I recently canceled my account with Vonage and on behalf of Space Shot canceled our contract with Custom Weather upon switching to AccuWeather which is free. It took about fifteen minutes to navigate all of the extra offers that Vonage wanted to make me to try to retain me. It may be good short-term business, but I felt their hard-sell tactics alienate me. I draw the line if an organization asks me "are you sure?" after I have already said I don't want something, I complain to their customer service for being rude. They may be retaining a few extra customers, but I'll remember how long it took to cancel the service and be less likely to buy again given the "exit tax". These last few customers seem sub prime.

Space Shot also canceled its contract with Custom Weather. What do you think this term in my contract with them says?

...this Agreement will continue for further successive one year periods until it is terminated by either party giving to the other not less than 90 days written notice prior to the end of the initial one year period or on any subsequent anniversary of the Effective Date...

I think it means Space Shot can cancel with no notice on its second and subsequent anniversary with no notice. Space Shot also requested early termination of the current year contract which is in no way prohibited and a refund which is also consistent with policy as reported in the contract. Not acknowledged.

Custom Weather CEO, Geoff Flint wrote me:

I apologize if our lawyers did not make that clause clear enough since the "or" that you refer to is associated with the last verb which was "giving" in the clause "giving to the other not less than 90 days written notice."

and later:

Our contract was put together by a top law firm and like I said in my last email, the "or" that you referred to is always associated with the verb closest to the "or" statement and in this case, that required giving 90 days notice.

But that would lead to "this Agreement will continue for further successive one year periods until it is terminated by either party giving to the other not less than 90 days written notice prior to ... on any subsequent anniversary of the Effective Date". The "on" in this read makes no sense to me.

Perhaps this read: "this Agreement will continue for further successive one year periods until it is terminated by either party giving to the other not less than 90 days written notice ... on any subsequent anniversary of the Effective Date" also makes no sense. That would be 364-730 days notice which contradicts the "90 days".

The only thing that makes sense to me for the second condition is "this Agreement will continue for further successive one year periods until it is terminated by either party ... on any subsequent anniversary of the Effective Date".

If we agree with Geoff's read, he is committing Custom Weather to an annual negative checkoff where the negative checkoff comes ten months before the contract renewal date. His read further commits his firm to a no-refund policy.

Is Vonage a case of a gotcha cancellation policy, Custom Weather, or both, or neither?

Sorry Sam, but I read it as you are committed for a year. You can uncommit for the next year by giving 90 days notice prior to your annniversary. Regardless, I've been bitten by such scams, and now I refuse any contract that has an automatic term commitment greater than a month.

As Bill C would say, "I feel your pain". Not that I need the service, but I'll stay away from Custom Weather.

Also, I had the same sentiment about Vonage when I cancelled them. I wasn't using the service, so I didn't need to pay for it. Still, it wasn't as bad as when I cancelled my service with the former SBC. It took 9 months to sort that out and for them to return $150 in over collections they took and for them to remove from my credit report a collection claim of $21.

"The only thing that makes sense to me for the second condition is "this Agreement will continue for further successive one year periods until it is terminated by either party ... on any subsequent anniversary of the Effective Date""

I agree that this is the only interpretation that makes sense, given Geoff's clarification. However, I would be concerned that Geoff didn't mean quite what he said, when he says "the "or" that you refer to is associated with the last verb which was "giving"

As it stands, it sounds like either party can cancel with no notice after the first year. I don't think the 90 day period is relevant, after the first year. It sounds like you'll both be locked in for 1 year at a time.
Furthermore, after the first year, you'll both only be able to cancel on the anniversary of the effective date.

I would be surprised if that is what Geoff really wants the contract to say.

Sam, please let us know how it turns out?

Legal language needs to be written in computer code, with open source functions that can be tested with various inputs.

I agree with Leland, that I read it the way Geoff claims. I think the problem is the word "on" — remove that and Geoff's interpretation is obvious.

"terminated by either party giving to the other not less than 90 days written notice prior to ((the end of the initial one year period) OR (any subsequent anniversary of the Effective Date))"

But the "on" leaves a good case for Simberg's interpretation,

"terminated by either party (giving to the other not less than 90 days written notice prior to the end of the initial one year period) OR (on any subsequent anniversary of the Effective Date)"

However, that interpretation would tend to require notice on and only on the anniversary date. What if the company was closed? How could you terminate?

They're planning to send Space Shot to collections as soon as my invoice becomes overdue. My contract doesn't indicate a due date for my fees though. Custom Weather has grown tired of answering my emails. Heather Fabela, head of sales from Custom Weather just called and told me she thought that we were "trying to weasel out of" our contract. I'd like to help Space Shot halt the agreement ASAP and think I've already done so, but reasonable people might disagree whether that's the case. Yikes! All this over a $500 contract extension. Presumably if they hold Space Shot to a standard of abiding contract terms, it would be nice if they held themselves to the same standard and go to the trouble of verifying that their billing policy is compliant with their written contract. Sorry if I'm getting your goat, Heather and Geoff.

I sense a wish in their messages that their lawyers implemented their term sheet better, but they never shared that term sheet with Space Shot. Canceling a weather service seems to me like canceling a magazine subscription.

We've cut ops cost at Space Shot 90% and are working on our next 90% reduction to get the ops cost down to the order of the prizes awarded (one so far).

old guy: It's me, Sam, who wrote the blog entry.

old guy: There is no restriction on notice for the second parenthetic. One could cancel with or without notice effective at the end of the term.

Sam, I should be honest in saying that I interpret the instructions the way I do, because again, I've been burned by such scams before. I recognize the language, but if I really try to apply logic to the grammar, the wording is confusing.

It is one of the nice things about the internet era. For the most part, one can do research and find out about potential vendors in advance. Doesn't always work. On the other hand, customer service industry has gone to hell. Funny how I get surveys all the time, but if I go out of my way to tell them how I really feel... they don't care.

It may not be pertinent to the conversation, it may not be any of my business, but why did you dump your Vonage Account?

Steve, I found the voice quality on Vonage adequate except for business conference calls. There I don't really even like POTS lines--I have a DSL line. Since I have the DSL line and I haven't made use of the "plug-it-in-anywhere" aspect of the Vonage ip phone, I had no use for it. I found that the fax line couldn't accept a fax with my equipment so I had canceled that a few months before. I redirected all of my traffic for that phone (888-4-Dinkin primarily) to my DSL line, waited make sure I didn't get any calls and did on the DSL line, then canceled it.

Leaving a cell contract is simple, just use the majority of your free minutes on a daily basis. Within a month you will receive a warning from the carrier that you are using too many free minutes. If you continue the behavior you will be dropped the next month.