LoveFilm like to take money from you

Posted by Richard Smith - October 10, 2009 – 11:46 am
lovefilm-like-to-take-money-from-you

Two days ago I tried to cancel my LoveFilm account due to their terrible performance. The key word there is “tried”. You see it’s not as simple as you might think. I suppose it would make sense that if you don’t want to receive the services of a company then all you have to do is to tell them that. Unfortunately we’re talking about LoveFilm here.

I called them to cancel my account on the 8th of this month. A look at my Natwest bank statement today shows that they took £15.65 from me on the 9th of this month. On calling to further complain I was informed that not only did they not steal the money on the 9th, but they had already taken it on the 8th when I called to cancel, something which the person in India who lied about her name forgot to mention. Then again maybe she did and I couldn’t hear her due to the number of times I had to repeat “please, just cancel the account”.

They are claiming that they can’t cancel my account because they are waiting for discs to be returned to them. They have had those discs returned to them on the day I called to cancel and I have proof of the postage, plus they claimed to have received one of the three discs. The problem with that is I have already payed for the rental of those three discs. That came out of my September billing month. Yet somehow they get to continue to bill me regardless of the fact that I tried to cancel my account, and, cancelled my bank card.

I cancelled my bank card yesterday, the 9th, in preparation for them steeling money from me. Strangely even though I explained my situation to the bank, even they were unaware that money had been taken from me.

The big kick in the pants is that they won’t refund the money until the account is actually cancelled, which they won’t do until the discs are returned to them (thanks Royal Mail). On speaking to them today I was informed that even though they can take money so quickly that even the bank don’t know about it, it will take them up to a week before they can give it back to me.

Let me ask you a question. If I took something of yours that you specifically told me not to, what is that? Is it theft? Is it a crime? If I were passing you in the street and took your money you’d call the police and report a robbery. Apparently if you take money from somebody using their bank card it isn’t a theft or a crime.

I urge you to not sign up to their service. I also urge you to try to cancel you account if you already have one. At no point through all of this has anyone tried to do anything about my situation. At no point has anyone tried to do anything to calm me or offer a reasonable explanation for their behaviour. What an appalling level of customer service that has allowed me to become this bitter and irate. This is not a company that cares about how they are making me feel or the effect they are having on me or their other customers.

Let me assure you that if any of you ever became as upset with Simply Syndicated as I am with LoveFilm I would personally do everything in my power as the head of this company to make sure that you were not only satisfied with the way your complaint was handled, but I would try to make it a positive experience. I’d try to have you telling your friends that even though you had a complaint with us it was taken care of so well that the problem wasn’t really a problem.

This treatment of customers, of people who are giving you money is unacceptable and it simply will not stand.

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  • Marius

    This is a lot like when I finally had enough of AOL back in the day. Canceling my account with them was only slightly less difficult than building a full-scale model of Big Ben using toothpicks while wearing boxing gloves. And, of course, nothing we do or say after will make the slightest difference since they see themselves as the 400 pound gorilla and can do whatever they want. Lovefilm would do well to see where AOL is now.

  • http://ampersand.podbean.com Jakob

    Shouldn’t this be in Simply Read?

  • Steve

    That does sound eerily similar to AOL. Netflix, FTW!

  • http://www.autumnlake.com Mark S.

    Definitely sounds like a sequel to AOL’s bad practices. They got in quite a bit of hot water over that sort of thing, if I recall. It’s really a crying shame you guys don’t have Netflix. They’d trounce LoveFilm if they ever got set up in the UK. Too bad you had to cancel the bank card, because that’s a big hassle. Any chance they could’ve just blocked debit attempts from LoveFilm specifically?

  • Ian Cliffe

    Lovefilm treated me like shit while we were still in our free trial! We had a free 3 month trial from my wife’s parents & they totally ignored our priorities, took their sweet time sending out discs & sent out box set discs in the wrong order. I don’t cancel anything by ringing people cos they’re trained not to let you. Always cancel online or by letter. Then they can’t argue & if they don’t do it, it’s illegal.

  • Katrina

    While I may be wrong, it sounds like Lovefilm’s customers suffer from them not having any direct competition.

    Here in much of the U.S., Comcast Cable was the cable company to beat; and Lord, did they behave accordingly. No need to go into detail, but they generally engaged in the sort of behavior you’d expect from a bully who knew its targets didn’t have any recourse.

    Years of this, then one day, unlike the various satellite companies, Verisign started giving them serious heat. Now, wonder of wonders, their rates are a bit better, and they can’t do enough for us service wise.

    Unfortunately, some companies will only behaved if they’re forced to.

  • Nathan

    I am so glad Netflix isn’t like that!

