Cycling.tv: How to cancel your subscription
by Susie Hartigan on Mar 1, 2009 12:11 PM EST
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PrintOne of the many nasty surprises that comes with a cycling.tv subscription is that when you sign up for a single year, c.tv sets up an automatically renewing payment on your Paypal account.
Several people here have had the infuriating experience of thinking they had cancelled their c.tv subscription by merely letting it lapse at the end of the year, or even by firing off a "you're dead to me" letter to c.tv, only to find that their Paypal account was billed for the next year.
I disabled the automatic payment to c.tv last year, and it took me a while to find the place to do in on the Paypal website, so I thought I'd just run through the steps I took, in case others are interested. After logging in on the Paypal site, click on "My Account," then on "Profile," and then on "Recurring Payments" in the "Financial Information" menu. There you'll see a list of all recurring payments on your account, and you can cancel the one for c.tv.
That's the way it worked last year, anyway. If anyone has a different experience with Paypal this year, I'm sure people would like to hear about it.
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Sadly, this only cancells the subscription for NEXT year
It came a day too late for me. In the past, I have followed the above instructions and was able to be a year to year customer.
Apparently, when they changed their subscription model last year, the sneaked in another reoccurring subscription and I found my account charged again this weekend.
So I canceled the reoccurring charge (again) and logged in to cycling.tv only to be told that I haven’t purchased a subscription. So not only did I give those evil bastards money that I swore I would never by so criminally stupid as to pay them again, but they haven’t even given me the subscription I paid for. And I’m not even getting to delivering the subscription once they admit that they have sold it to me.
Cycling.TV are either evil soul-less bastards or are nice but stupid cycling fans who are so criminally incompetent at customer service that they might as well be bastards because I can’t tell the difference. How many YEARS must we suffer the same shyte?
Brooklyn Chewing Gum: Vlaanderens Mooiste
I hate to say it
but from reading y’all’s comments, it’s sounding like it’s the evil soulless bastard thing to me. I’m sure you’re heard the quip about the first time being happenstance, the second time being coincidence, and the third time being enemy action? What would that make the 10003rd time? To see bad things happen again and again, year after year, suggests to me that it’s more than coincidence. I suspect that some of the people there are “stupid cycling fans” but I also suspect there are some malefactors in there as well (especially considering the billing aspect. This is beginning to sound like ctv must have a partnership with Kevin Trudeau).
there are a half dozen threads over at the CTV forums
asking for info. Dozens of replies. The only CTV presence/action in response to all of them? Is to delete a list of CTV advertisers. That’s it.
Fuck them and the VC cash they’re living on.
Was that the list
one guy posted so people would email CTV advertisers to tell them that they would not buy products advertised on CTV?
automatic renewal caught me too
and then it didn’t work when I tried to log-in. I hit the roof and sent off a flurry of emails and canceled my subscription. They had the usual excuses that we have all heard. I am still on their mailing list and apparently that is a permanent marriage because they won’t stop stalking me.
by TC_ on Mar 1, 2009 3:14 PM EST up reply actions
this happens ONLY if you use paypal. if you pay with a standard credit card, it doesn't renew automatically
"Wizard's first rule. People are stupid. They will believe anything they want to be true or fear to be true." -- Terry Goodkind
the trick is to NOT use paypal
"Wizard's first rule. People are stupid. They will believe anything they want to be true or fear to be true." -- Terry Goodkind
You should probably sign in to c.tv
and when you get the white page with your account information, make sure there’s no credit card listed under “payment information.” Then click on the “Manage Cards” button, and make sure there’s no credit card information there, either.
by Susie Hartigan on Mar 2, 2009 12:41 PM EST up reply actions
what she said
"Wizard's first rule. People are stupid. They will believe anything they want to be true or fear to be true." -- Terry Goodkind
Paypal History
You can also confirm that you have canceled it in the past by looking up your PayPal History. Click “My Account” → “History” and search far enough back to find it. A nice way to make sure you don’t get screwed by the evil fucks at CTV.
