Free trial precautions

Cameras
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Sorry for long post, I thought it might be important.

I caught a post on Reddits Wyzecam sub a few days ago.

A person purchased a cam or some cams on Amazon, included free trials of Cam Plus. He opted out and confirmed in setup. Supposedly.

He has Cam Plus already.

He is a 5 year customer with acres of cameras. He’s not a happy camper. Got charged for the monthly fee when trial ran out.

Claimed no notification. Had to jump thru hoops of calling, but eventually did get refunded. But he’s angry.

I appreciated and thanked him for the post as I had 2 Pan V3 on the way VIA Amazon and free trials are included and would be cautious in setup.

I got the 1 Pan V3 on one day and the other the next.

I setup cam 1, and I made sure I opted out of the free trial and that I hit confirm. Or thought I did.

I logged into services.wyze.com and sure enough, there was a free trial added by that camera. I unsubscribed and notified Wyze via email.

They replied rather nonchalantly, said I could delete it, blah, blah, niceties, etc.

I received cam 2 today and set it up, opted out of free trial and confirmed.

It also ended up in my account and had to be deleted.

Now, I don’t know if the other fellow was notified, or if the free trial just rolls into a billing situation automatically.

I don’t know if it’s just accidental programming errors.

I don’t actually know if it just rolls into a charge without notification and never will since I cancelled both.

I was a little more firm in my reply to my first ticket response.

I mentioned words like shady, deceptive, illegal, and that Attorneys General love to sue possibly shady security companies.

I asked that it be escalated to higher ups, perhaps it programming errors, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt for now.

Points; Opt in should not already be checked, but user checked.

Unchecking and confirming should have prevented these free trials from going into my account or any users account.

Pre-checked opt ins that eventually cost money and if you not notified to cancel, is probably illegal in most States.

Programming should be checking if I already have Cam Plus and why would I even need a free trial?

As you can tell, it ticked me off too.

Moral; Until or if it ever gets fixed, make sure you check your account if you opted out of free trials.

PS; I already have a deviously, sneaky, party cloudy security company and in comparison, Wyze cameras and app kicks their butt so far.

So I’m already angry for 7 months and I’m used to their forum admins sweet talk and snipe hunts they send us on when trouble crops up.

Disappointed obviously :frowning: If I actually get a follow up that they fixed it ASAP, that will help. If not, :man_facepalming::person_shrugging:

And if I’m wrong or did something wrong in setup, misunderstood any instructions, read instructions too fast, I’ll eat crow and apologize profusely.

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I don’t know what’s going on there. I got a V3 Pro more recently and opted out and it never put me into the trial. Maybe they don’t make it clear enough for some people. Of course, no one should get onto it without a person actually deciding to.

At the same time though I’ve never added my card to Wyze account so I don’t really have to care either.

That said, whatever happened, its just as bad as Amazon does with their Prime sub, which is a company you happily bought from anyway. Wyze are no worse than that. You should technically not like both companies here.

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I don’t, or any crap company with deceptive up sales.

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I was going to say. When you cancel your Prime account the fun arrives :slight_smile:

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Experience? If you cancel, do they keep trying to charge you or spamming? Or what?

I know how to cancel and am considering it since it’s so expensive and we don’t use hardly anything, exception, free shipping at higher prices and a rare Prime video. The rest of is useless to me.

I’ve been on the hook for a while and I think they have a measly $25 purchase threshold and you get free shipping anyhow. Like Walmart, only theirs is $35 I think. And who cares if it take 3 days instead of 1 or two?

Xfinity is the same BS. Professional upsellers.

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Yeah, I canceled Prime and they try pushing Prime at you every which way and making it easy to accidentally get you onto it. I’m sure enough people had a problem since they’re being looked into for that.

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Actually, I just got a notification through Google play saying a subscription I just bought was about to expire. I go to check on it, it doesn’t even exist. But i used my credit card and it processed the transaction.

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There has been much discussion about the changes this year in how Wyze is administering the Free Trial subscriptions. I have yet to read positive feedback. This is because the previous model was a 14 day Free Trial that was loaded into the cam Firmware and would simply expire into nothingness when the 14 days were up.

However, when Wyze made the transition to the new Subscription Tracking Platform and new Store Checkout Platform, things changed.

Now, the new model is that the 30 day Trial Subscription is “Sold” to you at checkout. You will see it in your cart and it will be on your receipt.

