Series 3 — Solution · Paper 6
The Cancellation
He signed up for the meal kit service in November. A promotional offer — three weeks at half price, then £49.99 per week thereafter. He used it through December and into January, and then his circumstances changed and he decided to stop.
He opened the app. He could find where to pause deliveries but not where to cancel. He paused it, thinking that would stop the charges. It did not. The following week £49.99 left his account.
He went back into the app. He found a cancel option buried in the account settings, behind a screen that asked him why he was leaving and offered him a discount to stay. He declined the discount. The screen asked him again. He declined again. The app told him his cancellation had been received and would take effect after the next delivery, which he had not asked for and did not want.
£49.99 left his account again the following week.
He called the number on the website. He was on hold for nineteen minutes. He explained the situation. The person he spoke to offered him a further discount. He said he did not want a discount, he wanted to cancel. They told him the cancellation was confirmed and apologised for the confusion.
He checked his account the following week. The standing order was still active.
He called his bank and asked them to block the payments. His bank told him they could raise a dispute but could not guarantee the payments would stop immediately. He raised the dispute. The £49.99 he had paid after his first cancellation attempt was returned to his account six weeks later.
The subscription eventually stopped. He is not certain which action caused it to stop.
A payment arrangement on the scheme works differently at the moment of cancellation.
He opens his payment app. He finds the arrangement — meal kit service, £49.99 weekly. He cancels it. His phone asks him to confirm. He confirms.
The arrangement is cancelled. Not pending cancellation. Not cancelled after the next delivery. Cancelled at the moment he confirmed it.
The merchant receives a notification. The payment that was due to draw the following week does not draw. There is no further action required from him, no further conversation with the merchant, no call to his bank.
He checks his account the following week. The £49.99 is not there. This is not a surprise. He cancelled the arrangement. The arrangement is cancelled.
The meal kit service is a good product. He used it for three months and the food was good and the portions were right and it arrived when it said it would. He would probably have used it again at some point, when his circumstances changed back.
He will not use it again.
The cancellation process took six weeks, three phone calls, a bank dispute, and a level of effort that was disproportionate to the decision he was trying to make. The product could not survive the process that surrounded it.
A payment arrangement that the payer controls does not protect merchants from cancellations. It protects merchants from the reputation damage that a bad cancellation experience creates.
The merchant who makes cancellation easy loses a customer for now. The merchant who makes cancellation difficult loses a customer forever, and acquires one who will describe the experience to other people.
The arrangement is a record of a commercial relationship. When the payer ends it, the record closes. The relationship may resume. The difficulty of ending it will determine whether it does.