Cannot Cancel Account even though Expensify Made Changes Causing their System to No Longer Work
This is less of a question and more of a complaint. It isn't as though Expensify has customer care worth noting to take this to. They don't really value their customers.
When we started using Expensify in 2017, SmartScan was able to be turned off. As a company that reconciled and reported almost entirely by importing and feeding corporate credit cards, SmartScan was more of a pain than a help. It caused duplication issues and general annoyance within our team. It was not good at matching. It still isn't. We also didn't care for the Mechanical Turk outsourcing Expensify uses for the reading of more difficult receipts, while claiming it has AI.
We can no longer turn off SmartScan, which renders us unable to use Expensify. It is defaulted to be turned on, and it's causing too many problems. However, because of a toggle, a flipped switch, we're locked into a contract until May 2021! How is this legal, since they changed their program, making it no longer useable? On an account type they call Control where they are literally taking control away? When I brought this up, the response I received was, to paraphrase: "everyone else seems to like it." Why should that matter? We're not everyone else and we are angry that you did this to us.
We are now paying for a service that we can't use because of what Expensify did, and their response seems to be, "suck it up, buttercup."
I have tried to reason, I have asked that we simply be allowed to lower the number of users on this plan until the contract has ended, and they will not allow it, as the contract toggle was flipped on. So, I am to understand that they can lock in one toggle that makes the program unuseable for our company, but not allow me to turn off the contract or lower the number of users? Keep in mind, we can raise the number of users they bill us for automatically, just not lower them. It is disingenuous to call this plan Control when we have none.
This is shady business practice. I've already moved on to a company that doesn't force me to talk to a Concierge when I need help. I've already moved on to a competitor that listens and helps and I can reach out to.
Expensify is Garbage. 🤬
Best Answer
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Sorry about that - you're right, there was another thread that I did not see the first time. Reviewing that, I can see that the team endeavoured to help you throughout this exchange and you ended it with a hostile expression that I will choose to interpret as "Good For You".
The outcome remains the same here - your contract is still valid until May 2021. The team will not be able to look into this topic further for you, as we seem to have come to a natural impasse here. You are of course free to continue to pursue this with the Better Business Bureau.
Thank you for your time in chatting to us.
Answers
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Hi @ANSylvia. Thank you for taking the time to write this up and am sorry to see that you feel this way.
However, I've reviewed your conversation history with the team and have noted that it appears to be very brief and quite different to the version of events you've conveyed here.
For context, annual subscriptions are a 50% discount from the monthly pay per use price plan. This means that we ask that customers commit to a full year in order to benefit from the favorable price point. Our Terms of Service are clear on this.
I appreciate this will come as a disappointing response to you, but I can assure you we have no intention of tricking or locking customers into contracts as a business strategy. We want our customers to use Expensify and for our loyal customers to benefit from a lower price point for their annual commitment.
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Did you review my complaint with the Better Business Bureau?
I have those conversations, Lauren. I too can reference them. They were not brief.
On 9/1/2020 I emailed: "We request to terminate or severely downgrade our account with Expensify prior to the end of our term in May 2021. While there are other issues, the default enabling of SmartScan is not compatible with how we do expenses, and we will no longer be using your services. Please let us know what is required for us to end our service with you, or how to downgrade it to access-only while we finish out the term. "
No response.
On 9/2, I caved and went to your concierge, and after a lengthy discussion with someone, who had to assure me they were a real person because I've had to talk to your AI far too many times, about why we wished to terminate, they said: "I can not reduce your subscription down to 1-2 users. We have many many companies with employees and individual users who are able to use SmartScan effectively and efficiently. Changes can not be made to your current subscription."
So I don't know what you're looking at, but I have the screenshots of this nonsense.
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You have very odd interpretations of things, Lauren. They seem to be the exact opposite of what actually transpired or what was said.
For example, I don't know if anyone there has ever endeavored to help me or my team in the entire three years we have spent with Expensify.
That conversation went in circles and it still remains that Expensify changed their product without our consent in a manner that renders the product unuseable. I brought up the SmartScan issues initially on July 22nd. I wanted it turned off. The response then was, if we no longer wanted this "feature," we needed to downgrade our account from Control to Collect, which takes away features we did need.
This insane lack of customer service and flexibility is why people are saying good for you, Lauren.
