Monday, March 5, 2012

UPDATE 3/6/12: So, You're Thinking About Canceling Your Carbonite Account?


Like many subscribers to Carbonite on-line backup service, I thought about canceling my account after they dropped The Rush Limbaugh Show as a client.  I decided to hold off before taking any action until after I heard what Rush had to say today on his radio show.  I also wanted to see if Carbonite would back down and decide to rescind their decision to drop Rush after cooling down a little from the crap flying around over the weekend.  After all, they've been his sponsor for a long time and have made a lot of money from his listeners.  I was willing to stay with Carbonite if they did change their mind, at least for the rest of my subscription period which expires in January 2013.

When it became obvious that Carbonite's CEO wasn't going to change his mind, I decided to check the Terms of Service  of my account.  Right there in black and white it states, "Carbonite is not obligated to refund subscription charges already paid".  I also found this.  OK, I've had Carbonite for several years, so if I read that when I signed up (or not), I just don't remember.  I've been happy with the service, so canceling it wasn't in my plan.

I was still a little confused by the one-liner about refunds, so I did some on-line research and found people complaining about not being able to get a prorated refund (one example).  Another guy had to resort to the Better Business Bureau in order to get a refund after a legitimate problem with Carbonite's service.  This led me to make a phone call to the company myself to verify their policy.

After remaining on the line for about 10 minutes waiting for a person to answer (I wonder if they're busy with cancelation calls), the representative verified that refunds are not given after 60 days of purchase.  When I questioned him if he could tell me of any circumstances when a prorated refund would be given, he said he could not and reiterated the 60 day policy.  No use arguing with the messenger, so I thanked him and hung up.

Bottom line...if any of you are planning on canceling your Carbonite subscription, don't take my word for it.   Call yourselves and ask the questionEven if we legally can't get a prorated refund, Carbonite will know that their customers are thinking about canceling the service.

Take Note:
The other thing I want to pass along is that Carbonite offers Automatic Renewal.  If your account is set up for Automatic Renewal and you plan on canceling when your subscription expires, make sure you cancel the Automatic Renewal now and mark your calendar to hire another service.  It will be easy to forget about this and before you know it, you'll be a Carbonite customer for another year (unless you catch it in the 60 day window).

I am disappointed.  I would like to have the satisfaction of canceling my account now to support Rush, but I can't justify letting them have my money for almost a whole year for doing nothing (remember, my account expires in January 2013).  It's like cutting my nose off to spite my face.  They would have my money, and I have (as Rush would say)  Zilch, Zero, Nada.

Any recommendations for online backup services for when I'm ready to change companies?

UPDATE 3/6/12:

 PRICELESS!

Via:  The DC

Investors flee Carbonite after Limbaugh announcement

 


22 comments:

  1. I'm seeing a lot of recommendations for MOZY.com.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, Deekaman. Mozy is one of Hannity's sponsors. I'll put it on my list of companies to check out.

      Delete
    2. We use Mozy. My husband is an IT guy. Good luck!

      Delete
  2. I haven't used them, but this whole mess makes me want to sign up, just so I can turn around and cancel and then demand a refund.

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    1. Hi innominatus:

      If you do, just make sure you don't miss that 60 day deadline.

      Delete
  3. TCL, Agree with your analysis.

    The only other one I've heard of is Mosey(sp?), but with "The Cloud" being such a profit generator, I sure wouldn't be surprised to find all sorts of companies offering such as service a year from now.

    You can't beat off-site backup for the best option in backup. But, personally, I have 2 external drives I've paid less than 100 ea for and Acronis Image Backup software that was around 50 bucks, that resides on my system and will last as long as I keep Win 7 on it, which is going to be a while, since Win 8 actually detracts from the desktop functionality quite a bit (no Start button, no Taskbar)

    Anyway, one of the externals is unplugged while the other one serves as backup and I toggle them weekly. One click on a taskbar icon when it's part my bedtime, and the image backup is done. Image backup restores virtually everything - it's a mirror image of your disk(s). I'm safe from a lightning strike or similar, but not from fire of theft. I can live with that risk level.