CYCLING TV IS EVIL. DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR MONEY!
Testing new signature
CYCLING TV IS EVIL. DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR MONEY
Check your PayPal account because they will bill you automatically!
Instructions: Login to PayPal -> select MyAccount -> Profile -> Recurring Payments and cancel Cycling TV. Check your history to confirm that it worked. Then open a fine Belgian beer and toast your future happiness.
so, I don't need to do anything since I used my
credit card?
I just logged in again at CTV, saw that KBK was on demand, clicked it and the fucking thing starts BUFFERING!!! Fuck it.
by Bruce Suomi on Mar 1, 2009 12:57 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
depends how you used your credit card
if you used your credit card via paypal, then you need to double-check you don’t have an automatically renewing subscription.
once (for cyclo-cross/UCI subscription I think) I used my credit card via paypal but didn’t set up a paypal account, so they had no way to do an ongoing subscription. but then I set up a paypal account (not realizing the auto-renew feature was in place).
sounds like cycling.tv has a way now for them to bill directly without going through paypal at all? if that’s so, then hopefully there isn’t an auto-renew on that…
Cycling.tv CEO is Simon Brydon
His email address is simon.brydon@cycling.tv (the email address is not a secret). I’m sure he would be happy to take customer feedback so he can do his job better.
Dammit
even his email address is a failure!
CYCLING TV IS EVIL. DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR MONEY
Check your PayPal account because they will bill you automatically!
Instructions: Login to PayPal -> select MyAccount -> Profile -> Recurring Payments and cancel Cycling TV. Check your history to confirm that it worked. Then open a fine Belgian beer and toast your future happiness.
Brydon apparently isn't concentrating solely on cycling..........
Do you suppose the horse race fans share the same issues with their online viewing?
So we are getting crap coverage because the CEO is more focused on seeing horses tortured
well aint that fucking super, at this moment I’d like to run over him on a horse.
I don't know if you knew this, CTV is run by Bernard Madoff
Fine, I want to blitzkrieg the whole staff right now
better?
I don't know if you knew this, CTV is run by Bernard Madoff
Well on a positive note
No one will probably be able to watch horses being tortured online in the future………………..
Except horse racing is all over TV in the states
I hope it isn’t so in Sweden.
I don't know if you knew this, CTV is run by Bernard Madoff
So didn't you catch
the odd glimpses of the action from the Hippodrome that Belgian TV gave us today.
oh yes
so many eurovision references possible here. Well one actually – I don’t feel like finding a link but it has to do with a certain German group who sang a song called “Genghis Kahn,” all about pillaging and swimming in vodka…in Jerusalem. Good times.
by plinytheelder on Mar 2, 2009 6:22 PM EST up reply actions
the email address
For Simon just bounces back.
Guess he got scared and just blocked everyone who wasn’t a “friend” to CTV
sorry about that
I’d assumed he was still there, as he was busy mucking about in Wikipedia making sure the Cycling.tv entry noted that he founded it.
Hmm wiki
it wouldn’t be a lie if we were to edit their wiki page, mentioning that they run a very fraud like business and their product often doesn’t work. It would be a good way to warn some people who might check there before signing up. I doubt they would leave the edit up but it may be worth a try, seeing it wouldn’t be a lie.
I don't know if you knew this, CTV is run by Bernard Madoff
eh...
I think we’d better steer clear of any but factual above-board Wiki-ing. You know, force for good and all that.
Umm it would be force for good
it would be a warning to anyone who though about purchasing ctv, but didn’t know about the type of business they run. I’m thinking mentioning something about mentioning about there streams not working for these last two races, and many complaints among buyers for lack of service(could even link to the message board to prove that). Also maybe metion the auto-renewal. Nothing but facts there. They have screwed their customers over and now it’s time to get them back, anyway we can, doesn’t have to be wiki, just an idea.
