In the past I have fallen foul of the trading policies of some of the companies I use to run my business.
And more often than not it has cost me money.
Luckily it’s only ever been a few pounds here and there and nothing to cause sleepless nights, but when it happens it riles me. Partly because I’m angry at myself for letting it happen, and partly because I’m angry at the company because the breached clause is not clearly defined on their website, it’s only tucked away in the terms and conditions.
And who reads those?
Well, frankly, you should.
If you don’t know the terms and conditions of a contract and you breach one of the clauses you have no comeback whatsoever. You rely solely on the company’s discretion to give a refund or whatever it is you want. And many flatly refuse and cite their terms and conditions/contract.
Here we go again
The latest company I’ve fallen foul of is AWeber.
Let me say now that what they are doing is not wrong or illegal, but if you don’t know about it it could cost you money. Not a lot, but money nonetheless.
AWeber offer mailing list software/systems on a tiered payment system. The more people you have on your list(s), the more money you pay.
The basic account is $19 per month and for that you can have up to 500 email addresses on your list(s).
You can run as many lists as you like from within an AWeber account. The total number of subscribers for all your lists determines how much you pay. If you have 2,400 subscribers you pay the base rate of $19 per month and an extra $10. If you have 2,501 subscribers you pay the base rate plus $30 per month.
Within an AWeber account there is a table showing all the maiing lists you have and various bits of data related to those lists:
- Number of sign ups today
- Number of sign ups yesterday
- Total subscribed
- Total unsubscibed
- Grand total
When I started using AWeber I foolishly thought the charge to my account was based on the total number in my subscribed column.
It isn’t.
It’s based on the total number of subscribed and unsubscribed.
(Fair enough.)
I’ve used AWeber for a couple of years and have known about this for most of that time (after getting stung in the early days), but last month I slipped into the next payment bracket because I had eight unsubscribes on my lists that I had forgotten to delete before the invoice date.
I was charged the additonal fee and AWeber refused a refund.
Now, I’m not moaning about this (although I did at the time) and I’ve taken steps to make sure it won’t happen again – I’ve deleted hundreds of email addresses from a list I have that is quite large but mostly unresponsive.
Initially I deactivated the list, but knowing what I know I contacted AWeber to ask if the deactivated list still counts towards my total number of subscribers. I had a good idea what the answer was going to be and I wasn’t disappointed.
Deactivating the mailing list does not effect the storage fee pricing. If you wish to be charged less for subscribers, you would have to actually erase subscribers off the list. Even when you deactivate a list we are still storing the subscribers which means they would still be included into the charges. Please let us know if you have any further questions about your account.
After a list is deactivated it is automatically deleted after 30 days.
It’s not about AWeber, it is about you (and me)
This post is not an attack on AWeber, although I think they could give more details about the billing charges within their accounts (“You have XXXX subscribers, your next bill is $XXX”), it’s about the importance of taking personal responsibility for whatever online services you use and managing them properly. Being unaware of a policy is not the problem of the service provider. If you have not read your contract, the terms and conditions or you don’t fully understand company policies, it is up to you to do so or to find out.
Online support these days is usually excellent. Many sites have real-time online chat facilities which are in use 24 hours a day. Failing that there are ticket desks and contact forms to use.
So, after all that, would I recommend AWeber for managing mailing lists? Yes, of course I would. They provide a great service and I can’t see myself leaving any time soon. I just have to make sure I manage my account properly.
