Is Google playing fair? (Blog #9)

Welcome to my latest blog, in which I moan about Google and its lack of flexibility when it comes to customer refunds. The blog is sort of travel related as you'll see as you read on.

I used to use Amazon Unlimited Photos as my primary photo cloud storage, and the basic, free 15GB Google Photos as a sort of supernumerary nice-to-have. At this point Amazon was easy to use and I hadn't explored Google to any great extent.

Then two things changed: first, I got into photography so Google's editing capabilities, although fairly rudimentary, became attractive; second, Amazon changed its photo app completely, but not for the better. So I decided to retain Amazon for every photo I ever took, but buy more Google storage for my new photography hobby, and use it to store my edited and social media images. I therefore purchased a subscription to Google1 with its 100GB cloud for £15.99pa. 

That takes me up to November 2021. So far, so good. 

I began to use Google Photos more and more, enjoying its ease of navigation and its search features.

In August 2022 I booked a holiday to Japan for the following April and, as you do, I started reading around everything Japanese, including Internet security. This lead me to think about getting a virtual private network (VPN). 

Never liking to leave anything until the last minute, in August 2022 I opted for Google's VPN, which was part of their Google1 2TB subscription at £79.99 for a year. This charge was instantly taken from my card through my Google Play Store account. You'd think everything would be hunky dory, but it wasn't. The VPN for some reason just didn't seem to work on my android phone, despite me contacting Google1 who couldn't identify a problem let alone fix it. After a few days I gave up, reverted to my original 100GB plan, and waited for my refund. This is when it got messy. 

Without telling me, Google reallocated my refund to my Google1 subscription, which meant my subs were covered until November 2027. I challenge Google about this but was met with an unhelpful response that that was the way it was. No refund. Google were holding on to my money for a product of theirs that didn't work. 

Move forward to March 2023. I discover that VPN is now part of Google's 100GB £15.99 subscription, that is, the one I have.

I activated VPN on my devices, which now was working perfectly, and decided to tackle Google again about a refund. However, after a dozen or so to-and-fro emails, they wouldn't budge. Stalemate. They cited policies and that once a subscription had been adjusted, that was that.

Looking on the brightside, at least I eventually got my fully functioning VPN, and my Google1 subs are taken care of until late 2027. On the other hand, Google still have a chunk of my money. 

Now, it's not a huge sum of money I am talking about, but you'd think that an organisation as large and wealthy as Google would be prepared to bend a little to do right for their customer. Or maybe I am being naive. The irony of this tale is that my trip to Japan never went ahead so me looking for a VPN need never have happened, at least not in August 2022.

Thanks for finding the time to read my blog. Please feel free to add your comments. 

Cheers

Mike.

©Mike Young 2023.