Posts by Ben Rose

Re: As I read that

@Dan 55 - you're imaginging and guessing a lot, you're a bit wrong.

I bought "one off" non-subscription map products from them since 2016, I've always had to use card details to pay - no "repeat billing" was set-up. But the card I used for those more recent purchases had expired, so it would appear when the new subscription was added, they dug out a valid card from 2016 and used that.

Re: sad

Thanks guys, nice to hear there are a few genuine people left here.

Few and far between these days.

Re: Simpler than I expected

@Kernel "I'm getting the distinct impression that 'Werdsmith' is having a basic issue with reading and comprehension - at least four times he has repeated his theme that Ben should have cancelled his subscription when he sold the car, despite Ben having stated numerous times that he never subscribed to anything in the first place."

Werdsmith's comprehension of this situation is so poor I'm beginning to think he works for TomTom - would explain a lot.

Re: he used the in-car screen to set up his annual subscription to TomTom

You can't sign up without using the screen.

I have none of those other things, not that it's relevant at all.

Re: Simpler than I expected

@keith_w - "Or the person in the story could have checked his credit card or bank statement and asked "why is tom-tom billing me?"

I was notified on the day the payment went through and followed up the same day. Was greeted with denial and customer blame.

In July 2020 they started charging me for a product I'd never bought in a car I'd sold in December 2019.

Re: Simpler than I expected

"But my point wasn't so much that they should cancel it for you, as it was that Mazda could simply put "remember to contact Tomtom" in their manual to remind people selling their car. After all, you probably set the account up months (if not years) ago, so relying on people remembering for themselves instead of printing 1 extra sentence seems poor."

I had nothing to cancel, I never bought this product from them.

Re: Simpler than I expected

"You're on a hiding to nothing if you expect a company to cancel a direct debit for you"

I never signed up for a direct debit. I never bought this product, I never paid a monthly charge - until 7 months after we sold the car.

Re: Simpler than I expected

@Ben Tasker

"I assumed it was going to turn out to be that TomTom billed based on an immutable identifier (say the device's serial number), so when he wiped his data from the car, it didn't change the billing identifier leading to Tomtom not knowing anything."

You should have stopped there, you were correct.

I didn't need to cancel anything, I didn't have a contract with them. The priduct subscription STARTED in July 2020, we sold the car in December 2019.

Somebody else signed up to this package - presumably the serial number never changed after a factory reset.and allowed the previous owner to be billed.

It's like if Sky billed using only your postcode and then the next house owner put their subscription on your card.

Re: GDPR

@Dwarf - already going down that road, would appear TomTom doesn't have a GDPR policy or a data protection officer.

Re: As I read that

@TechnicalBen - "I do though feel for you. I was in insurance when they changed opt in for renewals to opt out. I felt bad about it back then, but was not in it for long. Mind you, I have had 1 policy lapse in error due to forgetting to renew myself!"

This wasn't a renewal. I never subscribed to this product.

Re: As I read that

@Woodnah - "He started the TT contract from the car. I'd expect that I'd be able to stop it from the car too."

Perhaps, but I never had a contract for this product. I was signed up to something I NEVER purchased. It wasn't a renewal.

Re: As I read that

@TechnicalBen - "Guess I did. I stopped at the part the article said "We erroneously sent out emails" not "we erroneously renewals". ???"

This wasn't a renewal. I was NEVER subscribed to this product.

Re: As I read that

@DavCrav - "This is more like me buying something and the company saying "We checked our records and we have a past resident of $HOUSE as $NAME. Shall I just go ahead and charge them?""

Yes, exactly that. it's like selling your house and the new owner billing their new Sky subscription to your account.

Re: As I read that

"It’s like you signing up to Netflix through your tv then resetting your tv to factory and expecting Netflix to know you don’t want their service anymore."

No, it's like buying a TV in 2016, factory resetting the TV four years later, selling the TV and then the new TV owner billing their Netflix 4K multiscreen subscription to your 2016 debit card.

You never subscribed to Netflix but the new owner did.

Re: As I read that

"Everything on the car is wiped. The online account with TomTom is online, not on the car."

If the car was wiped, it shouldn't be able to re-authenticate with the online account. This is a basic security issue if there wasn't a token or key in play here. The only one that appears to be used is a hard coded serial number, which doesn't change during a factory reset.

Re: As I read that

"You could see why the original misconception was that Mazda could do something about this. "

They could, and still can. I bought a Mazda CX-5, not a TomTom. The navigation device is a "Mazda NB1" - it's not a TomTom.

I'm a Mazda customer and, as a Mazda customer, I was wronged. They should be going to great lengths to ensure myself, and other customers involved, are dealt with correctly by their subcontractor. Instead I got something along the lines of "not my problem mate".

Re: As I read that

@Terry 6 "No. TomTom admitted their error."

No, they didn't. They admitted to a problem, but not the one they are being accused of.

They're claiming they accidentally renewed a handful of subscriptions. Not true, this wasn't a renewal. They signed me up to something I had never bought in the past.This isn't accidentally turning something back on - it was never on.

Re: As I read that

@iron "It is not Mazda or TomTom's fault he didn't cancel the service."

I didn't sign up to the service, that's the point. I got signed up AFTER I sold the car.

Re: As I read that

@TechnicalBen

Sorry, you've read it wrong. This was nothing to do with wrong emails.

This was an old customer being signed up to an entirely new monthly repeating subscription without any authority - expect perhaps from the dashboard of the "factory reset" car.

Re: As I read that

@Nick Porter

"So when you have a problem with the brakes on your car you should take it up with Brembo directly, nothing to do with the manufacturer of the car?"

Spot on - incidentally the Mazda CX-5 brakes do squeal, a lot. Google it...

Re: As I read that

@Robert Grant - I didn't have a contract to cancel. There was no contact in place until 7 months after we sold the car, presumably when the new owner signed up.

Re: As I read that

@Dan 55 - there was no repeating billing in place that needed to be cancelled. I hadn't bought a product from them since April 2019.

This was a new subscription to a product I had never purchased in all the time I had the car.

Re: As I read that

"The problem was with TomTom and not with Mazda?"

My problem was with both. I'm a customer for both and they both let me down.

Re: As I read that

"Sounds like he signed up for regular updates with TomTom and forgot about it"

No, you're wrong. Never signed up to anything, that's kinda the point.

I was signed up to a repeating monthly subscription, for a product I'd never bought, in a car I no longer own, using payment details I'd used to buy one off map updates in 2016.

Re: Past meets future

tiggity - I don't charge my phone in bed, i never even charge my phone to full. It significantly reduces the lifetime of a non-replaceable battery.

Your wife can charge her phone before bed and listen to music all night and there will still be plenty of charge in the morning. She can charge it again whilst she's in the shower if she needs to but it won't run out and she simply doesn't need to charge and listen at the same time.

Charging your phone overnight is a dated practise and precisely why dash charging was created. You can get an unfeasible amount of charge in the phone in a very short time and it allows you to just charge when you need to and not shorten the life of your device by hanging it off a cable all the time.

Why anybody who struggles to sleep would choose to wire themselves to a phone which, in turn, was wired to the power is beyond me. If ever there was a use case for a pair of wireless earbuds, this is it.

Re: Smoke and Mirrors

Trust me, my 200meg connection is lucky to get 40meg at peak times - I'm not much better off.

I can get that speed all the time on Virgin if I wanted, but I pay for more. I expect to get what I pay for, this has nothing to do with countryside availability.