About 14 months ago, I made WP for the first time and signed up to the complimentary year of Secure Sentinel. Never used it, and don’t really see the benefit so now I want to cancel it so that I’m not charged for it.
The thing is, I don’t see it in the ‘My Benefits’ section of my account so I assume it’s been removed as a benefit. Does anyone know how to cancel it?
I’m curious – what has been others’ experience with the service?
We were Secure Sentinel members before they joined up with Velocity (which was annoying, as existing SS customers couldn't get Velocity points when renewing their membership, only new members were eligible) - and when I hit WP a couple of years ago, I took advantage of the free year's membership which extended our existing membership for a year (and actually upgraded it to the next level). We never used it either and when i received the renewal notice mid last year which was going to be $197 (as we were now at the SecureIdentity level due to the free WP year), I thought "no thanks" and emailed them wanting to cancel it. Received a reply stating that the membership couldn't be cancelled by email and they would ring me to "discuss" it so I rang them instead. What a ridiculous process it was - I spoke to their call centre, gave them all the details of the membership, went through the ID process, explained I wanted to cancel the membership, only to then be told they would put me through to the Cancellations Dept. I was then subjected to the hard sell by that dept, going over and over the reasons why I should keep the membership, all the "benefits" of it, etc etc. I interrupted numerous times, insisting that NO, I wanted to cancel my membership and could they please action it, but the spiel kept going. Then it was WHY do you want to cancel your membership, what's the reason? I told them it was for financial reasons (which was the truth) and then got the "oh, because you've been such a loyal customer, we can offer you a 30% discount on the premium" etc etc. No, I don't want that, I want to cancel the membership. OK, what I'll do is extend your membership by 3 months at no cost to give you time to think about it and we'll reserve that discounted price for you. NO, I want to cancel the membership. It was as if he hadn't heard me and he just continued on and on. Finally, just to be able to get off the phone, I agreed to the 3-month extension and was finally able to hang up.
I then proceeded to remove all our cards and other details from the membership, and just as well I did. Three months later, I received an email saying that they had tried to charge my card for my membership renewal and they "hoped this was an oversight" and to please contact them with payment details, so they had tried to automatically bill me anyway. I emailed them explaining the process I had gone through previously and that I had effectively cancelled the account and whilst I appreciated the 3 month extension, I had definitely decided not to renew and I thought that was that. Nope - they emailed back and said I couldn't cancel the membership by email and they would ring me (WTF, I've been through all this). I immediately rang them again and unbelievably, went through almost word for word exactly the same experience as I had 3 months before. No matter how adamant I was that I wanted to cancel, they just wouldn't do it - what I found offensive is if that someone tells you they need to cancel a membership, subscription or whatever for financial reasons (i.e. can't afford to keep it going), then that should be that - not to keep haranguing the person. I know they're probably paid on commission but for goodness' sake, know when to quit, you're just p*ssing the customer off. And of course they try to guilt you into the "but don't you WANT to be protected from identity fraud" blah blah blah. I was also extremely angry that they had tried to automatically bill me after the "extension" without even so much as an email to say that the premium was going to be deducted.
Sorry for the long rant LOL, but it completely put me off EVER dealing with Secure Sentinel again.
