Real Bad is an article detailing the experience of David Lidsky, a writer for Fortune, trying to listen to his favorite ball team play baseball over the web.
When I look at David’s experience from a marketing sense, I can only imagine the slimy bastards at Real thinking ‘heh… this guy actually downloaded the software, paid for the service, and now has to cancel.’
I don’t se a company like Real being good to the consumer, or frankly good for the consumer. Reading through to the end of the article you’ll find this:
I can hardly wait to cancel now. I find the option in my account settings.
Click on cancel, though, and after you are forced to furnish a reason, you get a page that says, “We are sorry you want to cancel. Please call us at 1-888-768-3248 to cancel your subscription.” Why go through the charade of making me think I am getting out, only to pull away the football when I am ready to punt? This should be real easy–sign up online, cancel online. Real? Nope. Phony as they come.
FYI, Quicktime is completely free, and so are the channels.
I cannot believe that I signed up to two regular monthly payments of about $5 and $6 for services that I neither wanted or have used. I thought that I paid a one off payment of about $39 for a download to enable me to access sites that use only Real Player. I thought that I had canceled after I detected the second payment but I see that they are still going at it. I`ll cancel my credit card if necessary. They are too tricky for me!