Are You a Legacy Customer?

There was a story in the news recently about a woman who was paying for email on AOL.  Email is free, which I suppose might be news to some people.  You know, people like your elderly aunt who hasn’t given much thought to what her internet provider is supposed to provide since she signed the contract back in the ‘90s. As you may recall, way back in those days internet came through telephone lines and required ‘dial up’.  Cable and phone companies battled it out much the way VHS and Beta formats did, and most consumers (with shaking hand and trembling bottom lip) just signed the baffling multi-page legal contract and hoped they backed the winner.

The article referred to the woman as a legacy customer.  Sounds like something you’d want to be, something sort of respectable.  But it isn’t.

In the gentle, kind-hearted manner of social media exchanges, a legacy customer—at least in this situation—is an idiot of a calibre that would offer to pay for the portion of the air she breathes.  The threat of such a public shaming may be keeping others from investigating whether they, too, are handing their cash over unnecessarily.

Know the Facts

If you are concerned, here are some things to consider.

1. In the AOL case, the charge was apparently not for email per se, but for the dial-up service to access the internet.  This may also be the case for you. Go check.
2. Although information about new delivery formats was released, for some reason the consumer in question did not take them up on it. Maybe she saw the option but chose not to amend her original contract.  Maybe she just tossed the information aside without looking: one more sales pitch stuffed in an envelope or buried under an icon on the web page. Most companies communicate with us so often about so many significant and insignificant items it’s difficult to tell the wheat from the chaff.  They may be quite literally counting on that.  Millions of dollars are made from misinformed consumers.  Read all the mail from your service providers. Feel free to challenge the relevance.  If it seems unimportant, maybe it is. Ask them why they sent it to you.
3. It is very possible that America Online (AOL) is not the only company in the history of the world to allow people to pay for services they no longer need or use.  Many corporations may be holding people to contracts that are empty, for the simple reason that individuals let them. Do not rely on any service provider to go out of their way to protect you from your inclination to trust them. Check all your bills, and don’t be afraid to ask questions. There are people paid to answer you.  You’ll be doing your part to keep them employed.

The technically slick in our society may sneer at someone for paying for services they didn’t know weren’t necessary, but most people accept that there is just too information out there for anyone to be able to know everything about. While it is not necessary to be ‘up’ on every new technological application or trend, it is important stay alert or you may also become that sleeping gold mine—a legacy customer.