    So, fwiw. Anyone interested in a similar setup, I'm happy to answer questions.

    And on the theme of your post, I have not eaten any food from a YUM foods brand since they fired the kid pizza delivery driver who had the CCW AND saved his own life form some vermin who were going to rob and kill him for the pizza money he had in his pocket on a setup pizza delivery. That would mainly be Pizza Hut, KFC and some others. That's been years now, and they haven't gotten a dime, and I actually like Pizza hut when I'm interested in that kind of food. But Screw em.

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    1. Hi Kid:
      We have an external hard drive, too. We thought the on-line backup would be a good idea in case of theft or fire. I'm a little paranoid about losing our photos since everything is saved on the laptop. I even make copies on CD & DVD. You sound like you're pretty computer savvy and have a good system set up for your backups.

      I don't blame you for taking your business elsewhere after that incident with the pizza guy. But just think how healthy you are now that you decided not to eat all of that fast food, ha, ha.

      Delete
    2. Yep, Can't beat off-site. And you're right on the fast food. Have you heard the story of the guy who volunteered to eat all meals at McDonalds for 6 months or something? Health problems galore developed... FWIW, CD and DVD discs for consumer burning use an organic medium and don't last forever. Couple years maybe if you keep them in a dark place. The factory discs are 'stamped' and Will last 1,000 years. Just a point of interest I picked up along the way (if you hadn't heard) so I don't put a whole lot of effort into CD/DVD backup, and any discs that I create for recovery like the bootable Acronis recovery disc, I remake every year just in case.

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    3. I haven't heard that story about the guy eating all of the fast food, but I'm not surprised if he has health problems now. I very rarely eat at a fast food restaurants. If I do, it's grilled chicken or something less fattening than the burgers.

      I guess it's a good thing I have the external hard drive and the off site backups. I keep the cds & dvds in zip up book-like albums with pockets, so they are pretty well protected. A lot of them are from several years ago when I didn't have the laptop. I guess it would be smart to start transferring the photos from the CDs that aren't on the laptop onto my external hard drive. I'll probably need to get another one soon. Thanks for the info...I have a big job ahead of me.

      Delete
    4. Yea, I'd get them back on hard disk based on what I know from the schmart guys. Pictures aren't real critical. If lose a pixel here or there you may not even notice, but data disks are very critical. You lost one bit which is 1/8th of a character, your program probably won't work, or your data file could be corrupted. Anyway, it's nothing to get stressed over but good to know and work it into your schedule over time I'd say.

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    5. Well, I'll say this, the CD's I burn for the car player seem to last about 2 years before they start degrading. They are sometimes int he sun and certainly in hot cold environments, but the sun is probably the biggest thing.

      Delete
  4. The only one besides Carbonite that I've heard of is Mozy, TCL. I don't subscribe to either but if I had a subscription to Carbonite that was within the 60 day period I'd be dropping them in a jiffy.

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  5. Offsite online backup Carbonite dropped the Rush Limbaugh show. Bad decision, IMHO, though no Limbaugh fan would deny them that option. But, as it turns out, Carbonite is a substandard product compared to the competition.

    Switch to MemoPal. I compared it with Carbonite (BEFORE the flap), and the choice was clear. MemoPal is 49 Euros a year for 200 gigs total backup.

    Many computers can use the single MemoPal license for backup -- unlike Carbonite, which is limited to one computer.

    MemoPal offers 3 gigs for free -- unlike Carbonite.

    MemoPal does incremental backups, easy retrieval and offers other excellent features.

    MemoPal is a snap to download and install.

    There's currently a discount code BACKUPSR that takes 15% off the price.

    Here's MemoPal's (biased but accurate) comparison of its product with Carbonite.
    http://www.memopal.com/en/why-memopal-is-different-from-carbonite.aspx

    Of course, from there you can check it out in detail, and order. And if unsure, try it out with the free 3 gigs. I've used it for over a year with flawless performance in every respect.

