so i had this service i wanted to cancel. i couldn’t find the user/pass to get into the account to cancel. the vendor sent me a love note via email, “your CC is about to expire.” elegant solution i thought.
no, as it turns out. while i did get the amounts credited back, it was explained to me by my credit card issuer that the if the service (credit monitoring service, satellite TV, anything, anything) has an agreement for recurring billing, they don’t need your expiration date, they can push the transaction thru.
so, what if you die? how will your loved ones know what recurring bills you’ve signed up for? that seems pretty effed up. i would like my CC company to not honor such agreements past the expiration of the card. but it turns out the card (unlike you) has no expiration (as long as the bill gets paid).
man, all this new life simplification has gotten really complicated.
Weird. I know, for sure since I’ve had issues at expiration date time, that around here I have to change my expiration date to have billing continue. Does it depend on the country and/or the issuing creditor?
“I would assume that if you cancel the card (which you would do for a death) would put an end to it.”
recurring billing can tap a bank account if that’s your selection as the payor. i think of my wife, and all the stuff she’d have to worry about if i died, and now on top of everything else i have to make a list of the recurring billing charges.
If you died, credit cards etc. would be the least of her concerns…her major headache would be: what the hell am I going to do with all these clowns on the forum??
It’s really not that hard to make and maintain a list, the idea of doing it is much worse than the reality. You should do the same with all your investments. The process is also good for getting a handle on where your money is, what it’s doing and where it goes which can be a bit of an eye-opener if you haven’t been paying attention.
I had the same thing. I figured those services would no longer get me billed but somehow automated payments are not tied to your CC but directly to your account, so no matter if you change your card number, they still get you.
“man, all this new life simplification has gotten really complicated.”
recurring billing can tap a bank account if that’s your selection as the payor. i think of my wife, and all the stuff she’d have to worry about if i died, and now on top of everything else i have to make a list of the recurring billing charges.
Which is why I’d never set up recurring billing on a bank account- too bloody hard to get it to stop recurring.
We had to cancel a credit card and get Citi to issue us a new one to get AOL to stop billing us, even though we’d repeatedly tried to cancel service. Ever since then, I’ve been wary about recurring billing. The only thing we do that with now is our Sunpass toll transponder.
