Are Weebly, Amazon and Other Tech Companies Ripping Us Off?

Are Weebly, Amazon and Other Tech Companies Ripping Us Off?
Tips, upsells, unauthorized charges and renewals. More than just annoying and time consuming. Shady math can portend economic storms and plunging stock market prices. 

Tips
I can understand, tipping my hairdresser, who just spent two hours on highlights, or my housekeeper, who did the same on cleaning. However, do we have to tip someone who puts a scone in a box?

Norms around tips are changing. However, that has a lot more to do with underpaid staff than interstellar service. There are a lot of guides out there about what might be an appropriate way to tip in the 21st Century. This article is more about what the tips say about what the company and our economy at large. 

Upsells
Does the upsell, which everyone is trained to do, reveal smart business practices or underlying economic weakness? Are companies actually ripping us off by forcing us into new, more expensive subscriptions?

Are Weebly, Amazon and Other Tech Companies Ripping Us Off?
I’ve recently come across a few very troubling incidents personally. After perusing Reddit and asking around, it seems that these weren’t isolated bad luck on my part.

Amazon
Amazon withdrew money from my personal checking account without permission, without notifying me, charging me hundreds of dollars over a few years. The company was double-billing me for my Amazon prime account. They gave me no credible explanation about why they did this, though they did promptly refund the charges, once I discovered them and complained.

When I went to my bank to stop Amazon‘s ability to withdraw money from my checking account ever again, the bank representative who assisted me told me he gets multiple complaints every day about Amazon. I was appalled to learn from the bank that Amazon was indeed withdrawing directly from my checking account, even though they told me that they were using a debit card (which wasn’t even in my card history). When I asked for the card number or even the last four digits to investigate things, Amazon refused to give me that information. Amazon had my bank information because they are supposed to deposit my earnings from book sales. It took multiple calls with multiple customer service representatives before I finally got through to a supervisor. Once I did, the reimbursements happened immediately – with credits going out to multiple credit cards (which hadn’t even been charged on). I wasn’t going to argue that point. However, finding support on Amazon is like traversing a medieval maze, and how many people would make it through six daft gatekeepers to finally arrive in the hands of someone who can actually do something?

If you’ve experienced unauthorized charges on Amazon or had a similar experience, please share and tag me on Instagram.com/NatalieWynnePace, and email [email protected].

Weebly
A few days ago, I received an email from Square (Block Inc.) that my Weebly website renewal was going to be automatically transferred to the most expensive business account, tripling my annual cost. I underscore that this was going to be done automatically, unless I took action first to prevent it from happening. I can only wonder how many people might’ve missed that email and then had to fight with the company afterwards!

What was even more distressing was that the email indicated that my current features were only going to be available at this much higher price. However, when I looked at the actual plans themselves, there was an option that featured the exact things that I use for the exact same price. I got on a chat with a Weebly customer service representative. It took about 45 minutes to resolve the matter and renew – and prevent the highway robbery that was rolling down the bend if I didn’t.

When I asked the customer service representative why I had received an email saying that Weebly was going to almost triple my price automatically without my authorization, he said that they always want to offer the best plan. In other words, they’re taught to upsell… except in this case, it wasn’t an upsell. I wasn’t being offered anything. It was going to happen automatically, without my authorization.

If you’ve experienced unauthorized charges on Weebly or had a similar unpleasant experience with another company, please share and tag me on Instagram.com/NatalieWynnePace, and email [email protected].

Cooking the Books
This kind of deceptive business practice is rather unusual, except in certain periods of time – when a company is struggling to look good for their quarterly earnings reports. Weakening economic conditions create an environment when some executives aggressively, brazenly, step over the line of business ethics. A confluence of shady math often precedes a pretty steep recession, which brings me to another experience I had before the Dot Com Recession, when Global Crossing, Worldcom, Lucent and a slew of other telecommunications companies failed.

Back in 2001, I was working as the vice president of operations for a long-distance telephone company. The company was buying wholesale from one of the major, publicly-traded telecom companies. One day, I overheard a very heated conversation between the boss of our company and his wholesale representative. Our head honcho was screaming into the phone: “You’re cooking the books!” 

What was happening? The younger generation might not remember a time when calls weren’t free. However, back in 2000, long-distance rates dropped from $.25 a minute or higher to under 10 cents a minute. We were purchasing wholesale for about four cents a minute, and then selling to our customers for under $.10 a minute. The telecommunications industry, largely because of Skype and VOIP disruption, was experiencing a troubling contraction in pricing. A lot of telecom companies were really in trouble – yet they were still the hottest stocks on Wall Street, (with analyst buy recommendations). Our provider was charging us at the old wholesale rates, which were four times the contracted rate. For months they had never changed the price to what was contracted, or credited the invoice to reflect the proper amount due. The rep just kept telling us that everything was getting done. The company was just backlogged. Don’t worry.

Thanks to that knowledge, when I met with a financial advisor who was trying to convince me to invest in telecom stocks back in August 2000, I declined. That decision to avoid the overpriced marketplace, where sadly there were a lot of companies cooking the books, led me to the career I have today of adding a splash of green to Wall Street, and transforming lives on Main Street. If I had let the CFP do what he wanted to do with my money, something many other Main Street investors were doing, I would have ridden the Wall Street rollercoaster down to losses of -78% or more. (Many of the telecoms went completely out of business.)

