Received a comment this week that needed a bit more that a quick reply in the article – and thought this would make a good topic for a new post.
Joe has apparently been trying to stop paying for a LinkedIn account for a couple months now, so let’s see what advice we can offer him.
The comment…
Joe doesn’t pull any punches. This is his comment:
Joe McM
I made the mistake of joining the paid membership on LinkedIn!!
First of all, some of the things they promise such as priority customer service do not exist.
Second, once you realize that you don’t need the paid service, their is no way to undo it. I have been trying to cancel my subscription for about 3 months now. The only way to cancel is to send them an email. The problem is they don’t reply. So they keep charging your card month after month.
DO NOT PAY FOR LINKEDIN SUBSCRIPTIONS!!!
I’ll admit to taking out one harsh statement from his message, but I also corrected a couple typographical errors, so I think that works out about even. His points remain:
- Inadequate customer service
- Unresponsiveness
- No end to his billing woes
That’s a situation that would make many people upset.
The concept
During March, I polled readers about paying for accounts and registered responses from those that had used a paid account, but no longer did so. Check the results of “Most Users Opt For Free Account“.
I stand behind my advice of “When to Pay for your LinkedIn Membership” – a paid account makes sense if and only if you need the features that you gain when you pay for the account.
That isn’t the case for many people. (as shown by the poll results)
Joining is easy
Isn’t that the way though – every vendor would like to setup a mechanism to auto-bill consumers, and makes it quite easy to do business.
Leaving – that is hardly ever easy.
- There’s the pass-off to the manager to get approval
- Asking if we could do anything to change your mind about it
- And just plain failing to take action
Just join any promotion offered by your credit card company to get the full experience;-)
Way out
If you look through the LinkedIn Help Center, you can get to a page dealing with this topic:
Cancelling Your Premium Account
And Joe has accurately pointed out that clicking through their instructions involves filling out a form and sending it off. You’re not likely to find a phone number.
And since I have never done so, I can’t comment on the responsiveness of the LinkedIn team after that. At various times through LinkedIn’s history I have heard both good and awful reports in this area.
But that’s what should be done first – and take note of your correspondence. (screenshots are a handy tool…)
Other options
So let’s say you’re like Joe and you’ve done this and it hasn’t resulted in any success – what next?
Well don’t just stand there, get help from your friendly bank.
Two main thrusts – challenge the charges, and/or change the account.
I checked into the “ways to pay for your premium account” and see that LinkedIn only accepts four main credit cards. The first and foremost protection offered consumers is the ability to challenge transactions.
And I found this page has a very good explanation of how that works and instructions: How to Challenge a Credit Card Bill. The consumer contacts the credit card company and says “I didn’t order this” and provides backup material to prove it. In this case, you’d say “I asked them to stop, and they didn’t”. The key phrase to remember is “dispute”, as in “I dispute these charges”. (and consider my comment before – you’d like to have proof that you asked them to stop, so that screenshot comes in handy now…)
So that gets your money back. Can Joe go back three months? I don’t know – I’d ask.
Next – you want to cutoff the continuing charges – even if LinkedIn doesn’t take the hint from the dispute. Ask to change the account / credit card number. When LinkedIn submits the account for billing, they’ll be denied.
Now – you may have to deal with LinkedIn saying “Hey, your credit card is no longer valid.” And your response is “Hey, I asked you to stop billing me and give me back a basic account and you didn’t”…
Either way – you’re not paying, and LinkedIn has a great deal of incentive to fix the situation. (It’s never a good idea to be billing credit card accounts that are not valid…)
But wait – protect yourself first
Oh – did I mention you should BACKUP YOUR PROFILE AND CONTACTS early on in the process – you never know how things could go, and I’d hate for you to have to start from scratch…
Personal experiences?
Hey, Joe can’t be alone out there – I’d love to add stories on both sides of this topic.
Have you stopped paying successfully? Have you had issues trying to cancel?
