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jgerman wrote:

There's actually a box for auto-renewal that has to be checked? If it's required why bother with the box, why not just make it part of the policy?

Again this goes back to being a sloppy, poorly thought out roll out. It's as if they didn't consider that someone might only want certain issues. My bet is that this is a rush job to start getting revenue.

It's more than a little shady to require interaction with a person to cancel. The only purpose of a process like that is to make cancellation more difficult and allow the company an avenue through which to try and talk you out of it.

Anyways to answer your last question. I've never had an issue cancelling an MMO (nor have I had to do anything but log in to my account and click cancel). I've played over a dozen and there has never been an issue.

I can understand WotC being anxious to get the subscriptions started. The DDI costs valuable time and money to develop, and it's already way behind. All that money going out, let's get some coming in . . . in a hurry!

Still, I agree. They seem to have rushed things here, not considering that customers don't always think like they want or expect them to .

When I first heard about the online subscriptions, the first thing through my mind was: I'm only gonna buy certain issues; I wanna see what it's gonna look like, that's all.

And now, realizing that auto-renewal is gonna be a part of the deal (like it or not), I'd hope to have an instant way to cancel the process, no delay, no human contact required. Be above board, not deceptive with my account. That's how this customer thinks .

Artifact wrote:

I was gonna sign up for a quickie, month-long "trial" but now I'm not so sure. This is from the DDI FAQ:

How do I turn off stop auto-renew on my subscription?

To stop auto-renew, you will need to fill out a form to contact our billing specialists.

First, make sure that you are logged into the Wizards of the Coast website. Once you have logged in, click here to open the form. You will need to provide your first name, last name, and the last five digits of the credit card used when you purchased your D&D Insider subscription.

In the subject and message fields please indicate that you want to stop the auto-renew feature of your subscription. You should recieve a response within two days of submitting the request.

I only want to buy the occasional issue. The way this is set up though, I'm automatically signed up each month (no way to avoid it that I can see). As I understand things, I'll have to fill out an online form and send it to the "billing specialists" . . . each and every time; a hassle, to say the least.

Plus, I'm not entirely confident that the cancelation message will always be recieved and/or acted upon in a timely manner. If it weren't for the "auto-renewal" feature (or if there was a way to avoid it even), I'd have no hesitation to speak of. Am I over-reacting, wrong to be concerned on this issue? Just curious how others feel about it.

WOW.......... Seriously WOW that's frikin ridiculous.

PheonixIV wrote:

I think somone at WotC may have had a brain-fart when they set up the auto-renew system.

I mean really guys, who the hell designed that? You need to bop him over the ears for being an idiot.

I get the impression that auto-renewals are a fairly common business practice, so WotC isn't crazy for following it. The way it is set up is confusing though, especially if you're not paying close attention. It has the appearnce of being deceptive, which I don't believe is the case here (at all), but still worth noting.

What would make it more palatable (at least for me ), is to have instant cancelation, no delay, no human interaction (as others have mentioned). As jgerman notes, humans are often simply an extra layer of difficulty, used to "talk you out of" canceling. I remember the hassle of trying to cancel my own dial-up AoL account now that Seguaro makes mentions of it .

I apologize if I'm harping on the issue too much here. It's just that I'd like to buy a subscription; I'm really uncomfortable with the way this is set-up right now though. If auto-renewal can be instantly canceled (no delays) or better yet, avoided altogether, I'll be quick to reconsider.