Advice for Blink home cameras subscription

tstoddart

Hi everyone. First post, be nice. I thought I would post to maybe help other people encountering the same problem.

I bought a set of Blink home security cameras over the last few years. This morning I got an email saying that a bunch of the features I have been using to date for free (basic stuff like recording live video, viewing a history of recordings) are now going to be behind a subscription paywall.

I think it could probably be argued that this is unfair and basically just extortion.

Well, I managed to get an instant refund from Amazon, with the following messages in customer support chat:

Hello, I'm well thank you. How are you? I'm very upset that the features I paid for when I purchased this product are now behind a subscription. I believe that this is likely to be in breach of the UK Consumer Rights Act 2015. I would like to either have the features I paid continue for free or a refund for the product. For example, the ability to record live video, or to access video history

They will then say that the product is outside of its 30-day return window, but the magic words seem to be: "I would like to exercise my statutory rights. Thanks." Following this hey gave me an instant full refund. Hope this helps anyone else encountering the same (outrageous) behaviour.

It's good lesson to learn - be careful of the devices you are acutally buying and whether you own them or are reliant on cloud services that may be shut down. This has happened with some Hive products recently.

powerful_Rogue

tstoddart said:

Hi everyone. First post, be nice. I thought I would post to maybe help other people encountering the same problem.

I bought a set of Blink home security cameras over the last few years. This morning I got an email saying that a bunch of the features I have been using to date for free (basic stuff like recording live video, viewing a history of recordings) are now going to be behind a subscription paywall.

I think it could probably be argued that this is unfair and basically just extortion.

Well, I managed to get an instant refund from Amazon, with the following messages in customer support chat:

Hello, I'm well thank you. How are you? I'm very upset that the features I paid for when I purchased this product are now behind a subscription. I believe that this is likely to be in breach of the UK Consumer Rights Act 2015. I would like to either have the features I paid continue for free or a refund for the product. For example, the ability to record live video, or to access video history

They will then say that the product is outside of its 30-day return window, but the magic words seem to be: "I would like to exercise my statutory rights. Thanks." Following this hey gave me an instant full refund. Hope this helps anyone else encountering the same (outrageous) behaviour.

It's good lesson to learn - be careful of the devices you are acutally buying and whether you own them or are reliant on cloud services that may be shut down. This has happened with some Hive products recently.

What statutory rights did you wish to exercise?

Appears you have been offered exceptional customer service from Amazon offering you a refund, as appears you certainly wasn't entitled to one. The change from free to subscription would have been covered under the T&C's you agreed to.

bris

As above Amazon have great customer service for people who don't abuse the system and they just refund without even looking into it.

I have had just a hand full of claims and they never batted an eyelid, they even told me to keep the items

I use Amazon a lot and been with them since they started when they just sold books.

People get this great service then realise they can abuse it, but Amazon keep a record and abuse eventually shows.

HillStreetBlues

Won't it depend on how it was sold?
So could have been sold and claim that price includes bunch of the features.

tstoddart

powerful_Rogue said:

What statutory rights did you wish to exercise?

Appears you have been offered exceptional customer service from Amazon offering you a refund, as appears you certainly wasn't entitled to one. The change from free to subscription would have been covered under the T&C's you agreed to.

T&Cs don't trump Consumer Rights Act 2015, right? Even if T&Cs say they can vary price or remove features, I really think that would be a would be an unfair term under CRA 2015.

HillStreetBlues is right - at the time I bought the product it was sold advertising a bunch of features which have now been removed and are being charged for. So I think this would be prohibited under CRA 2015 (butI'm not a lawyer)

But yes, definitely excellent customer service.

powerful_Rogue

tstoddart said:

powerful_Rogue said:

What statutory rights did you wish to exercise?

Appears you have been offered exceptional customer service from Amazon offering you a refund, as appears you certainly wasn't entitled to one. The change from free to subscription would have been covered under the T&C's you agreed to.

T&Cs don't trump Consumer Rights Act 2015, right? Even if T&Cs say they can vary price or remove features, I really think that would be a would be an unfair term under CRA 2015.

HillStreetBlues is right - at the time I bought the product it was sold advertising a bunch of features which have now been removed and are being charged for. So I think this would be prohibited under CRA 2015 (butI'm not a lawyer)

But yes, definitely excellent customer service.

Didn't say t&c's trump CRA2015. Of course it wouldn't automatically be an unfair term, O2 and Virgin Media have just raised my price mid contract, however it was in the t&c's I agreed to when I took out the contract.

I like how the person that agrees with you is right, and those that don't are wrong - Yet you're not sure yourself.

Flight3287462

You don't need the subscription though do you.  You can store your own video locally and not use the cloud storage.

These place don't come cheap

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

powerful_Rogue said:

tstoddart said:

powerful_Rogue said:

What statutory rights did you wish to exercise?

Appears you have been offered exceptional customer service from Amazon offering you a refund, as appears you certainly wasn't entitled to one. The change from free to subscription would have been covered under the T&C's you agreed to.

T&Cs don't trump Consumer Rights Act 2015, right? Even if T&Cs say they can vary price or remove features, I really think that would be a would be an unfair term under CRA 2015.

HillStreetBlues is right - at the time I bought the product it was sold advertising a bunch of features which have now been removed and are being charged for. So I think this would be prohibited under CRA 2015 (butI'm not a lawyer)

But yes, definitely excellent customer service.

Didn't say t&c's trump CRA2015. Of course it wouldn't automatically be an unfair term, O2 and Virgin Media have just raised my price mid contract, however it was in the t&c's I agreed to when I took out the contract.

I like how the person that agrees with you is right, and those that don't are wrong - Yet you're not sure yourself.

I think this idea of yearly price rises for those types of services are approved by Ofcom meaning they have strong legal standing. 

An set increase plus inflation is also a bit different to moving specific features over to a paid feature. If your say unlimited package suddenly excluded steaming video content which now had to be paid for per gigabyte it would be a more apt comparison as it relates to a specific feature rather than the general contract price change  

That's not to pass comment on whether or not the OP was entitled to a remedy, it would depend upon how the product was advertised on Amazon really.

km1500

This has happened before and will happen again. Whether it be doorbells, thermostats, audio equipment or whatever.

My advice would be never to buy anything that requires a remote service subscription like that, but obviously if you do, you take the risk it will be pulled at some point - priobably in a much shorter timeframe than you were expecting.

powerful_Rogue

km1500 said:

This has happened before and will happen again. Whether it be doorbells, thermostats, audio equipment or whatever.

My advice would be never to buy anything that requires a remote service subscription like that, but obviously if you do, you take the risk it will be pulled at some point - priobably in a much shorter timeframe than you were expecting.

Exactly this.

Without knowing the specfic Blink camera system the OP has it's difficult to delve deeper, but 99.9% I would say the company would be covered.

born_again

Flight3287462 said:

You don't need the subscription though do you.  You can store your own video locally and not use the cloud storage.

Only using the module 2 can you store locally. So if you bought in early you need to upgrade @ cost. Which also does not cover early Blink cameras (1st generation). As I have 4 of them & a couple of new generation. Annoying. But it is what it is.
They still work & are used to cover things that do not need recording. Simply to check in real time on dogs.