Entry 598: I Fought iFIT (No One Won)

Sometimes it sucks to be right. In a previous post, I discussed my recent purchase of a treadmill and how I was misled into signing up for a "free" month of a fitness service called iFIT (despite the name, it's not an Apple-owned product, as best I can tell). As I wrote in the post: "I canceled my iFit membership, but they keep it active until the end of the free trial period, which makes me nervous. I have a sneaking fear I'm going to be charged anyway." And so I was furious, though not surprised, when a $15.99 iFIT charge appeared on my credit card bill earlier this week. I then spent a total of one hour and 34 minutes over two calls over two days arguing with them to cancel my account and refunding my credit card, which they finally did, very begrudgingly. It was not enjoyable -- like I said in this post's title: no one won.

Let me state upfront, I made two crucial missteps that led to this situation in the first place. I take a small part of the responsibility, but as I think you will see, given the information I had at the time, they were understandable mistakes.

1. I never should have signed up for iFIT in the first place.

The guy who assembled the treadmill tried to warn me. He told me straight-up: Don't give them your credit card information. Dude said he had heard horror stories from other buyers. I wanted to listen, but I also wanted to use my treadmill, and there was a giant sticker across the panel of it that read:

THIS MACHINE IS CURRENTLY DEACTIVATED
IN ORDER TO ACTIVATE IT YOU MUST VISIT THE iFIT WEBSITE

And no matter what button I pressed, nothing worked. So, if you were in my shoes what would you think? I thought I had to go to this website and activate my treadmill like you do a credit card -- super annoying, but what else am I going to do, disassemble it and return it? So, I went there, followed through the prompts and signed up for a free month of iFIT (because I couldn't "activate" my treadmill without doing so), figuring I'd just have to do that thing where you cancel right away to avoid being charged. 

It worked, but now I could only use my treadmill through the iFIT app on my phone, which I didn't like, so I did some googling and found a video telling me that if I hold down a certain button on the treadmill for 30 seconds, it will disable the connection between the treadmill and my phone, and then I would be be able to use it like a normal treadmill, which is what I wanted all along. Great! Except I now realize I'd been duped. I never needed to "activate" my treadmill via iFIT at all. I just needed to hold down this button in the first place. Of course, I had no way to know this at the time. I suppose I could have (and wish I would have) googled how to activate my treadmill without going through iFIT, but only in retrospect is that the obviously correct path.

And it's because of that damn sticker! They know how misleading it is, and they know the vast majority of people will do what I did, and they know many of these people will either forget or be unable to cancel (see point 2) their memberships, or maybe they won't even know they can cancel them, and then iFIT can collect a bunch of money from people who never wanted their service in the first place. Here's what the sticker should say:

VISIT THE iFIT WEBSITE TO OPERATE THIS MACHINE VIA THE iFIT APP
IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO OPERATE VIA THE iFIT APP, TURN OFF iFIT SYNC (PRESS AND HOLD BUTTON FOR 30 SECONDS)

But we all know why it doesn't say that. I hate so much the corporate culture of tricking customers into paying for things they don't want. If your product can't stand on its own as part of an honest transaction, make it better.

2. I should have called to confirm my membership was actually canceled.

I could sense something was off with their website. I followed the prompts to cancel, but no matter what I did -- go through the website, go through the app -- I couldn't get my membership status to change off "FREE." I never got a confirmation email or anything like that. I thought I could safeguard things by deleting all my billing information, but clearly I only "deleted" it (it wasn't showing in my membership profile); I didn't actually delete it. It's on me for not verifying, but there was a calculation behind it. I knew I would spend a long time on hold (as it was I spent about an hour total on hold), and I did not want to do that unless I absolutely had to.

Which, ultimately, I did. I first called Tuesday morning and the woman I spoke with said she had canceled my account, but she needed a supervisor to issue the refund. She said a supervisor would call me later that day and that I'd receive an email saying my account had been canceled -- neither of those things happened. That call was "only" 23 minutes.

So, I called back again the next morning and this time the call went an hour and 11 minutes. I was on hold for about 45 minutes, and I spent the next 26 minutes arguing with the customer service rep who was not giving up that refund easily. Whenever I do stuff like this, I take on an indignant, but polite demeanor. I always make it clear that I'm not mad at the person I'm talking to and I'm sorry that they have to deal with me, and then I try to appeal to their common sense -- there are a lot of "What should have I done?"s and "What would you do in that situation?"s. I think it works, but I dunno. By the end of the conversation I had the service rep saying she was "fighting for me" with her supervisor, and that her supervisor was "mad at" her for even asking for the refund for me, but that could just be hot air. I did ultimately get my money back, so at least there's that. 

I'll close with a few excerpts of my conversation.

Her: You agreed to the terms. You don't need an iFIT account to use your treadmill.
Me: Yes, I realize that now. But I had to learn that from YouTube. If you put a giant sticker on my machine telling me I have to go to iFIT to activate, what do you expect people to do? How am I supposed to know you don't actually have to do that?
Her: Umm... well, if you had questions you could have called us.
Me: I was on hold for 45 minutes before I got connected to you. I'm supposed to do that to operate a treadmill I just purchased? You guys put those stickers on and intentionally make them misleading because you want people to sign up and forget about it and get charged. It's very dishonest.
Her: We never want to charge people who don't use our product.
Me: Great! Then give me my money back.
Her: I'll see what I can do.

Her: My supervisor said she can't give you a refund because we don't have any record of you canceling your membership.
Me: I tried. I followed the prompts and even cleared out all my billing information.
Her: I believe you, but it's policy to not give refunds in that situation.
Me: Okay, but that's your policy. It's not like it was passed down by the Supreme Court. You could change the policy anytime you want.

Me: Let me talk to your supervisor, please.
Her: Actually there is no reason to do that. She just agreed to give you a courtesy refund.
Me: Oooh, a courtesy refund. Yes, waiting on hold for an hour to argue with you over $16 -- such a courtesy! 

Actually, I didn't say that last line. But I thought it!

Well, I've spilled more than enough virtually ink on this topic. Until next time...

Update: After I wrote this, I came across a screenshot I forgot I took of a notice in my account telling me my membership would end on January 15, 2022 (a day after I canceled it). So, definitive proof that this was entirely on their end. I wish I would have remembered this during my call. I would have offered to email it to them. I have another one saying there is no billing information on file after I deleted my credit card. That they still charged me is so shady.

It's a little hard to read but it says: Your iFIT membership will end on Jan 15, 2022.