I don't know if you knew this, CTV is run by Bernard Madoff
White and Nerdy
I fear I may have trampled a Wiki-convention or two, but an edit I put up earlier today notes a factual issue in a neutral tone (I think). I invite any of my more experienced wikiers to revise & extend into proper form.
I just read the wiki entry
and I’m guessing you added the last paragraph, very well done. If someone isn’t sure about CTV and clicks on the link to our discussion about it, they will surely be scared off, or be morons. I hope they keep up that update, I see nothing wrong with it.
I don't know if you knew this, CTV is run by Bernard Madoff
I just read it too and it
is certainly true. It also doesn’t sound like Jimbo’s writing but is equally to the point .
Uh, thanks
I think?
CYCLING TV IS EVIL. DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR MONEY
Check your PayPal account because they will bill you automatically!
Instructions: Login to PayPal -> select MyAccount -> Profile -> Recurring Payments and cancel Cycling TV. Check your history to confirm that it worked. Then open a fine Belgian beer and toast your future happiness.
ha
If am ever a lawyer in wiki-relevant ways, please shoot me. No, I tried to present it within the usual Wiki-tone guidelines, and got it right, but I’m pretty sure I got the formatting wrong. A rabid horde of editors should descend on it in no time.
Well, the rabid horde hasn't yet corrected "Vuelta A Eapana" in that entry
so you’re probably safe.
Google is my domestique.
For Old Times Sake
For the address above, I went back to my email from Brydon last year. Gosh, things sure sound familiar, don’t they?
————— Forwarded message-———-
From: Simon Brydon <simon.brydon@cycling.tv>
Date: Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 2:42 AM
Subject: Cycling TV
To: [me]@gmail.com
Dear Mark,
I am very sorry for the trouble you experienced yesterday. It is very disappointing when we have such a day and it is disappointing because we have done everything possible to make sure that things like this do not happen.
We have server capacity to spare, in theory we are only run at 40% of usage capacity yesterday, we have streaming capacity at Limelight Networks which is unlimited. In terms of usage yesterday it was busy, but on a par with California or slightly less than California and we had no issues there.
The only difference was this was a subscription only race and therefore required login / payment. In theory this should provide no issues and actually make life easier for the users as usage would be restricted to well within capacity….so why it was not faultless we do not know….we’re asking the questiosn of our US suppliers at Narrowstep and Limelight and our server suppliers in the other countries.
The issue yesterday was not with streaming…as you can see there were a lot of people getting that perfectly, it was with the loading of the pages, once loaded it was okay. That to me say data usage on the registration / payment process although the supplier in thsi respect denies it saying we were only ever at 70 – 80%. However i believe that it was a very heavy demand from last minute payers that was the issue and the data those pages require. In theory still no problems should have arisen, but despite all our planning they did and we need to find out why and correct it.
To counter this issue for Paris Nice we have immediately asked for Juimp Tv to provide us with additional back up servers so we can make sure we have massive capacity. We will trasnition onto Jump TV fully after the Giro with capacity for millions of users.
For KBK if we have issues then I’ll make it free to air…i am certain we can sustain the streams for for how ever many people want to watch it, but if the regsitration process fails to do what it should i’d rather everyone sees it than not.
You have my sincere apologies. We stream over 160 days of live cycling and we very, very seldom have any issues. We also have a massive upgrade / roll out planned for late May which will have a lot more features and a better and easier interface. We’d hoped to have this ready for now, but march Madness has delayed this and we will not then switch technology with Flanders / Roubaix and the Giro coming up.
The majority of our issues come with Mac users and we are also working to resolve this going ahead for live. Call me if you want to discuss this in person.
My sincere apologies.
Simon Brydon
C.E.O.
Cycling TV
0 11 44 20 7096 1303 Ext 6101
What a bunch of crap
Total fucking bullshit, Simon Brydon.
