How to alienate and seriously annoy your users

LinkedIn is seriously annoying some of its users. Megan Roberts recently reported her experiences of the network's data insecurity on her blog LinkedIn and data insecurity (http://meganjroberts.wordpress.com/2014/06/10/linkedin-and-data-insecurity/). But it seems they've upped their game.

I had (or possibly still do have) a Personal Premium account. As I don't find the limited extra features of any use I decided to cancel my premium account about three weeks ago, well in advance of the renewal date. Having filled out the online forms I assumed that was all I had to do, but each time I logged in to my account it was still marked as a Premium account. So I went through the cancellation process again. I waited a few days but my account was still marked as premium. I went through the cancellation procedure again. My account was still labelled as Premium but when I went to try and cancel it a fourth time it was marked as already cancelled. Success? Well - no.

Today I checked my business bank account and saw that LinkedIn has debited my account for the renewal fee despite my cancellation. Perhaps I should have been alerted to potential problems when confirmation emails failed to arrive. But under my account settings the premium account was finally marked as cancelled so I assumed that was that.

I have raised a ticket with LinkedIn but I doubt I'll get any sense from them - I never have done in the past. First thing in the morning I am reporting the debit to my bank as an unauthorised transaction.

Congratulations, LinkedIn, on developing a strategy that is guaranteed to thoroughly p*** off your users.

Update: LinkedIn have now apologised for the "misunderstanding". My account has been reset to "basic" and they have refunded my money.