  • Onewild

    This is strange, because when I canceled my account with them before I went traveling, I just did it online and it took all of 5 mins if that.
    I know you have had problems with Lovefilm but apart from the odd stretched disc I have never had any problems with them.
    On the issue of getting what you are owned back, Salford Uni accommodation people once took an extra payment of £700 pounds out of my account because they had messed up the direct debit. Took them 3 weeks to give me it back. Do you know how much beer one can buy with £700?

  • Craig

    Hope you get your £16 back…

    I’ve been using lovefilm for years (it was called something else whn I first joined silverscreen I think) and have never had the experience you had. Even when I cancelled my account while I was doing my final degree, the guy from the call centre was helpful and only asked why I was closing it once.

    I’m sure that when the discs are received your money will be refunded. As someone who worked in a customer service role while I was studying (not with LF or similar company), while your experience here has not been ideal so far, your anger seems a bit disproportionate to the inconvience caused. I still think you’ll get a free retal out of it ;-)

  • Jill

    2 years ago I had enough of Lovefilm.
    I took a free trial that was advertised in a motorway service station and during the trial period everything was great. After the trial the only films I received to replace the ones I returned were very old ones that I fancied watching, none of my selection of newly released films arrived through the post. Suffice to say that I cancelled my subscription.
    Unfortunately, being a bit of an idiot, I didn’t notice that Lovefilm continued to take my subscription payment out of my account for a further six months after cancellation.
    Upon realising this and contacting the company, they stated that they hadn’t received the final film back to their depot and so had continued to charge my account. After much telephone based argument I convinced them they had made a mistake(which they accepted) yet they were only prepared to offer me six months free rental as recompense. Suffice to say I didn’t fancy any more dealings with this company, cut my losses and had nothing further to do with them.
    I would like to warn others of this very unprofessional company who seem to think they can get away with anything. (In my case they can. I’m too weak willed to enter into a protracted argument over the phone).

  • Sam

    I am battling with Lovefilm as we speak. I got a free trial with two free cinema tickets code and decided to join up.
    Three weeks later – still no disks or cinema tickets so I email them to see what was going on. They replied by telling me that as I have already had a free trial at my address I’m not entitled to a trial and they were waiting for my trial to expire to take out my first payment before discpatching. (CHEEKY F*CKERS!)
    I angrilly emailed back asking why they didn’t let me know earlier. In my eyes that was theft. I also told them I moved into the rented accomodation 3 months ago and the account must have been a previous tennent.
    Suddenly this “account” is in my name yet they won’t provide me details of what rentals I took out or how I paid them. All they will tell me is that it was cancelled in Feburary.
    They assure me this account belongs to me even though I am willing to fax them documents detailing when I moved in. I’v throughly checked all the small print and the only reason they can stop me having this trial is if I was part of this persons household. Legally I am not.
    They won’t provide me telephone numbers for their management, or anything I have asked for.
    DISCRACEFUL

    I don’t even want to be part of their company anymore but I will be damned if I walk away without getting some compo for my time wasted.

    AVOID!!!

  • Tash

    @onewild I’ve been trying to cancel mine for a while now – It won’t let me do it online – It gives me a phone number I have to call to cancel and they keep giving me a free extra month or some such rubbish. To be honest I’m thinking of just calling up visa and getting them to block transactions to them.

  • noma

    i have never been a member of lovefilm but my husband has, he used ny account to sign up, this was unknown to me at the time, only to get my bank statement monthly with a deduction of £19.95, i went to the bank to cancel this direct debit 6months ago and my husband has since cancelled his membership  with them, they have continued to take the same amount from my account, i went to my bank to find out if i had direct debits in lovefilm but my bank confirmed that i did not, on checking the bank ststement, lovefilm claim that its via my debit card, this is clearly illegal and lovefilm are thieves, not only have they allowed a male to opened an account in a female name, they are continuing to steal my money and yet i am not a member, i would like to expose this scam publicly but unsure how as the account is not in my name but payment is, i would like them to explain to me where i signed up, who i signed up to and why on earth would i sign up tp lovefilm when i dont even have time to watch the televison, lovefilm is a scam and they need to be exposed.

  • Seby

    i cancelled my account 2 weeks in advance they still took £13 out of my bank

  • Dave

    Don’t ever buy a gift of a Lovefilm account for someone. It is impossible to close the account! My son has not used his account for nearly a year and even though I was able to log onto the website, and MY BANK ACCOUNT is paying for the subscription, they would not close the account until they could speak to him, claiming Data Protection.
    Unfortunately, my son may take a while getting around to this. Yes, they LoveMoney, but don’t LoveCustomers.