CYCLING TV IS EVIL. DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR MONEY
Check your PayPal account because they will bill you automatically!
Instructions: Login to PayPal -> select MyAccount -> Profile -> Recurring Payments and cancel Cycling TV. Check your history to confirm that it worked. Then open a fine Belgian beer and toast your future happiness.
". We stream over 160 days of live cycling and we very, very seldom have any issues"
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
I don't know if you knew this, CTV is run by Bernard Madoff
Here is the letter I just sent to Simon Brydon
which bounced….
Mr. Brydon,
I am writing to encourage you to get out of the online cycling race streaming business as soon as possible. Face it, you guys suck at it, and we, the worldwide viewing population, cannot wait for you to get your shit together. In addition, we are beginning to hate the public faces of your endeavor, which is not fair to them (they do excellent work) and all this hatred is starting to making me feel like an asshole. Please understand that all I want is to pay someone good money to stream me live cycling races that I can actually watch live. This task seems to be beyond your ability, so please give up. Also, please know that I am not one to casually throw around words like “hate” and phrases like “die in a fire”, but my patience has run out with you guys. You made a good run at it, for which you you have my respect (chapeau), but over the past two seasons, things have become laughably terrible. Your streaming services consistently suck. And since Cycling TV apparently is not capable of streaming live races to it’s paying customers, I will no longer be a paying customer. In adition, I pledge to do what I can to make sure that you do not get your hands on any more of my fellow cycling fan’s money. Mostly what I can do is make my feelings known to others and vote with my wallet, so that is what I plan to do. And please do not try to “fix things” by throwing more money at the problem. Just stop. Quit. Retreat. The wheels have come off the cart, the train has left the station, the steerage decks are underwater, etc, etc. .I wish you luck with your other streaming endeavors, but we cycling fans would like you to please give someone else a shot now.
Sincerely,
Jimbo…
CYCLING TV IS EVIL. DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR MONEY
Check your PayPal account because they will bill you automatically!
Instructions: Login to PayPal -> select MyAccount -> Profile -> Recurring Payments and cancel Cycling TV. Check your history to confirm that it worked. Then open a fine Belgian beer and toast your future happiness.
My favorite part of that letter is
“die in a fire.”
Chapeau Sir!
"I didn't look for him and I didn't see him. If you base your race on another rider, most of the time you lose."
Tom Boonen
please, just speak for yourself and don't ruin it for those who don't have problems with ctv
thank you
"Wizard's first rule. People are stupid. They will believe anything they want to be true or fear to be true." -- Terry Goodkind
Seriously?
First off, I am speaking for myself. Not sure who else you would think I am speaking for. I am just a guy with a computer. But if you think I have some real power here, then you are probably mistaken… Second, “ruin it”? Are you worried that my little rant might actually make them give up? Or make their service suck more than it does now? If you and others have no issues, then you are lucky. My congratulations on your good fortune. But it is painfully clear that very, very few people are in your shoes. I would love for all those who have no problems to speak up.
And just to expand on what is driving my vehemence, I think all of you paying subscribers should know that the reason that CTV had bad service early last year, before their big upgrade, was because they had a hole in their security that you could drive a fucking truck through. Basically, you could get the live feed without authenticating, so all their nonsense about having enough capacity for their subscribers was totally irrelevant. If you had the URL of the live feed, you got the live feed without logging in. Now that seems to have changed with the new platform, but the service still sucks.
CYCLING TV IS EVIL. DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR MONEY
Check your PayPal account because they will bill you automatically!
Instructions: Login to PayPal -> select MyAccount -> Profile -> Recurring Payments and cancel Cycling TV. Check your history to confirm that it worked. Then open a fine Belgian beer and toast your future happiness.
Stick to your guns Jimbo (figuratively)
You are definitely not alone.
If you had the URL of the live feed, you got the live feed without logging in.
Ah, for the days of CTV, VLC Edition (when it worked).