It is a personal point of contention that Wyze does not have a popup notification informing you when purchasing a cam that they are adding this item to your cart without your consent nor do they pop up any notification with the terms of the trial that is being forced upon you at checkout. But, in their defense, they do allow you the option to remove the item from your cart prior to clicking “Add to Cart” and prior to checkout. But, the fact that it is defaulted to checked is just a bad faith upsell. And, the fine print that no one catches or reads does state that it auto renews. But, IMO, this does not in any way meet a “Full Disclosure” expectation. The way it works now, it should be called “First Month Free”.

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That brings us to the install. Even if you decline assigning the cam to the trial at install, the subscription has already been “purchased” and placed on your account services. It can sit there for a month, unassigned to a cam, and then start billing you even though you haven’t used it once.

Another issue arises when you buy the cam and have to wait for it to be shipped and delivered. Those days before you ever get the cam are ticking away at your 30 days.

And, what if you buy cams on sale and can’t install them for a month or two? You get billed after 30 days.

Adding to the insanity, if you put multiple cams in your cart with the defaulted “First Month Free” subscriptions, then decide to delete some cams in your cart, the corresponding subscriptions do not delete. You could end up checking out with a couple of cams but a whole handful of trial subscriptions. No bueno!

My suggestion to all: Review what is in your cart before you check out.

My suggestion to Wyze: Full Transparency will retain more customers.

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I just checked and Amazon photos doesn’t apply to me either.

I pay for extra storage, 1TB actually, so I should be good there too. I probably have 50,000+ family pictures and who knows videos stored there as a backup to Google photos. Also paid storage, I’m a sucker. :laughing:

Mine only renews in November, so I’ve got time.

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I agree, through Amazon purchases it might have been a 90 day trial attached to the device. Don’t remember.

I’ll pay more attention next time to that checked box and the verbiage associated with it.

The trial must run on even though I logged in and cancelled both. Even though they’re useless.

Each Pan V3 cam is now attached to seperate Cam Plus trials or appear to be, and 3 OGs are shown in the Cam Plus Unlimited that I actually purchased.

The OGs came from Wyze web page, but VIA prime. Figured I’d get them faster and free shipping. Did too. No trials.

With that Cam+U purchase, it’s obvious I don’t need a trial, but evidently not coded somewhere.

It’s just a bit confusing to a newb, but I catch on pretty fast. 7 months experience with the other outfit.

I hope my 2 V3 just jump on my actual Cam Plus Unlimited when those trials expire.

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Nice one!

Again, you’re a better man than me. I don’t think I’d be able to do that without getting paid. :wink:

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I think something similar has happened to me. Can you tell me how to find it and cancel it?

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If you are referring to a subscription you are being charged for, log into services.wyze.com.

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Thank you. I did check there and it doesn’t show connected to plus. Although the cameras are working as if on plus (Ie recording longer than 12 seconds, no 5 min cool down). Im concerned I can’t see the trial information and therefore can’t cancel it

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I bought some v3, 2-packs at Home Depot several months ago. They came with a 90 Cam Plus trial (see the upper right corner of the picture below). I went to wyze.com and canceled the trials before they expired.

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Here is more Wyze Forum Member discussion on this topic.

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You may want to contact Customer Support to be sure those cams are bound to the CPL and not an active trial. And, if there is an active trial, get it cancelled.

Depending on the purchase source and the way it activates, there is also a possiblity that trial subscriptions will show within your Subscriptions section of Google Play or Apple App Store. Do you have any subscriptions showing in the Account → Services area under the Cam Plus Header?

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No. Under that I have nothing

I have purchased via the global store which doesn’t have that pesky free trial thing in the cart. I’ll try to find via apple (never looked there balder) *edit nothing showing under subscriptions

I contacted customer support who have said “cannot seem to locate an active subscription initiated on the website”. I checked an apple subscriptions and there is nothing there and nothing is showing in the app under accounts / services / cam plus (the cameras are showing in cam plus lite).
They said “ it could be a free trial upon the setup of the camera. It will run for 14 days and will be terminated once exhausted.” which also kind of goes against other things I have seen where people say now trials auto renew/charge. But also there should be a way to cancel that - or at least see it.

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Thank you. I have read through this but it doesn’t help me besides telling me that it might be a trial that will auto renew/ charge when trial is over. But it doesn’t help in the fact I can’t see the trial anywhere to cancel it