- You are on a website and it is really interesting. The information is great and you want to explore it further but you don’t have time. The website offers a 14 day trial, so you sign up. You make a mental note on when the 14 days will expire, more or less. You’ll remember it. It says you can cancel your subscription any time. No worries. You add your credit card to your 14 day trial registration and excitedly explore all the information you have been looking for.
You are crazy busy the next few days with your job, your wife, your kids, your mother-in-law. A week or so later you go back onto the website, sure you have a few more days to take advantage of the free trial period. Guess what? You have missed the deadline to cancel the subscription. Your free trial period ended a day ago. Sound familiar? You now have a subscription to the website. $350 has been charged to your credit card. No problem you think. You will just cancel the subscription. And you do. It says ‘your subscription has been cancelled’.
But wait. It says your subscription renewal for 2021 has been cancelled. It will not be automatically renewed in October 2021. But until then you are stuck. It is too late to cancel the subscription that automatically kicked in after the 14 day free trial period ended.
Many websites and software programs have free trials now. Whether it is Zoom, Slack, Engagify, Linked-in Premium, Audible, Amazon Prime, etc. It is a good way to try a subscription based program to see if you like it and will use it. But beware. Write down or add a reminder to your phone to tell you the day before the free trial period ends so you will not be stuck.
- Your sink is leaking and you have a plumber come by. It needs a new set of taps. You go to the local hardware store and buy a new set of taps. The one you have are not in stock, so you pick a more expensive set. They are Moen. You mention to the hardware store employee “ I thought Moen had a lifetime warranty on their products. ” “Limited lifetime warranty”, he replies. The taps are replaced. They look great!
The next week you phone Moen customer service just out of curiosity. After a brief chat with the customer service person you find out Moen do have a lifetime warranty on their products. If you had contacted them they would have replaced the part of the tap that was defective, which happened to be the hose. Good to their word you are sending them your sales receipt and they are going to reimburse you. The hardware store employee was incorrect. You could have just had Moen send you the replacement hose and the plumber would have installed that. A brand new set of kitchen taps was not needed.
- You have been with a well-known major insurance company for many years for your auto and fire insurance. Your fire insurance is paid monthly. It is $36.00 month that comes out of your account automatically. You are crazy busy with work and other obligations for a couple of months. You neglect to pay attention and the payment bounces for two months, maybe three. The insurance company phones and leaves a message to please call them back and let them know what you want to do about this payment. You are embarrassed and procrastinate and do not call them back. A few weeks later when you have the money to make up the three months shortfall you call them back.
They check and it has to go to head office now, as it has been three months. Head office will not re-instate your fire insurance policy. You are now high-risk. You have to have fire insurance or you will get in trouble with your mortgage company. You shop around with a broker. He finally gets an insurance company who will take you on. Your fire insurance is now more expensive. It is $138.88 a month compared to the old rate of $36.00 a month. What? Who knew this would happen?
You have been paying this rate now for two years. The first year you were told they could probably get you a better rate after a year. What can you do? You are thinking of going back to the original insurance company and asking them for a client review, as you still have your auto insurance with them. Or looking for a new insurance company, where you can bundle your fire and auto insurance.
- Every week you buy a lottery ticket because you can’t win if you don’t play. You read in the paper where a woman won $50,000.00 and two weeks later she won $150,000.00. What are the odds? However when you stop and think about how much money you have spent on lottery tickets this year to win a free ticket or $20 at most, you have spent $312.00. You could have bought a nice purse for that. And many times no one wins. It will say on the news there was no winner last night. The dream dies hard.
- Everyone has things they waste money on. It may be French perfume, good wine, etc. but sometimes you are entitled to waste money on something pleasurable. You cannot be practical all the time. I waste money on books. I cannot wait and get them at the library. If I read about a book that just came out, I want it now. I do not want to wait to read it. Once I read it, I do not need it any more. I hardly ever re-read a book. A waste of money perhaps, but a habit that is hard to break!
Contact
Writer/Editor 