Totally
I would just save the URL, pop it into a new media player and voila! Live racing! And, since they already had my money, no guilt! Now? Bubkis…
CYCLING TV IS EVIL. DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR MONEY
Check your PayPal account because they will bill you automatically!
Instructions: Login to PayPal -> select MyAccount -> Profile -> Recurring Payments and cancel Cycling TV. Check your history to confirm that it worked. Then open a fine Belgian beer and toast your future happiness.
But how can you not believe him?
He said my "sincere " apologies.
He also made a bunch of grammatical mistakes
says something about the company when the CEO can’t even proof read…I even proof read what I write on here usually.
I don't know if you knew this, CTV is run by Bernard Madoff
Correction: Brydon not @ CTV Anymore
Looks like Brydon headed for greener pastures (literally) last June. Sorry about that. I’d seen that he was messing about with the CTV wikipedia entry in Dec, and assumed he was still there.
I can’t believe I’m wasting this much time on this, but really has annoyed me this much. I wish I were qualified in Britain (CTV home) or Canada (JumpTV home), in fact.
My reply rec'd today...
From: “cycling TV” <cycling@jumptv.com>
To: Nikki
Sent: Sunday, March 01, 2009 12:24 PM
Dear Subscriber,
We experienced several technical issues with the stream over the last 2 days.
We apologize for any inconvenience or frustration this may have caused. We are
working to address this issue to prevent this from occurring again.
Thank you,
Site Support
"The most wasted day is that in which we have not laughed."
Hmm lets compare that to what sui juris got yesterday(from other ctv post)
We experienced several technical issues with the stream earlier today. We
apologize for any inconvenience or frustration this may have caused. This
issue should be resolved for tomorrow’s race.
Isn’t that something
I don't know if you knew this, CTV is run by Bernard Madoff
I wonder
Do they just set all their emails to autoreply some message about Sorry for the technical issues?
CQRanking.com, you complete me.
by Chris Fontecchio on Mar 2, 2009 3:10 AM EST up reply actions
I think they're in a bad state over there
If you think about it. Last year they knew they had issues so they made an effort to reach out. They had people monitoring strategic sites/forums for signs of trouble and they made both a PR effort and an effort to correct problems.
During this weekends mayhem tons of people posted on their own forum (their own forum!) and for two full days of problems there was not one sign of life from the CTV people.
of course they do..
you don’t think a ral person wrote that shit do you? Oh and where the &^%$ is Dan? ; )
by Christopher See on Mar 2, 2009 3:40 AM EST up reply actions
I just got
An offering of 1 month free for my rant to them…
Told them that after 3 full years of the same crap, I wasn’t going to pay to get beat down.
Accepted their offer and said I would reconsider after classics season as to whether or not to continue…
yup.
sent a direct repsonse to the problem ticket e-mail they sent to me on Sat. Just kept using the same e-mail with the history attached. My wife was more pissed than me, which is normally pretty hard to do. Classics season is hers(so I have been told).
Is the problem ticket e-mail cyclingtv@jumptv.com
or something different?
CYCLING TV IS EVIL. DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR MONEY
Check your PayPal account because they will bill you automatically!
Instructions: Login to PayPal -> select MyAccount -> Profile -> Recurring Payments and cancel Cycling TV. Check your history to confirm that it worked. Then open a fine Belgian beer and toast your future happiness.
Far be it from me...
I am not about to get in the way of anyone’s rant on CTV (especially Jimbo’s). I totally feel for everyone trying to watch racing online (especially those paying for it) and then getting robbed of the joy of watching the race in action. Being one of the few having no problems makes me just want to be quiet and hide in my luckiness, it reminds me of when Hugo hit Charleston leaving thousands without power for weeks on end turning into months for most. My condo was on the same power line as an assisted-living community and my power was up in less than 48 hrs. Directly across from us were newer condos that were out of power for almost 2 months. I felt like we were going to get mobbed if we turned the lights on at night.
