A comically awful story about battling to leave a service after my contract had already expired

Bad retention metrics

I wouldn’t believe this story if it didn’t happen to me.

The hardest part of telling it is keeping it short. Because trying to leave my internet and mobile phone contracts when I left Portugal took well over a week and more than ten attempts.

Even though my contracts had already expired!

As I’ve said before, my Portuguese was never great. And doing contract level discussions was totally out of the question.

But I had a plan.

Let’s call the company Mayonnaise.

Mayonnaise has stores all across Lisbon. And they’re run well. The staff are helpful and speak English.

So with a couple of weeks to go before my flight I ventured down. The plan was simple. I’ll pay all my bills, and anything I owe. I’ll even pay an extra month or whatever if that is a condition of leaving.

See, my original 2 year contracts had finished more than 12 months earlier. It should be a piece of chocolate cake.

Buttttt

At the store I’m told they can’t end the contract. Only a special team can and it has to be done by phone.

A total wtf moment.

However, the lady tells me she can get them to call me and they should ring within the next 30 minutes. So I left and waited for the call.

And this is where the nightmare began.

Of course the person that rang didn’t (or wouldn’t) speak English with me. And I had to try again.

I ended up going back to the store every day that week.

The staff in the store were helpful. A lady waited with me one time and when the call came she took it on my phone. She explained that they needed to find someone in the team who could speak with me.

Eventually they did.

Except he didn’t want to end my contract.

The guy spent 30 minutes arguing with me to hand the contract over with a load of “discounts” to the person that was moving into the apartment.

It didn’t seem to matter that I had no idea who the new tenant was.

He suggested that I call the landlord and find out. Then ring the person up and present this amazing offer to them.

I’m not joking.

At a point of nearly throwing my phone at the wall I firmly told him I was leaving the country. It was happening in just over a week. I didn’t know who was moving in next and I was not wasting any of my time finding out.

All I want to do is pay my bills and leave.

He finally gave in and the next stage of hell began.

I couldn’t just pay one amount now. He would send me a bill over the next few days and then a final bill in the next month for the last payment.

Retarded but I agreed.

Next, he said that I had to bring back the modem and TV box that came with it.

No problem. I can drop it into the store the day before I leave.

Sorry that’s not possible. It can’t be dropped off until after the contract has finished.

Yeah, but I will be in France then.

Hmmmm. Could I get a friend to do it for me?

And if that’s not possible I have to pay 200 euros for the box.

Ok, I’ll figure it out. Now, I need to end my phone contract.

No sorry. That’s another team.

No joke.

I had to go through the whole process again. Go to the store. Order a call from the disconnect team. Do it a bunch of times till I get someone that can speak to me in English.

The phone retention guy tried to convince me to give my phone contract to a friend. He went on for about 15 minutes explaining all the benefits my friend would get.

But this time I was prepared.

I told him all my friends had left Portugal and I was the only one left.

He quickly caught on that it was going to be a call where he would not be able to save the contract. So he started getting angry with me. He wouldn’t explain how the final bills worked.

It dragged on and on.

I don’t deal well with bureaucracy in general. But this was ridiculous.

So I decided fuck it.

I called general customer service that evening and checked that the final dates were locked in.

My bills arrived within 48 hours and I paid them.

Then I told myself “no”. I’m not gonna pay anything else. I’m not bringing my stupid 3-4 year old modem back. They can piss off.

And that’s what I did. Left the country a week later. Guilt free

Anyway, I was reminded of this crazy story the other day.

I was listening to the Rework podcast with DHH and Jason Fried. They spoke about how infuriating they find lock in contracts and retention teams.

So at their business they don’t do it.

37 Signals make it easy for customers to leave their saas services. To the point of even having a UI styled page for customers to view all data and organise it before exporting (instead of a plain csv file).

They think this builds trust too. It’s good for winning new business. More customers sign up and use their products without the fear of being held hostage.

I agree.

And thankfully my phone is now on a no-lock-in contract here in France.