Hello!
I signed for Plus with 3 months minimum term?
So I paid 3 times (£15).
I decided to cancel my Plus subscription and Monzo wants to charge me £5 for early termination. Bug or I have to wait till 30 June?!
So I paid 3 times (£15).
I decided to cancel my Plus subscription and Monzo wants to charge me £5 for early termination. Bug or I have to wait till 30 June?!
I think you have to do it on the actual day it rolls over and then they’ll charge you the few pence pro-rata for that day. You can complain and they’ll give it back to you.
3 Likes
I haven’t checked the maths but it doesn’t seem that strange to me.
You’re cancelling mid-month so you get a refund for the unused days that you’ve already paid for but you’re cancelling before your minimum term is up (30th Jun?) so you get the additional £5 cancellation fee.
As I say, it seems pretty straightforward.
4 Likes
Whilst yes it’s straightforward but it’s quite anti-consumer to not let you cancel in advance. I feel like Monzo should look at this again. They probably won’t as every extra penny is profit but i’d be annoyed if i wanted to cancel.
I can’t stand places that won’t let you cancel in advance but still see out the rest of what you have paid for.
5 Likes
That’s a different way of looking at it I guess. I agree it’s annoying but nothing I deal with has that ability (that I know of) so it’s “business as usual” in that regard from my perspective.
Yep I agree it’s super annoying. I’ve paid for the full month, in advance. I know I want to cancel - there’s no need to immediately cancel the service that I should have access to…
The Monzo account one annoys me more than most because there’s no friction-fee way to cancel for precisely the minimum term.
It’s either an early cancellation fee, or it’s a partial charge for 1 days use. I admit that’s only 16p or 46p, but still, not having the the ability to use exactly the minimum service as offered really grates me.
But what @revels said is the right way to cancel - you need to do it on the day it rolls over.
3 Likes
I find that hard to believe. You know of no services for which you pay in advance, that you have to cancel on an exact date in order to avoid being charged for another month? I feel like I have misunderstood what you gave said, but that is how it reads to me? I can’t think of a single subscription service which would do that.
4 Likes
No, I know of no services where I can give advance notice of cancellation on a stated future date. Normally cancellation is at time of contact (or after a given notice period which can obviously be manipulated to achieve a similar end).
Bear in mind that stuff I pay for but haven’t cancelled yet may work like that but I wouldn’t know.
All Apple subscriptions work like that.
You pay and cancel, and it won’t do anything until the expiry date. That’s how it should work.
My Athletic subscription doesn’t. It expires in a few weeks and I didn’t want it to auto renew, but if I cancel now, it goes. Poor user experience really.
4 Likes
Any subscription on Google Play works like that, my gym subscription, Netflix, Amazon TV, Disney+ just to name a small few, can’t recall anymore off the top of my head.
Edit another just popped into my head, Now TV
4 Likes
I think there are two avenues that cancellations like this can take, and as the majority seem to take the sensible* option, it rather shows up the others:
-
Sensible option - cancelling has no effect on what you’ve already paid for, but no further payments will be taken
-
Monzo and limited others option - cancelling is treated as an immediate cancellation, service is ceased immediately, and pro-rata refund given for unused part of period paid for
I don’t work for Monzo, I’m not one of their software engineers, so I don’t know how easy it would be to reprogram the systems so that cancellation is more user-friendly. But I do think it would be good for Monzo if they could rejig things in the future so that they’re in the former group and not the latter.
*sensible to me, granted, other views may differ
2 Likes
Option 3… National trust option - cancelling is treated as an immediate option and you’ll be sent a bill for the rest of the year.
At least monzo don’t go that far…
2 Likes
The problem with the ‘sensible option’ is that it removes a benefit of the current system. If you decide you don’t want the service anymore, currently Monzo refund you for the part of the month you’ve pre-paid but haven’t used. Once you’re beyond the minimum term, this is probably what you’d want to do. I imagine in the majority of cases, people are happy that they can get a refund for the unused part of the month.
The other way of looking at the services using the ‘sensible option’ is that if you decide partway through the month you don’t want it anymore, they are keeping your money for something you won’t use.
It’s the ‘cancelling right at the end of the minimum term’ that’s the edge case and produces undesirable results.
5 Likes
All apps in the apple app store
Amazon Prime
Netflix
Spotify
Hello Fresh
Gousto
I’m sure you’ve heard of at least some of these things!
Yes I think so (although it will always be slightly under £5 if I’ve understood right), but you’d still have paid £15 total for 2 months of the product so it’d still be a pretty bad deal for you.
£10 and a bit after 2nd payment (1 month) £15 and a bit after 3rd payment (2 months) or £15 and a bit after 4th payment (3 months). Once you’ve made the third, there’s basically no gain in cancelling before the fourth (interest aside).
The ‘bit’ obviously grows day by day the longer after payment that you cancel.
2 Likes