To your continued success,
steve
—
Steven Tylock
http://www.linkedinpersonaltrainer.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetylock
I was just charged 1100.00 for a year of recruiter lite. I am so upset by the practices LinkedIn is using. They bombard you with the free MONTH offers, then bill for a year? No warning, and you have to really read the fine print. They should shout the terms when they are spamming with the offers. I have contacted them with hopes they’ll do the right thing.
I’ve always considered LinkedIn to be a reputable company and am appalled they are using such underhanded tactics. If they had a service they truly believed in they would not be operating this way.
Valerie,
Sorry to hear about that – best of luck.
steve
LinkedIn is predatory.
No matter how many times I have tried to cancel on line, they still re-billed me, again. American Express is powerless to do anything. I can’t even remove my credit card from the LinkedIn site – it wants me to add a new one to replace it since it’s the “rebilling card”. I have had American Express block Linked In as a merchant, but I’m still out $480 until I figure out a way to get them to refund it.
If a brick and mortar business charged customers this way, they’d no longer be able to take credit cards. But because of their legalese for the online purchase and re-billing, it gives them a way around being labeled as a fraudulent charge. And no matter how many times I’ve gone through the forms on their web site, there’s no receipt, no confirmation, nothing.
I do like the LinkedIn platform very much; but as a company, they border on predatory, unethical, and fraudulent.
Steve,
Sorry to hear, and yes, I suggested changing the card 5 years ago…
steve
I just received a full refund from LinkedIn. I appreciate the resolution, but think they need to make the charges more transparent so this doesn’t keep happening.
Valeria,
Always happy to post good resolutions – I imagine it required some persistence on your part, but was of course worth it.
steve
Hi Valeri,
could you share Linkedin contact and how you achieve the full refund. I try the Premium service but I cancelled before ending the trial period. However Linkedn has charged me more than 200$ during the last month.
I pay using Paypal, so altough Linkedin doesn`t have may credit card, I would prefer to keep my Paypal account and my money back.
It’s very disappointing that a company like Linkedin operates this way.
Thanks for your help
Emiliano
I signed up with my card for a friend for Linkedin Job seeker account. I was ready to pay for the renewal, but on the renewal day, Linkedin deducted the amount from my account twice. and charged my extra for changing the payment method. Kindly help how do I dispute and get help on this. There seems to be no way of reacing them
Emiliano, Avinash,
Sorry, this isn’t a match-making service. Even if one contact method works one day, it may not another.
Best of luck,
steve
Hi,I signed up for the free Premium trial. Got an email saying it expired today. Believed I had until today to cancel but then got billed over £400 today for an annual subscription because their communication further on said to cancel before today. I contacted them,no reply. Asked PayPal to stop the payment but they wouldn’t. Read the advice above which said to contact them via Facebook. Did that (had to just comment on another post) and had an instant reply and refund in minutes. Very grateful to have seen the suggestion.
Helen,
Thanks for sharing your story here.
steve
Just a quick follow-up. I contacted Linked-in and they reversed the annual fee. Very happy. :)
Kind Regards
Jon Searle
Jon, good to hear.
steve
I signed up for a free trial of the premium membership in order to send out a few emails to people I was having trouble getting in touch with through other channels. I never intended to keep the subscription past the trial. I remember three days after the cancellation deadline, and I just about had a heart attack when I saw that I was charged $616 for a year’s subscription. I’ve never heard of a company billing someone annually. I was prepared to pay for an extra month, but a whole year?
Following some of the advice on this website, I created a “case” on the LinkedIn website. Then I commented on the LinkedIn Facebook page. They messaged me on Facebook very quickly and the whole thing was resolved within a couple hours. Full refund.
Melissa,
Happy to hear that story, even if it was unpleasant to go through.
steve
My experience, as at 11 August 2016, was that cancelling LinkedIn premium took 1 minute.
Vusal,
Also glad to hear that the system can work as expected.
steve