Anyway, sorry for everyone else’s pain and suffering. I say let your voice be heard and stick it to ’em where you can.
Here is what they said
Dear Subscriber,
We experienced several technical issues with the stream over the weekend. We
apologize for any inconvenience or frustration this may have caused. We are
working to address this issue to prevent this from occurring again.
We would like to offer you a free month of service for the issues that
occurred over the weekend. Please reply back to this email if you would like
this free month.
Again we apologize for this weekend and we look forward to hearing back from
you.
Thank you,
Site Support
I sent an original complaint on Sat morning and kept sending complaints on that first automated response. Seemed to work
well you were luckier
than I was today. I think I proliferated their e-mail box with complaints, offers of money, cries for help. NADA, ZILCH, ZIPPO, NOTHING
still makes me long for the original cycling.tv even with the low buffer rates. at least it worked.
First, I had to set aside my emotion,
a difficult thing to do when it comes to cycling. Waiting for months for Het Volk to start the season only to have a technical screwup on the first freakin’ day! I thought I would vomit, literally. Oh no, not more of this crap! But, I fiddled around with it, and eventually it all worked fine. That experience exactly mirrored my entire history with CTV. They have driven me near crazy, frustraed me to the point of tears, and made me hate people I don’t even know. But every time, every single time (almost, I never did see ‘07 Tour of Normandy Stage three) they have gotten it together so that I could see the race though sometimes not LIVE but on HIGHLIGHT. They have also billed me incorrectly (again yesterday for $99.99!), buth they got it right and issued a refund; but they also cancelled my subscription (no shit, they did!) but reinstated it immediately.
I guess my point is that they require infinite patience. I know I’m not used to dealing with such continued incompetence—actually, I am used to it now! Really, where else can we get so much racing at such a bargain, because it is inexpensive. One concert costs more than an entire season of CTV. I went out to eat at a “fine dining” steak house Friday, and the bill was six times what a season of CTV costs. The tip was more than a season’s racing. So, I’ve learned to calm down about them and to try to put it into perspective. Is CTV a pain? Yes. Should they know how to run their business more efficiently? Yes. Do they frustrate the heck out of me? Yes. But they’re not evil, come on. They do get it right. They will refund your money, right? They always have with me. Always.
You know, if they weren’t there, how could we see all the racing we see? Seriously. Before CTV, nobody carried such extensive coverage, not in English. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m hooked on bike racing. I love this stuff. How pathetic, I know, but I live to watch the bike races. I no longer watch any other sport, none. I’ve been a Formula One fan since I was a kid in the mid sixties. I’ve been getting up on Sunday mornings to watch David Hobbs and others for at least twenty years: No more! And no more Winston Cup/Nextel Cup. None. No more baseball, football, soccer, hoops, nothing. Nada. So, let’s encourage CTV to get better. I want them to fix it, but I don’t want to run them out of business.
I take a lot of your point
But
- Viewing should be a pleasure not hard work or an angst-fuelled chore
- I agree that it’s not expensive per se. Why not charge more and get the funds to provide a service that actually works?
- Why continue with the near fraudulent practice of getting people to sign up blind, without providing reasonable info on what you are actually paying for?
Personally I’m sick of being a human (paying) guineapig for a company that, based on all available data, will never actually get it right. Three years of this nonsense is enough for me. If others feel that it is worth it please feel free to continue subscribing. I will be one of those following your feedback. When I can see that they have provided a full season of reliable feeds and have cleaned up their practises on other fronts I will surely retutrn as a paying customer. i’m not holding my breath though.
Did your favourite rider just win Montepaschi Strade Bianch Eroica Toscana? OK then.
I am tranquilo
my Ctv subscription just ran out and I haven’t had to stress about getting let down by them every race. Good feeds for free @ cyclingfans and no hairpulling and screaming at the screen.
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