Cam Plus Charge on Uninstalled OG cameras without Permision

Wyze actually charged me for CamPlus without me agreeing to it. What happened was I ordered 3 OG camera, 2 regular and 1 telephoto, and and since it came with the free trial they initiated the service on them automatically from the purchase date. So one month after I ordered it they charged me for the service on all three camera for the following month after the free trial period. I find that to be messed up especially since I did not even setup the camera yet. First they started the free trial period from the purchase date before I even received the cameras and then charged me without my permission. I still haven’t installed them as the cameras are still in their boxes. When I looked at my account for the subscriptions it actually shows all three but says unregistered. That is because I never even setup the cameras in the first place. Wyze never did this to me with any of my other cameras and I have a lot. They used to let me start my free trial per camera whenever I wanted. Guess not anymore. Not even with the new Pan Cam 3 I bought at the same time has this issue. It just seems to be a thing with the new OG cameras I purchased. I do not know why they would go that route with them but it is a bit upsetting to to me that they did. I hope they do not do that for any new cameras they make in the future. I complained about it to them before but they haven’t answer me. I just have to eat the loss even though it is only between $5 and $6 total. It is messed up that they would start the free trial before I even received the cameras or even installed them but I find it more messed up that they charged me without permission. I hope this doesn’t become a common practice for them. I love their products, but if they start charging with out permission I will stop using them.
Sorry for the short rant. I am just a little upset about it even though it is just a few dollars. It is just the fact that they did it in the first place that upsets me.

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In the future log into the Wyze web site. Go to My Account - My Subscriptions and delete the Trials before they expire. This should work unless your Trials expire before you receive the cameras.

You are not alone. It is a cavalcade of bad faith practices: (1) It is automatically added to your cart at checkout and you have to delete it if you do not want it. (2) There is no communication to the user prior to converting the free trial to a paid subscription. (3) There is no choice given to the user to convert to a monthly vs an annual. (4) Trial Period begins on purchase rather than activation. And (5) there are no official Terms and Conditions disclosed at the time of purchase. These are buried in the FAQ:

Please do not accept these practices. Contact Customer Support and lodge a complaint requesting that you get what you paid for. Doing nothing only enables this practice.

See this thread as well:

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I understand not wanting to enable them to continue the practice but they have yet to reply back to me about this issue so I went ahead and canceled it outright because I am tired of waiting for a response.

Going forward, even though I may still love their cameras and other products, I will actively be voicing my negative opinion about this particular business practice and be giving them a bad review when it comes to just that part of it. I may still suggest their products to other but when it comes to their Cam Plus Service I will not be supporting it to others until they openly change how they are implementing it and charging for it automatically without getting permission first.
There are two changes I want to see them implement.

  1. They do not start the free trial until the Device is activated and the user clicks on the option to enable CamPlus to it. Basically like it used to be.

  2. They do not automatically charge someone after the free trial for CamPlus ends. That they instead send them an email before it ends telling them when it will end and that if they wish to continue to use the service that they have to sign up for it selecting one of their plans. That is how it should be done. No if’s and or buts about it.

I have no issues with them offering Free Trials for their Cam Plus Service and I have no issues with what they offer within those plans. I only have an issue with how they started to implement the service by starting the free trial before even receiving the product and setting it up and also automatically charging people for it without them having a say or even a warning email that the free trail was coming to an end.
So until they fix those two things I will be vocal against that service and business practice. I love Wyze but they messed up here and need to change it.

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I was charged without permission and the option to remove payment from their trash service is not an option. Personally I find they hella shady and I’m super pissed off.:rage: Their service has been straight crap and never would have renewed anything. Why are you able to sign up on their garbage app but yet unable to cancel. They make it difficult on purpose. Who does that aside of scammers and crooks? I use my own memory and want nothing to do with their broken cloud service. They be hearing from me tomorrow bought a Pan Cam v3 that offered a free trial, I uncheck the free trial box and it still added the trial to my account. I’ll call and rip them a new one tomorrow. Absolute horrendous customer service to not be able to modify any service in the app. Except make purchases. They do this cause no one in their right mind would renew on their free will. Hopefully they do it to enough of us to get a class action going.

From what you said, it sounds like you originally ordered through App, not Wyze directly…if that is the case, then a lot of people misunderstand this, but just FYI, in this case, you are mad at Google/Apple for this, not Wyze if you ordered the subscription through the app. Google and Apple purposely do this because they want to charge a 30% extortion fee…I mean royalties…off any subscription, and they make it very difficult to remove. In fact, if you ordered through the app and call Wyze customer service, I believe they are just going to have to tell you to call Google/Apple because Google/Apple don’t allow companies to have control over their own subscriptions if you use the app to order them. You have to call Google/Apple to resolve it, and it is up to Google or Apple to give you a refund, and their policy is to not allow refunds. But that is who you need to convince in this case. Google and Apple also generally make subscriptions auto-renew.

I mean…you can do whatever you want, don’t take any of the following to mean I am telling you that you can’t do that…you can…but I’d like to make an alternative suggestion for your own benefit…as someone who has worked customer service for multiple different fortune 500 companies, including in training and supervisor roles, I can tell you that this almost always backfires. For one thing, the rep you are talking to had nothing to do with it, so yelling at them doesn’t accomplish anything to your benefit. In fact, in some cases, a lot of companies will now actually completely and permanently ban you from everything if they determine you were inappropriately verbally and emotionally abusive to their reps.

On the other hand, sometimes reps have a little bit of discretion with certain situations, and if someone is respectful and polite, they will go out of their way to help someone with all the discretion they have at their disposal (I always did…sometimes I would even use my “discretion” to get people credits against regular policy if I felt it was legit warranted and they were extremely respectful), but if someone is disrespectful, yelling, abusive, many reps will get defensive and offended and do the complete opposite and stick strictly to official policy or purposely try to make things worse for the abuser in any way they can and call it “karma.”

I witnessed this thousands of times and would not recommend it. I am not saying Wyze reps will do this or not, and certainly Wyze would absolutely not want their reps to act this way, I am just saying it’s normal human behavior to react defensively and respond in kind.

Having a lot of experience with this kind of thing, I simply recommend keeping in mind that you are not upset with the rep you are talking with. They didn’t do it. They are just basically like your neighbor or family member, who just wants to do their job, get a paycheck and go home.

But first, if I were in this position, I’d contact Google or Apple depending on whether you have an Android or iPhone. Subscriptions ordered through the app (which you indicated is how you ordered) are actually held hostage by those 2 companies.

I hope either way it works out to your benefit. Sorry to hear of your frustrations. I would be frustrated too if I was charged for something I did not want. Feel free to check back and let us know if you get it taken care of.

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I was charged “automatically” for a subscription I didnt order, just because I bought a second camera. On the app, there isnt specific screen stating you are buying this, but they trick you into subscribing. Check your bills. Just cancel your payment method before buying more cameras. Cancel your payment method unless you are billed monthly.