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    Replies
    1. Richard:
      Thanks for the information. I'll check it out. Thanks, too, for stopping by TCL. Hope you'll be back again.

      Delete
  6. I tried to cancel today via chat:

    Ashley S. - Lewiston, ME: Hi, my name is Ashley S. - Lewiston, ME. How may I help you?

    Ashley S. - Lewiston, ME: I see you would like to cancel, may I ask why today?

    FE: 3 reasons

    FE: 1. I do not like the bandwidth it takes on my internet connection. I do have it set to low priority

    FE: 2. When I had to restore, it was not very helpful restoring Outlook files

    FE: 3. The Rush Limbaugh decision is the last straw.

    Ashley S. - Lewiston, ME: One moment while I look into the account

    Ashley S. - Lewiston, ME: Thank you for your input. I can continue with the request to cancel your account, however we would not be able to award a refund of your money at this time. Would you like to continue with the cancellation?

    FE: So, your policy is that you can keep my money even though I no longer want your service. That will guarantee I will never be your customer again. I joined Carbonite because of the commercial on Rush.

    FE: If I will not get a refund, then I will have to contact the BBB and post my complaints on the Web. Perhaps I can get some domain name like CarboniteDoesNotRefund.com or CarbonitePolicyIsTheft.com

    Ashley S. - Lewiston, ME: We understand that your opinions are important to you but at this time we are unable to offer a refund.

    Ashley S. - Lewiston, ME: If you would like to e-mail our legal department at legal@carbonite.com

    FE: No, just because it is in your policy for theft, does not make it right. I still want to cancel.

    Ashley S. - Lewiston, ME: We state our policy in our terms of service. If you could verify a few pieces of information on the account with me I can assist you with canceling.

    Ashley S. - Lewiston, ME: 1.Last 4 digits of credit card on file 2. Name on card 3. Billing address

    FE: What is the point, if I do not get my money back. I have already canceled the autorenewal.

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    Replies
    1. Good question. Why do they need your credit card info if they aren't going to credit your account?

      Delete
  7. I am underwhelmed at your stand on principle. I've wasted more money on ebay. Call me cancelled!

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    1. "...Call me cancelled!"

      OK, "you're canceled".
      I wasn't trying to impress anybody, so you being "underwhelmed" doesn't make any difference to me. I don't think canceling my account and letting Carbonite keep almost the entire year's subscription price for doing nothing makes any difference to them...they win. They have my money and I have nothing.
      I'm glad you can afford to waste your money on E-bay (or by giving it to Carbonite as a gift for dropping Rush), but I don't have that luxury. They will never get my business again, and believe me, I had no plans to drop them.

      Delete
  8. When a company makes choices based on their political views they are sometimes forced to live with them. They should have taken Rush's ratings into account.

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    1. Odie:
      You're right. Today Rush said that a few of the companies that dropped him are asking to come back, one is practically begging. He wouldn't say who they were, but he also said that there will be 3 new sponsors coming on board in the next couple of weeks. He also explained that the media is not telling the truth about how many sponsors dropped him and explained how all of that works. I am going to post his transcript on FB talking about it. The media is just trying to make it look as bad as possible for Rush because they want to get him off of the air. I think they are going to be very disappointed.

      Delete
    2. Being in La La Land, I know what the stars are doing today, but "real" news is tough to find. You would think La La County offices and banks would have Rush on .... yeah right. I'll be looking at your FB piece.

      Delete
  9. I have not been happy with carbonite. pop ups every day-what happened to unattended backups? I went into my computer two days after subscription ran out and my pictures and music are gone. IS this a co-incidence, I don't think so. The files were there two or three days before subscription ran out.All of them! Doc are there. Carbonite wants a one year subscription. Don't trust this company with your files.

    ReplyDelete

Respectful comments are always welcomed and appreciated. Trolls will not be tolerated.