Beware Surfshark renewal

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1

I just learned a hard lesson regarding renewal of Surfshark. If you sign up for a NEW two year account (at the lowest price they advertise), Surfshark will turn on auto-renew of your account, through Paypal in my case. This will auto-renew your account, at a price and length that Surfshark dictates at the time of renewal.

Read the fine print VERY closely. In my case Surfshark auto-renewed my account for the same price ($59.76), BUT ONLY for one year. In addition I attempted to manually renew my subscription two days before auto-renew occurred (with Paypal) in order to get a 2 year renewal at the highly discounted price of $69.76 ($10 more than my original pricing from 2 years ago). Surfshark somehow threw out this payment and allowed the auto-renew payment to proceed. Upon complaining to Surfshark I got a major runaround. I can post the full chat sequence if desired.

Long story short, they won’t honor my attempt to manually auto renew with a two year plan for $69.76. This irked me to no end, so much so I was planning to cancel my subscription and request the “money back guarantee”, followed by starting a whole new subscription in order to get the lowest price possible. Here comes the fine print again. “money back guarantee” only applies to NEW accounts within a 30 day period, NOT account renewals. Here’s some more details. If you want to stop auto-renewal you have to request it from customer service and they’ll send you a link to do so - there is no other way to do so. Beware though, turning off auto-renewal will cancel your Surfshark account at the end of your current subscription - no ther way around this either. So why not just turn off auto-renewal a few days before your subscription is supposed to auto-renew, let your account expire, then go and restart a whole new subscription? Well, at present it appears you can in fact do this, but Surfshark will only allow this form of account recreation to occur two times. After that, apparently they will refuse your request, apparently for evermore.

In the long run I’m stuck with a one year auto renew at $59.76. But you can bet I’ll be turning off auto-renew a week beforehand next year (notification created in my calendar) then starting a whole new subscription, that is if Surfshark doesn’t change their current subscription policies - I won’t hold my breath on that though. Or I may even simply go elsewhere for my VPN service depending on the VPN offerings climate at that time.

Long story short, learn from my painful experience to read the fine print (as difficult as they make it) and make informed choices. BTW, I went my Paypal account and turned off Surfshark’s ability to auto bill my account in the future.

Darn shame that Surfshark has to dilly-dally around with their subscription service in this misleading way in order to extract more cash from their subscribers than we realize with a short look. Shame on you, Surfshark.

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That’s my I alert my calendar to go on to my account and cancel my payment option. Just to let you know that most vpns do the same thing well What i do is just change my email and click on the link that Troy posts this way you can get the renewal at 2 year they aren’t offering the 2months now but I’ve seen it go to 3monthd the only thing I like about ipvanish is they have a live Representatives but nothing has compared to surf shocks performance I feel for you but you can write them an email simply saying that you want to discuss an alternative since you are a valuable customer. Good luck and just a lesson to be learned

4

Just go to chat, type turn off auto renewal, etc and a bot will send you a simple link to turn off auto renewal. FYI for the future.

5

The cable companies are like that also . They will suck you in for a great price then suck the $$$ out of you when renewal time comes .

6

After you buy from SS ALWAYS go back into your account and remove your CC info and turn off auto renew!

Also, do the same with PP! You can always just as easily reactivate a CC using PP.

With no active CC they can whistle Dixie until the cows come home, but they won’t be able to charge your card!

7

agree with everyone here. I have auto-renewal off but my main reason is I like to catch the seasonal deals and discounts like Troypoint offers and when the time is right I buy and they just add it to my subscription. never pay the “list” price.

8

I am with IPVanish and I pay them with a pre-paid credit card, the amount on the card is not enough to pay for the next year renewal, so If I am pleased with their service, which I am, I just get another pre-paid credit card and use it to renew, also I use the extra amount on the card to buy other things on line then I don’t have to use my regular credit card.

9

I am in the middle of a 2 year plan that ends October of 2024 . I don’t see anything in my account that says “Auto renew”. Hope they don’t charge me without my authorization

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PiratePete, sorry, off topic but I think that I recall someone asking about you in another thread. They said that they hadn’t seen you around in awhile.

