Well, recently Will mentioned that they might start doing premium memberships, which I'm totally for! I love tested and want to support them. I just can't support two websites at this time. I joined GB after Jeff got fired from CNET/Gamespot originally and have been a faithful member. I signed up for a premium membership the day it was available. Two years later, GB is now part of CNET / Gamespot again. I just don't really want to support them as much now since they changed so much.
Well, I didn't really think to much about it until my auto-renew came up. I missed the reminder and by that time it was too late. I emailed their support 5 days after my auto-renewal asking for a refund. And Ryan told me that is was against their policy to give refunds. That just sucks. With most online companies, Amazon or Steam, even some game companies will give you a refund if your not satisfied. But GB didn't even want to work with me on this. It was only 5 days and now I'm stuck with them for an entire year. I don't mind supporting them more, I'm just somewhat disappointed they could have treated me more as a human and less as a dollar sign. I don't even mind if is a giant blob of text that was copy and pasted behind the reason to not give me a refund, just give me more information!
Kind of left a bad taste in my mouth :( Any thoughts? Should I not have expected something a bit better? I posted this here and not GB as I felt like there would be so many fan boys dumping on me it wouldn't have mattered.
Considering the nature (or at least its origin) of Giantbomb, it's odd transition this year,
your two year loyalty and it only being 5 days since the auto resub I would have expected them to cancel your membership and refund you.
However I suppose that "no refunds" is in the terms of use of the membership so I can't really blame them either for sticking with that.
Guess best you can do now is to be sure that next year the same does not happen again.
Yeah from the way you said how they handled the situation, it sounds pretty crappy but I think Ryan is really busy these days with t-shirt operations, meeting with CBSi legal for CAH and doing his regular job too.
I'm a GB user as well who had a similar thing happen where my account auto-renewed, but I don't remember ever receiving any notification prior to being charged. I didn't try to cancel since I still want to support them, but (maybe this is just my perception) there seems to have been a downturn in the amount of subscriber content since the transition.
I really hope you follow up, get a refund, and that Ryan was just (mistakenly and temporarily) towing the CBSi company line. I'm continuing my GB subscription but I completely understand why you and others would not.
Here's another vote towards Tested subscriptions. I'd gladly pay $20-25/year just for no ads. I disabled ad-blocker here prior to subscriptions, subscribed, and then Whiskey-pocalypse... I'm sorry guys but I can't go back to ads and that stupid bar run by a company that technically no longer exists.
I actually feel better about my membership ending. Ryan and Patrick are going to play Pokemon Snap and other N64 games later today on stream, and I'd be somewhat compelled to watch that since it's premium content. Fuck that. There are better ways to spend my time.
Yeah I feel you. I was thinking about cancelling my membership because of the fact that it's not really going to a small business environment. I mean it's CBSi it's not like Whiskey where it was a few people funding things that were great but maybe not a lot of money in return. Then I saw the new membership shirt and it looked cool and figured well I'm going to be buying that shirt anyway. If this coming year of premium content isn't up to snuff then this will probably be my last year because there's no longer that good feeling that comes with supporting a small business.
On a side note, what happen to the membership tags on people? Did they expire as memberships expired in the Whiskey media database?
Well, recently Will mentioned that they might start doing premium memberships, which I'm totally for! I love tested and want to support them. I just can't support two websites at this time. I joined GB after Jeff got fired from CNET/Gamespot originally and have been a faithful member. I signed up for a premium membership the day it was available. Two years later, GB is now part of CNET / Gamespot again. I just don't really want to support them as much now since they changed so much.
Well, I didn't really think to much about it until my auto-renew came up. I missed the reminder and by that time it was too late. I emailed their support 5 days after my auto-renewal asking for a refund. And Ryan told me that is was against their policy to give refunds. That just sucks. With most online companies, Amazon or Steam, even some game companies will give you a refund if your not satisfied. But GB didn't even want to work with me on this. It was only 5 days and now I'm stuck with them for an entire year. I don't mind supporting them more, I'm just somewhat disappointed they could have treated me more as a human and less as a dollar sign. I don't even mind if is a giant blob of text that was copy and pasted behind the reason to not give me a refund, just give me more information!
Kind of left a bad taste in my mouth :( Any thoughts? Should I not have expected something a bit better? I posted this here and not GB as I felt like there would be so many fan boys dumping on me it wouldn't have mattered.
Considering the nature (or at least its origin) of Giantbomb, it's odd transition this year, your two year loyalty and it only being 5 days since the auto resub I would have expected them to cancel your membership and refund you.
However I suppose that "no refunds" is in the terms of use of the membership so I can't really blame them either for sticking with that.
Guess best you can do now is to be sure that next year the same does not happen again.
Yeah from the way you said how they handled the situation, it sounds pretty crappy but I think Ryan is really busy these days with t-shirt operations, meeting with CBSi legal for CAH and doing his regular job too.
Maybe you can tweet Dave and hope that works out?
Wow, I expected they would refund you if it was only 5 days late. How about trying to contact Dave?
@Rallier: Yeah, I canceled my auto-renew.
@IrrelevantJohn: Hmm, I guess I could give that a shot
@Evelgest: Will totally give it a go.
You can always go to your bank and contest the charge. You'll get your money back, guaranteed.
Also, how has Giantbomb "changed so much"? They don't seem to be running things any differently at all.
I'm a GB user as well who had a similar thing happen where my account auto-renewed, but I don't remember ever receiving any notification prior to being charged. I didn't try to cancel since I still want to support them, but (maybe this is just my perception) there seems to have been a downturn in the amount of subscriber content since the transition.
I remember hearing Dave was really good on refunding people, so your best bet is to talk to him.
I really hope you follow up, get a refund, and that Ryan was just (mistakenly and temporarily) towing the CBSi company line. I'm continuing my GB subscription but I completely understand why you and others would not.
Here's another vote towards Tested subscriptions. I'd gladly pay $20-25/year just for no ads. I disabled ad-blocker here prior to subscriptions, subscribed, and then Whiskey-pocalypse... I'm sorry guys but I can't go back to ads and that stupid bar run by a company that technically no longer exists.
"Meebo's sole remaining product, the Meebo Bar, is generally seen as a nuisance on third party websites."
I actually feel better about my membership ending. Ryan and Patrick are going to play Pokemon Snap and other N64 games later today on stream, and I'd be somewhat compelled to watch that since it's premium content. Fuck that. There are better ways to spend my time.
Yeah I feel you. I was thinking about cancelling my membership because of the fact that it's not really going to a small business environment. I mean it's CBSi it's not like Whiskey where it was a few people funding things that were great but maybe not a lot of money in return. Then I saw the new membership shirt and it looked cool and figured well I'm going to be buying that shirt anyway. If this coming year of premium content isn't up to snuff then this will probably be my last year because there's no longer that good feeling that comes with supporting a small business.
On a side note, what happen to the membership tags on people? Did they expire as memberships expired in the Whiskey media database?
Auto-renewal is a bad concept for the customer.
@Jazzycola said:
Yep, a lot of people bought membership when the big WM Live show happened and that just passed the one year mark.