Am I angry this week? Hell yeah. I’ve been angry all month. And as some of the country mourns the death of Elvis today, I have to say I’m mourning the death of customer service across America. For the past week I’ve been unsubscribing and cancelling memberships I don’t use and streamlining my life, so I can focus on ONE thing–me. I’ve done, given and helped thousands of people and loved every minute of it, but now it’s time to finish MY book and spend time on me. If you have $150 an hour to spend on me for your stuff, I’m still accepting new clients. I don’t do free anymore. Sorry.

However, the road to good things is paved with cobblestones from hell, customer service hell. First there was the Hostgator nightmare, 8 MONTHS of it. Hostgator, like I said in that blog post, was spitting out canned emails like horny rabbits spit out bunnies, like rap singers spit out profanity, like conspiracy theorists spit out alien and UFO stories. like Martha Stewart spits out tacky Christmas decorations. They’re not alone in their relentless drive to annoy customers.

This morning I woke up to find that The Biggest Loser Club did not cancel my account with them when I called three months ago. So they charged me another $59.94. I called and got a rep who tried to convince me to stay, but I said no, so he cancelled my account again (I hope) and said it would be THREE WEEKS before they could refund my money!

I am going to tweet for three weeks about this…or longer…whatever it takes to get my money back within 72 HOURS. What part of piss me and your customers off don’t businesses understand? I hope their popularity and business will “drop faster than a gown on prom night” (Thanks Betsy for that lovely turn of phrase), but I doubt it will. So I’m being proactive. Here are ways to STOP businesses from charging your credit card. Fight back.

Use a prepaid debit or gift card to buy services. ONLY load the amount you need to make the purchase or sign up. If they don’t take debit cards they’re not a legitimate company interested in your business. If you are happy with their service you can always change the billing arrangements later and use a credit or bank card. This way when you cancel and they try to ding you for money you have their attention.

Businesses don’t, as a rule, respond to customers. They respond to money. Forget expecting minimum wage cubicle monkeys to give a damn about you. They don’t. The ones who do care don’t stay cubicle monkeys for long. They become supervisors who suddenly stop giving a damn now that they’re at the top of the very short food chain, or they wise up and start their own businesses. What you get when you call most customer service reps at any company in America is a company in India.

You have to protect yourself. NEVER EVER EVER sign up for anything where you have to provide a credit card number. Just don’t. Get your 30-day trial, and if you don’t use it, let it lapse and be done with it. If someone requires money from you to test their product or try their business they are so 1980s. Tell them there are 500 other companies with the same service willing to let you try before you buy and that you’ll be moving on.

I’m over it. So, apparently, is Bob Poole. Thanks Bob. You inspire me.