Is it possible to get a refund for a Dropbox for Business purchase?

[Eugene R.5]

Here's the full story.

In January 2105, I worked for a company and signed up for DropBox for bussiness account using my work email address. In March 2015, I left the company and lost access to that email address. I personally lost access to that service in March 2015.

This January, 5 days after my personal credit was charged $850, I contacted DropBox and asked for a refund over the phone. The person on the other line said there's no way for him to transfer me to the billing department and said that I can only submit a ticket via email.

I submitted a ticket via email and got a response that my concern was escalated. A day later, I was notified that I'm not eligible for any refund. I responded again asking to look into it again and asking for the phone number to call to reach the billing department.

I got the following response:

"I am currently the highest level of support and am more than willing to assist you with your concerns.

This issue has already been escalated and no exception could be made in this case. I do apologize for the inconvenience.

At this point, I would suggest disputing the charge with your bank/credit card company."

There was no easy way for me to remove my credit card information from that account. There was no way for DropBox to notify me about the fact that my card will soon be charged because I lost access to that email account.

Dear DropBox, is this really how you do business? Do you think it's fair to do this? 

Please understand, it was impossible for me to prevent this charge and cancel the service on time. At this time, I'm ready to go public about this issue and notify major tech news website about how you treat customers.

thank you

[Rich]

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sjsiegel001 wrote:

It certianly wasn't made clear to me that my account would be auto-upgraded at the end of the the trial period and charged for an entire year instantly (the default setting).

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Actually, it was made clear.

Step two provides the option of yearly or monthly billing. You must choose one before continuing. Note that 5 users, the minimum, is already entered.

Billing options

If you try to enter fewer users, you're told that the minimum is 5.

And on step three, you're told that you'll be charged if you do not cancel in time. Note that the January 6th date in the screenshot below is based on the date that I originally took the screenshot.

Autorenew notice

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There's no reason why anybody would pay a year up front without any incentives, if you want to make the argument that dropbox doesn't use deception as a tactic to snare customers then maybe you can explain why that's even a setting much less the default.

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Cost? Five users x $12.50/user x 12 months = $750 when paid yearly. Five users x $15/month x 12 months = $900 when paid monthly. $150 seems like a pretty big incentive to me.

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By the way, it's one thing to stick customers with surprise bills, it's another to give them the runaround when they're unsatisfied by having a phony ticketing system and a phony toll free support number that send only send automated messages refusing pro-rated refunds.

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Neither system is phony. The phone number for business support is located in your admin console under Help (only available to Business customers). It's listed along side your PIN, which is required when contacting support in this way. Phone support is not provided on any other number. As for the ticketing system, it provides options for opening a ticket throughout the system. They're usually marked as "Get help with other issue" and they take you to a ticket form instead of a help article.

[Lee A.5]

dropbox is known for automatically charging you 750usd and then sayings "oops, u did not read our fine print tocs, sorry u got to pay, have a nice day and we hope to do business with you again, kaching :3"

Pay via paypal, and remove your card immediately from paypal is the safest method. you will never see any charge once your card is gone 

[sarahsandman]

This just happened to me. Now we are just stuck with a $750 charge and we didn't want it after the trial. Not to mention they didn't send any email notificaiton. This is totally unprofessional. Customer Service will not give me the number to a manager or speak to anyone higher up. What a scam. Any advice?

[Mark]

Sadly, you accepted the T&C's, you agreed to the charge at the end of the trial, you entered your card details willingly. Not a scam.

The advice is to cancel future payments at www.dropbox.com/downgrade

[tykuscer]

Hi , my name is geraldine . can you tell me how you got refund as im being charged over700 euro for somethig i dont want or need ! im very upset over this an cannot afford it , im generally ot on me computer so did not realise till it was too late as i work as a chef long hours

kind regards
Geraldine

[Rich]

The only thing that you can do to request a refund is contact Support. Only they will be able to determine if you're entitled to a refund or not.

Open your ticket here: https://bit.ly/cm-support
Track your ticket here: https://dropbox.zendesk.com

Replies take approximately 1 - 3 business days with Plus users getting priority (longer for Basic users).

In most cases where the trial expires and automatically renews, there is no entitlement to a refund. The terms of the trial are spelled out clearly ahead of time, and you need to select the payment options and agree to the terms in order to continue with the order.

[cheyenne]

hi there. please help me how to get a refund. please

[Rich]

As stated in the reply directly above yours, you have to contact Support directly. Only they will know if you're entitled to a refund. Per Dropbox's terms, refunds are only available when legally required. Use the links above to open a ticket.

[Minato]

Hey @sjsiegel001, @cheyenne and @tykuscer,

The only thing I can add here is that after you create your tickets from our Support page,

let us know of their number(s) so we can find them and investigate as soon as possible.

(The ticket number will be visible on the confirmation email you'll receive after you create the ticket.)

Also, note that it will be easier and faster for us, if the tickets are created from the email of the upgraded account,

as we aren't able to investigate other accounts than the one we're contacted from, for security reasons.

Thank you!

[sjsiegel001]

I was never prompted with the UI you've screenshotted. The support phone number is an automated response that hangs up on you after playing.

Glad to see dropbox was brought to justice with legal action for their criminal behavior and dropped from BBB accreditation. Apparently there's a site dropboxrestitution.com for future customers who fall victim to this pit trap.