We recently found out we had been paying a monthly bill for more than a year for something we didn't even want. If we hadn't canceled a credit card, we wouldn't have noticed.
This perpetual billing stems from giving out your credit card number for a free trial. "You can cancel at any time," the pitch always says, and of course you can -- but people often forget. It's called a business plan, but it's more like a business scam. For instance we recently got a pitch from Netflix for a free week of their movies and shows. Now, we have nothing against Netflix and in fact were once customers, but to get the free week we had to give them credit card info. What are the chances that after the week is up we'll forget to cancel the service? For us, pretty good. In fact, we would guess that the percentage of people who forget to cancel these free offers is substantial.
But there's a way to avoid this kind of hit, and here it is: Use PayPal. If you don't have a PayPal account -- and millions do because it's used frequently for Internet transactions -- you can register for one for free at PayPal.com. To take yourself off the hook for recurring payments, log into your account and click the picture of a gear in the upper-right corner. Click "preapproved payments," then click the name of the merchant, and click "cancel." Three-fourths of the time we forget to cancel continuing payments and we're sure we would have forgotten Netflix, too, if we hadn't done the PayPal cancellation as soon as we signed up. By the way, when you do this cancellation, you are still signed up for the free trial.
With less reputable companies, cancellation can be crucial. According to an article at Nasdaq.com, some companies are able to keep charging you even if your credit card has expired or you canceled it. Through credit agencies, they are linked to you and can get the new credit card information. If this happens to you, contact your credit card company and let them know you didn't authorize the charge. Of course that means paying close attention to your monthly statements.
Giving up on Hewlett-Packard printers
We didn't mean for this to turn into a gripe column, but sometimes all this sharp dealing gets to us; blame it on our old-fashioned upbringing, When we went on the Web for a solution to fix our neighbor's printer, we discovered a whole slew of complaints about the HP Photosmart series. Our own experience hasn't been good either.
Our neighbor Ida's problem started when her brand-new black ink cartridge failed. She bought another one. That didn't work either. Ida is in her mid-90s so we called HP Support for her. The HP tech guy had us run numerous tests -- the usual stuff. Then he asked us to hand wash the cartridge. Never heard that one before; didn't work anyway. So he advised Ida to buy a new printer, and before we could stop him, began delivering a nonstop pitch for the latest model. Forget about it, we finally got to say. Ida agreed. She had already bought and junked two HP printers in two years.
Not until sitting down to write this column did we find a solution that has worked in some cases. Take the faulty ink cartridge out, close the lid, and let the printer reset itself. (It will give you a message about the missing cartridge.) Make sure there are no bits of tape adhering to it, shake it up, then replace it and see if it works.
Ida was too happy with her new printer to even bother with that. We had recommended she get a $100 Brother laser printer; it's cheap and a workhorse. It comes with a starter toner (black only), enough for a couple of weeks of heavy use. A replacement toner is $31, which isn't much different from a replacement HP ink jet cartridge, and it will print 1,200 pages before running out -- about 10 years' worth for Ida. Our only gripe here was that during setup, this "wireless" printer asked to be temporarily connected to the computer with a cable, but they didn't supply the cable. Because of all the equipment we test, we have lots of cables, but we don't know what she would have done without us.
Tech advice from the carpet cleaners
We overheard one of the best tech conversations ever from two guys who were cleaning our carpet. They debated the merits of just about every new gadget out there, and then went on to music creation. One of them was an amateur music producer, so we listened carefully when he said he uses Ableton music software. We immediately tried the 30-day free trial version from Ableton.com. (We didn't have to give them our credit card number.)
What's different about this software is what they call "session" view. While you're writing a song, you can have stacks of audio clips, everything from a few notes to a whole song. Start and stop one of those and it stays in sync with the others. This makes it possible to compose new music in the middle of a concert. As with most music software, you can connect your digital piano through a controller to add your own songs into the mix.
The Ableton website gives you a huge variety of samples from experts, in a range of music styles. We listened to classical works being "electrified," for example -- given that electronic synthesizer sound. The software reminds us of similar offerings from Cakewalk. There's definitely a learning curve involved so don't expect instant gratification.
App happy with Chuck and Ada
Lovelace & Babbage is a free iPad app for a comic book about the lives of Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage.
Ada, born in 1815, was the daughter of the "mad, bad and dangerous to know" poet, Lord Byron. After being steered toward math to tame her wild blood, she invented the first computer language for the first computer. (The computer was never finished but was fully conceived by Babbage.) A print version is coming out April 21, for $21, retitled The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage.
Bob and Joy Schwabach can be reached by email at [email protected] and [email protected].
SundayMonday Business on 04/20/2015