The title says it all.
I attempted to cancel Nord on 4/16 because I am trying to get better control over my finances, and I’m cancelling services that I don’t absolutely need until I have a little more money in order to afford them. My renewal wasn’t until 4/18, so I thought “Great! I’ll cancel before it renews.” Simple, right?
Well, as I’m sure many of you know, Nord does not make it quick or easy to cancel their service. After dicking around the website for 10-15 minutes, not being able to find a “CANCEL” button, I googled it and somehow ended up on the cancellation page. Frankly, I don’t remember how I got there. It was frustrating. Anyway, _even on that site_, it was frustrating. The colored button which looks like “next,” at a quick glance, is actually the “Nevermind” button, attempting to get you to inordinately reverse your attempted cancellation. Ok, I’ve seen this on other websites. Kinda low-brow, but not uncommon. What happened next was super frustrating. After finally clicking the right set of buttons, I get to the final screen which says something about my request for cancellation being completed. So, I think “Awesome. Maybe when I’m in better financial shape, I’ll resume my service.” I like having a VPN, and Nord’s was easy to use. No problems, right?
Wrong.
I spent the weekend at a wedding with my friend, and Sunday cleaning my house and looking at houses with my girlfriend. So, when I woke up Monday and saw a charge from Nord, I was really confused. I log into my account, and sure enough, it says my account is active. This was puzzling. So after going back and forth with a customer service agent via their chat function, they A: finally cancel my auto-renewal, and B: tell me that I need to show proof of my cancellation via email in order to get my most recent month refunded. I go and look, and to my surprise, the only email I was sent was an email where I had to click a link in order to _CONFIRM_ my cancellation. Even after going back and forth, the agent would not refund me. They cancelled my auto-renewal, but no refund. They forwarded my request to their team via email, and I got a very quick email from a “customer service” agent about 5 minutes later saying nope no refund.
Wait, what? I was holistically confused. Maybe I wasn’t observant enough. Perhaps I didn’t read the cancellation website carefully enough. Who knows. But apparently that email only lasted 15 minutes after I requested cancellation. They say this is for security reasons, and that is absolute horse shit, because I was able to log in to my account using a saved user/pass combination, chat up the agent for 5 minutes, and get auto-renewal cancelled. Hardcore security ya got there.
And now they refuse to refund me, because I didn’t “complete the cancellation process.” Give me a fucking break. This is classic “dark pattern” behavior that so many companies use in order to try and keep customers on the hook for services they no longer want or need. Was I careful enough to read the website in detail? Who knows. But… companies should treat us like fucking human beings. It is so scummy to me that on the _same day I was charged_, they would not offer a refund. I have not logged onto Nord for several days. I have not used their service. This was a miscommunication/mixup/mistake/whateveryouwannacallit, and I am not trying to get one over on them. They are trying to get one over on me. It’s bullshit. Don’t subscribe to this company. They don’t deserve your money. More honest, decent, companies, deserve your money.
UPDATE: Big thanks to /u/caramel_member for helping me out with some behind the scenes action. Despite them already emailing me that I’m not eligible for a refund, they reversed course and are offering me a refund. While I am happy they’ve offered this refund to me, it doesn’t change how I feel. Someone who wasn’t as persistent or didn’t make such a stink on reddit wouldn’t be offered the same refund. Nord should reconsider how their refund policies, and cancellation process, work!