Blog - Sneaky eMusic
Sneaky eMusic
I had signed up with eMusic.com (no-DRM music download service) a while ago during a promotion offering free music downloads with no obligation, and then canceled my account. The free registration had asked for my credit card details, but nothing had been billed.
Today I received an email from them saying the following along with a "REJOIN eMUSIC NOW!" link.
This is a special limited-time offer for former eMusic trial subscribers. Renew your eMusic subscription today and for a limited time get 50 free downloads!* [snip] See below for full terms.
Click here for an image of the full email.
I did feel some interest to maybe join back, but didn't remember how much a basic account was, and a price was not to be found in the email (not in the small print "full terms" at the bottom either). So I went on and clicked the "REJOIN eMUSIC NOW!" link...
To my surprise, doing so brought me to my reactivated logged in member page (it had previously been canceled in a way that I couldn't even login anymore), with an activated subscription. Furthermore, checking my credit card statement online confirmed that they billed me! I was never shown the price I was paying or a confirmation page in this process.
Quite shocking!
I don't know if this is legal practice or not, but it sure is sneaky and very disappointing.
I have emailed their billing department to ask them to give me my money back and close my account again, or that I'd ask my credit card company to contest the charge that I never acknowledged. I'm now waiting for a response.
Update (2007/2/25 10:30): eMusic promptly refunded me and canceled my account. Thanks!
Posted on February 25, 2007 at 00:47 | Tweet
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but no explanation? Still a very sneaky practice!
Posted by Peter Nacken on February 25, 2007 at 18:15
That is why I prefer to buy most of my stuff at Tokyo Recohan :-) There everything is always clear and I know what I pay for all the time.
Posted by Markus Kreisel on February 26, 2007 at 21:14
Thanks Markus!! :)
Well I think eMusic is good as it's DRM-free and all MP3, they're what the world needs now in terms of downloadable music, but their practice this time was a bit suspicious.
At least they took fast action to refund me.
Posted by Patrick on February 26, 2007 at 21:20
A few weeks ago I got DRM-ed file for free. Wow, <sarcasm>what a "fun" to get it running on my machine...</sarcasm> It needed Internet Explorer and MS Media Player. Good to hear that there are DRM-free offers. Nevertheless I stay with good old CDs (without copy protection if possible) even if I look very old fashioned with it.
Posted by Markus Kreisel on February 27, 2007 at 01:21
(I put back the sarcasm, but I had guessed your intonation even without it. :))
The worse for me is some recent DRM stuff that requires Windows Media Player 10... which only runs on XP (and Vista)!! Personally I'm still sticking to Win2K, the only MS OS that I can stand. (I haven't tried Vista but I don't give it much hope.)
Posted by Patrick on February 27, 2007 at 10:10
If I decide to buy some piece of music it (might) become a part of my life. I want to hear it whenever I like wherever I go - in the office, at home, in the car, in a hotel room on the beach or at some mountain top. If the license of the music limits my freedom of choice how to use it this is nothing I'm willing to pay for.
If I choose not to buy DRM-ed music this is my personal decision. And as long as I have this decision it is fine for me and others are free to go with DRM. But the music industry is trying to change the complete business from selling physical copies into some rights management. I keep my CD collection as a reserve for the days when the stream of physical copies will dry me out.
Vista: I'm also skeptical with that. After my skeptical view on DRM most of you will not wonder about that :-)
But I was always the first to install new Windows Version since V3, Windows for Workgroups, 95, NT, W2K, XP and W3K. But with Vista I don't see a need to work on it yet. I installed on some machine to test the software I'm distributing. There I found that it is wise to wait with the installation on my personal machine. With Vista I pass the test ride job for drivers you have as an early bird to others. Should somebody else fight with incomplete hardware support. With the older Windows' there was always a reason for me to switch early even if not all drivers had been there - this time I don't see anything pushing me to Vista.
Posted by Markus Kreisel on February 27, 2007 at 18:01
How long did it take for you to get a response and have them cancel/refund? The same thing happened to me unfortunately and I'm still waiting to hear back from them.
Posted by Jyl on July 6, 2007 at 02:17
They got back to me pretty quickly, about 10 hours. I had already written about it on my blog though, so perhaps it made them hurry a bit.
Do they still NOT have a confirmation page before charging your credit card?
Posted by Patrick on July 6, 2007 at 09:27