Shady Math Can Get Past the Auditors
The ethically challenged actions I’ve outlined above might make it past the auditors of the earnings reports. Amazon’s auditors have no idea that the company just credited me hundreds of dollars in unauthorized double billing or that Weebly’s little revenue bump trick didn’t work. They won’t catch either tactic until an eyesore of refunds has to be declared on the balance sheet.

Uber/Lyft
I didn’t experience any grift from Uber and Lyft. However, I’m including these companies because there were a great deal of cash-negative “New Economy” companies that crashed and burned in the Dot Com Recession. Uber, Lyft and other ride-share, food delivery and micro mobility companies are cash-burn companies that have struggled for years to become profitable. Some have been taken private (GrubHub). Others are in bankruptcy (Bird). Both Uber and Lyft have been cash negative since inception (2009), with the only exception being 2018, when Uber managed to turn a profit of $997 million.

Uber's flying taxi never took off. It was sold to Joby.

Customers always experience the fallout of a failing or struggling company before the final blow. Companies like Bird can continue operating during their debt restructuring. However, the stock almost always goes to zero. So, with Uber trading at an all-time high, even though the company lost another $9 billion last year, now might be a good time to factor in your customer experience into your trading due diligence. Trying to hail a rideshare can be pretty challenging these days. If you ask your rideshare driver how they like their company, you might get an earful of complaints that won’t end until you arrive at your destination. Each time I try using the app, I might have to wait 10-15 minutes in the hopes of finding a driver near me, only to be advised that there isn’t anyone in my area (though the map of drivers tells a different story). This has become such a problem that I’ve taken to sleeping in airport hotels to avoid the worry.

One study by MIT in 2018 claimed that rideshare drivers make less than $4/hour, once you factor in their costs. Can tips bring drivers above the poverty line? Isn’t that why we’re expected to tip everyone these days in the U.S.? (This is not the case in other countries. U.K. rideshare drivers must receive minimum wage, holiday pay and a pension.)

Ride-share companies aren’t getting rich on their business model. The last time we had a spate of cash negative speculative stocks and a flashy story (“The New Economy”) about why that was okay, Dot Com stocks crashed by -78% and took 15 years to crawl back to even. If you’d like an Uber Stock Report Card, email [email protected].

Banks. Term Loans for Their Toxic Bonds Ends on March 11, 2024.
I’m going to address why the bank failures were largely curtailed last Spring, and why many finance companies will be tested this year in an upcoming blog. In the meantime, we continue to underweight financials in our Investor Educational Retreats and sample pie charts.

Bottom Line

I am giving you specific examples of a very personal nature because if you are experiencing things of this kind:

·      We want to warn one another and protect our friends and other consumers
·      We want to protect our investments and retirement plans

When questionable actions of this nature become rampant, companies are trying to keep their earnings reports looking strong, so their stock prices remain high. They cannot do that forever. At some point, their customers revolt, the class action lawyers have a field day, the auditors dig deeper, the rating agencies review their credit, the analyst recommendations do an about-face and the gap-down in share prices can happen before we can protect ourselves.
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It’s always a better plan to fix the roof while the sun is still shining. Stocks keep hitting new highs. A properly diversified plan with regular rebalancing allows us to participate in the profits, while protecting ourselves from the shenanigans and inevitable fallout.

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Natalie Wynne Pace is an Advocate for Sustainability, Financial Literacy & Women's Empowerment. Natalie is the bestselling author of The Power of 8 Billion: It's Up to Us and is the co-creator of the Earth Gratitude Project. She has been ranked as a No. 1 stock picker, above over 835 A-list pundits, by an independent tracking agency (TipsTraders). Her book The ABCs of Money remained at or near the #1 Investing Basics e-book on Amazon for over 3 years (in its vertical), with over 120,000 downloads and a mean 5-star ranking. The 5th edition of The ABCs of Money and the 2nd edition of Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is are the most recent releases of these books. Follow her on Instagram. 
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Natalie Pace's easy as a pie chart nest egg strategies earned gains in the last two recessions and have outperformed the bull markets in between. That is why her Investor Educational Retreats, books and private coaching are enthusiastically recommended by Nobel Prize winning economist Gary S. Becker, TD AMERITRADE chairman Joe Moglia, Kay Koplovitz and many Main Street investors who have transformed their lives using her Thrive Budget and investing strategies. Click to view a video testimonial from Nilo Bolden.​

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Important Disclaimers
Please note: Natalie Pace does not act or operate like a broker. She reports on financial news, and is one of the most trusted sources of financial literacy, education and forensic analysis in the world. Natalie Pace educates and informs individual investors to give investors a competitive edge in their personal decision-making. Any publicly traded companies or funds mentioned by Natalie Pace are not intended to be buy or sell recommendations.

ALWAYS do your research and consult an experienced, reputable financial professional before buying or selling any security, and consider your long-term goals and strategies. Investors should NOT be all in on any asset class or individual stocks. Your retirement plan should reflect a diversified strategy, which has been designed with the assistance of a financial professional who is familiar with your goals, risk tolerance, tax needs and more. The "trading" portion of your portfolio should be a very small part of your investment strategy, and the amount of money you invest into individual companies should never be greater than your experience, wisdom, knowledge and patience.  

Information has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. However, NataliePace.com does not warrant its completeness or accuracy. Opinions constitute our judgment as of the date of this publication and are subject to change without notice. This material is not intended as an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any financial instrument. Securities, financial instruments or strategies mentioned herein may not be suitable for all investors.