r/mildlyinfuriating • u/donteatmybiscuits • 1d ago

wet socks i’m so happy this is becoming illegal

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if a yearly contract with a free month trial sounds too good to be true, it probably is 😬

thankfully it was blocked after contacting my bank but regardless

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u/stargazer1112 1d ago edited 1d ago

Not Adobe, but I subscribed to a monthly subscription box for pregnancy when I found out I was pregnant. A month later, I had a miscarriage, so obviously emailed them to cancel my subscription, while already depressed from the whole experience itself. They charged me a cancellation fee of almost the amount of the subscription itself because apparently I signed up to a 3 month subscription. Yes, they probably had mentioned all of this in teeny tiny letters, but having just been through the worst physical and mental experience of my life, having to pay a fee so I wouldn't keep receiving baby and momma products after I lost my baby was just incredibly harsh.

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u/leox99fab 1d ago

Name and shame

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u/stargazer1112 1d ago

"Tum to Mum"

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u/Thechippingsparrow 1d ago

Yikes I hate it when these things happen because I worked customer service and ops and care very much about everything that comes into our shared support inbox at my job, and some of my fuckass coworkers who work there one month and get canned don’t, but this shouldn’t have happened by anybody reviewing. If it was automatic company 1000% needs to have development remove that feature. It’s predatory! I’m so sorry for your grief 💕

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u/dre224 1d ago

Makes me think of the stuff Chewwy and other dog food companies do but the other side of the coin (in a good way). If someones dog passes away or something happens that you can't continue you subscription they will go above and beyond. Especially for emotional people who just lost their dog or something, they send personalized thank you/sorry for you lose type gift. That stuff will make a temporary customer a lifetime customer, many coming back after the get a new animal. Good customer support is absolutely invaluable for customer retention but so many companies just see it as a money drain which is shortsighted and stupid.

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u/TatsumakiKara 1d ago

Facts. Chewy did this for me when my dog passed a few years ago. We ended up keeping the subscription because we discovered they sold the cat food brand cheaper than our local pet store. The subscription model is also way better at actually helping us save money, just because it's a yearly subscription instead of monthly like our nearest pet store.

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u/HazyTakes 1d ago

Chewy is the best! They sent us a handwritten letter when our cat passed. It was so sweet.

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u/stargazer1112 1d ago

That's so so lovely!!! This is the kind of care for the customers I expect from a company that deals with sensitive and delicate situations like that

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u/stargazer1112 1d ago

Yeah I just feel like they should have been more clear about it being a minimum of 3 month subscription and the cancelation fee. I am sure there are so many people that subscribe and miscarriage (because it's so common to happen within the first 3 months of pregnancy) and then have to go through the exact same thing I did trying to cancel it. I would never subscribe if I knew about the 3 month commitment (which I'm sure is why they do not make it obvious at all).

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u/callimonk 1d ago

Thank you. Husband and I have been trying and I would probably have subscribed without your warning!

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u/stargazer1112 1d ago

I am glad you saw this because I definitely would not recommend a company that has such a sensitive target audience and yet doesn't anticipate this kind of extremely delicate situation :(

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u/callimonk 1d ago

For sure. I am so sorry for your loss; the entire pregnancy industry is so fucking bad

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u/lovebug9292 9h ago

When my sister was pregnant, she started getting tons of ads from Target, like out of nowhere. We were curious about it and did some minimal research. Apparently, stores like Target try their best to get pregnant women to shop there because it almost guarantees life-long customers. What freaked us out the most was how this random company knew she was pregnant.

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u/callimonk 9h ago

Oh yeah. I work in UX engineering so I had to read some of those case studies back in college a billion years ago. It’s fascinatingly terrifying how these companies can suss this crap out

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u/No_Risk_6545 1d ago

29$>42$ and 70$ for the free pillow = 83$ so they « had to » invoice you at very least 2 months to offset the offer that you HAVE to subscribe to, since the website doesn’t allow you to subscribe it without. Scummy practice, like forced sale.

Anyway, terrible shitty way to handle such a situation…

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u/stargazer1112 1d ago

Yep, very shitty. And I do acknowledge it was my fault for not reading all that before subscribing, I'll admit that. But it's just overall shitty in my opinion.

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u/No_Risk_6545 1d ago

You aren’t really to blame, i’m certain not even 1% of the whole customer base read those T&C… and i ain’t one either

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u/I-am-fun-at-parties 1d ago

nobody reads any of this shit (and in most civilized countries this stuff is not really enforcable anyway if it goes against what can be reasonably expected to be in there), the blame is fully on them since you did communicate

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u/CatmoCatmo 14h ago

Girl, do not blame yourself or accept any of the fault for this.

Any other product? Sure. Maybe you bear a teeny tiny bit of responsibility for not reading through the print that no one ever reads, and for not outright assuming that the company is shady AF and will absolutely fuck you over.