I will now return you to the regular programming. Thank you for the heads up. I recall texting with IPV customer support back when my last renewal was due as I wanted to get the Troypoint discount. They were very accommodating.

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Current Info on Cancelling Surfshark recurring payment

12

I had the same thing a few years ago with Sirius XM. I Had to call them and tell them I never agreed to an auto renewal and ended up saying I didn’t want their service anymore so they heavily discounted a new cost. I now negotiate with them every year when they quote a new price for the coming year. Going on year 5 so I’ll see what happens this year.

I also had the same problem recently with a Master Class subscription they auto renewed on me for double the yearly cost. After I warned them that between auto renewal being illegal, not being allowed to remove my CC from their site and their questionable business practices I received a full refund.

13

Ipvanish used to (and they may still) allow renewals (also as auto-renew) to grandfather the rate at which you first signed up for. So if you subbed at a great 2 year discount rate, then your renew would be for the same original cost and year term.

I’ve done this a couple times…up until their performance went to crap for me a year ago and moved over to shark. I knew going in that surfshark wasn’t going to offer a similar grandfathered perk - too bad.

I considered killing off my sub later in the year when it expires and will certainly request my cancelation before my autorenew intervenes - but…now, performance is stable and much faster (likely server improvements and software optimization). Even at $60 a year, it’s very competitive. Proton VPN is more expensive than that.

Cancel and new sub at promo pricing would be the way to go.

14

Once again I go the chat route, in & out in 10min. with a $5/month deal and to boot I don’t have to try and decipher what the heck he/she is saying over the phone.

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Sorry I haven’t been on much. Once in a while I pop in and read . Just been dealing with my degenerative disc disease and watching NFL games . My 49ers are in the Superbowl but I’m afraid it’s going to be fixed for Taylor Swift to win :roll_eyes: apparently she boosted NFL sales by more than 300 mill with wives and daughters suddenly catching interest in football. … KC chiefs primarily :roll_eyes: then I guess I’ll have a out a month until MLB spring training begins . Sorry I haven’t been on much . None the less im still alive and kicking :cowboy_hat_face:

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Please, no apologies needed, my friend. We all just care about the good folks on this BB.

My empathy and understanding about back issues. My partner of 29 years has AS (Ankylosing Spondiytis). It’s so sad to see a powerful woman, as her, deal with the deterioration. So my thoughts are with you. Please take care of yourself.

Now, Niners? Hmm! I loved the Niners in the Montana years but, I was born and raise a significant portion of my life in KC MO. So… :grinning:

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I had got in at IPV for 2year at $100, so $50 a year with auto renewal. Years ago they tried to jip me, but i caught it, got with customer service and proved with emails of the agreement, and they had no problems with putting me back where i was at with my payments to them. I have had no further issues and i seem to have decent service with them. That’s the only reason why i didn’t jump ship to SS, because i didn’t want chance with something new, if mine has been working fine for me. I hope everything works out for you all in your service that you go with!

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Thank you for your support. Hope your lady is not in too much pain . We got 6 days until Superbowl Sunday. Everyone is asking me if I’m going to the game because I live in Vegas. The cheapest seat is $3000 so hell no. My pack wouldn’t be able to handle walking from my car to my seat , or standing on line or sitting in those hard chairs so my answer is No No No :joy: it’s nice to see the whole strip decorated in superbowl 58 illuminated logo screens I can say that . Great stadium to host it for sure. Everyone place your bets :joy:

19

Be careful. There’s some shady providers out there. I once had a problem with a company that wouldn’t cancel my subscription. I ended up having to report my credit card lost so that they could t bill me anymore

20

This is the same scam IPVanish was doing to its customers and one of the reasons I stopped using it. I just switched over to Surfshark with their two-year plan and now I guess they’re doing the same thing!

21

That’s not how it worked for me recently - the bot will take you to an immediate “Cancel Account” option (with no pro-rated refund). I had to chat with their live person to get to the “turn off Auto Renewal” link.
It’s a pity they resort to such underhanded methods to do business but I guess it’s a case of Welcome to the “Brave New World”!