inform on change of address - I was thinking they are renewing a service which isn't important and in doing so doing me a favour should I wish to renew and forget. When I suggest otherwise my assumption would be they would refund, but they take a fee for the whole year - just seemed wrong. I also did not feel the service being renewed was not what I signed up to. I can not make use of 2 for 1 cinema passes or go out to eat for the forseeable future.