GUS*SPOT MESSENGER

This is for a tracking service for your Spot device, for which you pay a year subscription. The problem is that you THINK you are paying for a year subscription but you (unwittingly) sign up for them to keep charging your account, unless you inform them IN WRITING, within 30 days of the end of your term (year) that you want to cancel. And apparently once you miss that, they don't refund. A nice service if you want it, but I feel taken advantage of.

GUS*SPOT charged my card without my knowledge for one year service. The company representative claimed that they "sent an email" but cannot prove that I have authorized the charge. They claim I will be refunded for the remaining time for the service this year but I do not see any refund on my card

Did not get a bill for this charge. Gave this as a gift for Christmas a year ago and only agreed for a year payment. Due to a bill not being sent I canceled my credit card thinking this was fraud. Next time they should send a bill or an email before charging your account. Besides keeping credit card information, I thought, was illegal without consent!!

I have just paid this charge for several years, but finally "got around" to phoning the company (need your "customer number", might take some surfing to obtain it on the Spot website) - and after some delay, they promised to refund pro rata the (in my case) $180 annual charge. The deal as I understand it, is that you "hit" the authorization renewal date on, say December 8; then you have 30 days to cancel your membership and the auto renewal associated with your membership; then, THIRTY TWO DAYS after Dec. 8, the charge appears on your credit card bill.

So when you first see the auto renewal charge on your credit card account, it is TWO days after your 30-day cancellation period. Hmmm. I do give them credit for promising (waiting to see it!!) to pro rata a refund to your credit card. We shall see.

I'd guess that many did what I did, which was to sign up for SPOT, then by default, the "auto renew" to credit card went into effect unless you affirmatively decline auto-renewal, and thus, the "membership" keeps renewing year after year till you go through the cancellation process. I do not like this renewal process, as it requires one to affirmatively decline it when "joining up". Grrrrrr.