Beware audible.com free trials

I should have known better.  Having never used audible before, when they had a free trial running a while ago I thought I would give it a shot.  Turns out they didn’t have much in their catalog I wanted to listen to so I cancelled after an hour.

Or so I thought.  I was going through bank statements this morning and noticed they’ve been charging me $14.95/mo for months.. (My wife and I run just about everything through the same debit card, so it’s easy for us to miss things).  So I called their 800 number.
Me: “I’ve never used your service but my records show you’ve been billing me $14.95/mo for it.”
Audible: “Yes… Our records show you’ve never used the service and that you attempted to cancel it.  What happens when you go to cancel is our site tries to get you to confirm you want to cancel by offering you discounts on membership.  Did you actually get to the cancellation page?”
Me: “[Are you kidding?]  I remember you guys making it very difficult to actually cancel.  The option was hidden, I had to search your site to find it, and then after several pages finally getting a page that said something like ‘you’ve cancelled.'”
Audible: “Well… you probably just got one of the member retention pages. Did you receive an email confirming cancellation?”
Me: “No. In fact the only email I’ve ever gotten from you was spam.”
Audible: “I’m really sorry. We’ll cancel your account and issue a refund.”
To cancel their service, “for real,” call their customer service at 888-283-5051.