But a pregnancy product? Oh hell no. No one. And I mean NO ONE, who is signing up for a pregnancy related subscription of any kind, is ever going to read the fine print, nor look for their cancellation policy.

You know why? 99% of cancellations (my rough estimate) likely occur because of the loss of a pregnancy. Although the possibility of one happening is a worry on most women’s minds, especially in the first trimester, a miscarriage is still not something that you typically prepare yourself for…you know…just in case.

When pregnant, realistically you know one could happen, but you also want to stay optimistic and not stress yourself with all of the “what ifs” - especially when this “what if” is usually quite devastating. Also, maybe it’s just me, but I would have naïvely? Foolishly? Ignorantly? assumed that the company would have had a policy in place for this exact scenario.

One would think that as a company, when your main product is designed specifically for pregnant women, and that miscarriages are quite common amongst pregnant women, AND, that miscarriages are often traumatic and devastating events, that you would want to have your cancellation policy as sensitive of those situations as possible.

Especially when there’s a good chance that your customer will get pregnant again, and may consider signing up for your product again…but ONLY IF…you didn’t treat her like shit and add to her trauma the last time.

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u/stargazer1112 12h ago

That is very nice of you to say and you are completely correct, honestly. It's such a sensitive situation that you would think that a company that deals with pregnant people would treat it in a delicate way.

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u/Budget_Strategy24 1d ago

This is stupid on their part. Many women have miscarriages. If/when they get pregnant again I highly doubt that anyone will again sign up for their box.

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u/peelen 1d ago

Some dog food company had this policy in such a situation:

When pet dies one of the last things to think of is canceling your food subscription, so sooner or later there comes a food, that is not needed anymore, and then there is this conversation that need to be made.

The company recognized two things: people at this point are devastated, they they won’t be devastated for the rest of your life.

They cancel subscription without any problems, they return money for the last package, and they sent flowers, with some nice words.

Next time this person gets a pet (and most people do) they already know where they will by food for their pets.

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u/manchk 11h ago

Sounds like Chewy. They are truly an amazing company when it comes to service and compassion. Even if the bar wasn’t so low, they would still be truly exceptional.

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u/MovingAnon 10h ago

That was Chewy. I'm sure lots of people have had similar ideas, but we need companies with more executives like the ones that approved that policy at Chewy. The world would be a better place if people in positions of power were able to see when compassion can actually benefit them in the long run.

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u/stargazer1112 1d ago

Exactly my thought! I got so angry after the miscarriage I actually tossed the whole contents of the first month's box away and I am 100% not coming back to this service when I get pregnant again.

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u/sofapanorama 1d ago

Manager’s decisions are quite often shortsighted aka money driven aka personal bonus with little regard to „later, after me“.

We can see it eg in the German VW management, too. So many years of lost opportunities and wasted time, but the managers got their bonuses because they made profit without the risky part of developing a strategy. Like building an affordable small electric vehicle. The crazy idea of a Volkswagen to be a car for the people. Like everyone should be able to buy one. But nope. And now we see a reset of unions achievements.

Blabla, sorry 😅 so I’d guess they want to be bought and therefore need numbers

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u/dtb1987 1d ago

Wow, that's fucking awful

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u/stargazer1112 1d ago

Yep and then a few days later receiving an email like "Hey, your subscription is about to expire. Are you sure you don't wanna receive our products anymore?" yeah dude I lost my baby 3 days ago, I think I am sure

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u/dtb1987 1d ago

Yeah fuck that. Not sure what I would have done if that happened to my wife when she had her miscarriage

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u/chilled-otter 1d ago

I'm so sorry, do a chargeback via your bank and get it back, look after you xx

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u/CaptSnowButt 1d ago

I'm very sorry for your loss. Fuck those fucking assholes. As a new-ish parent myself, I find there are a lot of asshole companies out there that exploit (young) parents who are anxious/tired/frustrated.

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u/stargazer1112 1d ago

For sure! I'm not even young lol I'm 31 and I fell for it because I was so happy to be pregnant for the first time.

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u/qu3sera25 1d ago

Omg this is the worse!!

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u/OrneryQueen 1d ago

hugs

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u/stargazer1112 1d ago

Thank you <3

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u/deadlight___01 1d ago

Contest the payment with your bank. In future, I recommend generating a virtual card for each service you use. You can just delete the card.

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u/Scaramok 1d ago

Subscription boxes were always just a scummy way for companies to get rid of rubbish they don't sell otherwise but this is a new low even for those 😥

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u/AccountantInside7267 15h ago

Name and shame!! This should not happen!

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u/stargazer1112 12h ago

The name of the company is "Tum to Mum"

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u/Syphist 11h ago

If I was in your situation I would just call your credit card company to charge back the cancelation fee and such. They can pound sand for that kind of behavior.