Seriously, Weight Watchers? I’ve given you over $100 for three months of service. What does that get me? Yes, I’ve pretty much managed to maintain my weight through the holidays. But your customer service has proved unreliable at best; infuriating at worst. If this isn’t resolved soon, I will NOT be renewing my account again.
Over a month ago, I weighed in with my initial take on the new Weight Watchers Points Plus program. I had re-joined after a leave of absence due to financial issues, and was so excited to try the new program out. Better yet? The email that I clicked through to re-join said that my activation fee was going to be waived, plus I got a discount by paying for three months at a time.
Click-click-typity-type. Colin, get my credit card for me pleeeeeease? Type-typity-type. Submit.
It wasn’t until later that I realized that I had actually been charged a grand total of $65… which included my supposedly free activation fee. Confused, I logged into my account and found that it wasn’t activated. Um… wha?! It took me a few minutes to figure out what was going on: somehow I had re-joined under an old username that I hadn’t used in a long time.
Oh, well I’ll just shoot them an email… ask if there’s any way for me to have any of that fixed… if not, no biggy. I’ll wait out my three months and then switch over to the username I want to use.
So I wrote Customer Service this nice email:
Hello,
With the new program coming out, I decided to resubscribe to the online program through an email that I received. The email said that the enrollment fee would be waived when I signed up, but I’m pretty sure that I was still charged for it. Can I get it refunded? I chose the three-month plan if that makes any difference.
Also, I didn’t realize that the email I was responding to was linked to the user name that I used to use quite a while ago: waiting2b. I meant to resubscribe under my more recent username, alwaysaby. Is there any way that I can get my subscription changed over to the correct username?
Thank you so much for your help!
And I got this incredibly nice response:
Dear Abigail,
Thank you for contacting WeightWatchers.com.
According to our records you did not resubscribe to Weight Watchers® Online using the correct user name from your previous account therefore you were billed according to the terms of our subscription agreement for a new account.To take advantage of the waiver of the sign up fee you must resubscribe with user name:
ALWAYSABY
Once you have resubscribed with the user name above please reply directly to this email and we will gladly cancel the new Weight Watchers Online account you established and issue you the appropriate refund.
Sincerely,
Hilary
Customer Service Associate
Incredibly excited, I signed up again, under the correct username, paying an additional $45.95, and responded to the email saying that I had created the new account, and was ready for the other one to be cancelled and refunded.
Three days later, I received a seemingly-automated email confirming my username (the old one), and providing me with a link to reset my password. Wait a minute…
So I sent another response asking why I was receiving those emails, and why my cancellation and refund hadn’t been confirmed. Two days later I received a response, stating that my account had been set up and billed appropriately.
NO. NO IT HASN’T.
I tried to be firm but polite with my response, explaining the entire situation again, and attaching the email that I had originally received. You know, the one that led me to sign up for a second account in the first place.
Two more days passed, and I received a response stating that they would be happy to cancel my account, but that the activation fee would not be refunded, nor would one month’s service fee.
I felt completely miss-led, and told them so in my response, but again requested that the extra account be cancelled.
Almost a month later I haven’t heard anything more from them, and my second account hasn’t been cancelled.
I sent one more email to Customer Service today, explaining the entire situation again, and asking why my account hasn’t been cancelled yet. We’ll see what comes of it, but I’m not entirely sure that I can recommend a product – no matter how good it is – if it’s Customer Service is so very lacking. I’m even less sure that I can recommend a service when it feels like they’re stealing my money.
