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Music The Almighty Buck

Spotify Says It Will Refund Car Thing Purchases (engadget.com) 28

Posted by BeauHD from the change-of-heart dept.
If you contact Spotify's customer service with a valid receipt, the company will refund your Car Thing purchase. That's the latest development reported by Engadget. When Spotify first announced that it would brick every Car Thing device on December 9, 2024, it said that it wouldn't offer owners any subscription credit or automatic refund. From the report: Spotify has taken some heat for its announcement last week that it will brick every Car Thing device on December 9, 2024. The company described its decision as "part of our ongoing efforts to streamline our product offerings" (read: cut costs) and that it lets Spotify "focus on developing new features and enhancements that will ultimately provide a better experience to all Spotify users."

TechCrunch reports that Gen Z users on TikTok have expressed their frustration in videos, while others have complained directed toward Spotify in DMs on X (Twitter) and directly through customer support. Some users claimed Spotify's customer service agents only offered several months of free Premium access, while others were told nobody was receiving refunds. It isn't clear if any of them contacted them after last Friday when it shifted gears on refunds.

Others went much further. Billboard first reported on a class-action lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on May 28. The suit accuses Spotify of misleading Car Thing customers by selling a $90 product that would soon be obsolete without offering refunds, which sounds like a fair enough point. It's worth noting that, according to Spotify, it began offering the refunds last week, while the lawsuit was only filed on Tuesday. If the company's statement about refunds starting on May 24 is accurate, the refunds aren't a direct response to the legal action. (Although it's possible the company began offering them in anticipation of lawsuits.) Editor's note: As a disgruntled Car Thing owner myself, I can confirm that Spotify is approving refund requests. You'll just have to play the waiting game to get through to a Spotify Advisor and their "team" that approves these requests. You may have better luck emailing customer service directly at support@spotify.com.
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Spotify Says It Will Refund Car Thing Purchases More

Spotify Says It Will Refund Car Thing Purchases

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  • Just more e-waste tehe.

  • So, refunds for 10% of customers (Score:3)

    by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Thursday May 30, 2024 @06:08PM (#64511853) Homepage

    who actually kept their receipts.

    • Re:So, refunds for 10% of customers (Score:4, Informative)

      by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Thursday May 30, 2024 @06:51PM (#64511921)

      I know, right, if you have to subscribe to use then you obviously bought one. Weasel words from another asshat tech company.

      • Subscription isn't 1 to 1. There are literal 100s of millions of subscribers who *don't* own one. CarThing doesn't work without a subscription because it fell under an entire class of devices that had limited API use which didn't work without a subscription. That doesn't mean you can use subscriber status to see who purchased one.

        And in any case users almost certainly have the receipts via email. These things weren't sold at mom-and-pop electronics bazar down on the street corner.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AvitarX ( 172628 )

      Aren't receipts all emailed now?

      Just search car thing receipt.

      I suspect the effort will block like 50+% and lack of knowledge about refund availability half of the remaining, but I suspect far more than 10% of the customers could find their receipt withing 20 minutes if they had to.

      • or for lots of on-line stores they keep them every.

      • > Just search car thing receipt.

        Apparently you have to find your copy of the receipt that Spotify already has to prove to Spotify that they sent it to you.

        I thought EU companies got spanked for such behavior?

      • Young people these days, like under 30 years old, barely look at email. They might have no idea how to get to that receipt.

    • Better question: Who goes out of their way to eliminate them? It's 2024. Even when I walk into a brick and mortar store I end up with a receipt emailed to me. And this Spotify Car Thing was unlikely to be purchased at normal brick and mortar stores so unless the owner went out of their way to delete their purchase confirmation email they most likely have the receipt.

      • It's more like, how many people actually know how to find that emailed receipt, in their thousands of emails they never looked it? To us tech people, searching is easy. For a lot of less technical people, they have no idea.

        • My dude, typing 'car thing' into the search bar of your email app isn't overly technical.

          • You need to visualize the kind of person that struggles to understand what the "Input" button on their TV remote does. For that person, yes, searching "care thing" in their email app can be a challenge.

  • Receipt? (Score:3)

    by alantus ( 882150 ) on Thursday May 30, 2024 @06:18PM (#64511859)
    What is the rationale behind asking for a receipt?
    Normally this is required to verify the date and source of purchase, but in this case there is no real reason.
    This is an obvious PR move to look like the good guy while still not giving refunds.

    • What is the rationale behind asking for a receipt?

      There's two proofs of purchase, the receipt and the device, and the former are much easier to handle. Presumably because they don't want you to send the device back. That's pretty normal for stuff which was broken in this way.

      Normally this is required to verify the date and source of purchase, but in this case there is no real reason.

      You still need to verify the data and source of purchase. Most people are good, but a small group of them are arseholes who will attempt to commit fraud if you make it simple enough for them. Allowing "Yeah I had a Spotify Car Thing, pinky-promise! Now give me money!" is not an intell

  • At the minimum, replace "CarThing with valid receipt" with "Car Thing with proof of purchase" (like my bank bill). But better replace it with "refund any Car Thing" (so people who got one as a present get a refund, or people who bought one on eBay).
  • I've read that the device could be easily jailbroken, but having only 512M oRAM makes it difficult to repurpose with moren Android.
    But maybe using it as a vanilla USB media plauer could be useful.
    I know I'm not the target demographics, because when I driver I prefer to listen to FM radio.

  • Just bricked all the devices and told us to pay them $20/month.

    I think everyone needs to remember as much as it sucks they killed it; at least you're getting something. The usual SOP is you get nothing and it doesn't matter if you like it.

  • I contacted Spotify for a refund for my Car Thing, and they want me to send all my checking account number - including SWIFT code?? They want it send to them via plaintext email into their ticketing system where it will presumably sit forever as a nice cache of financial info for future hackers.

    Thanks for reaching out to us via messaging. Your case has been escalated to the highest tier of Customer Support here in Spotify. All communication within this email thread will be from the Escalation team from now

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