The subject of this post is accurate and very unfortunate. I regret writing this, but find it important to inform this community about what Qobuz has done and how they’ve responded to my request for restitution. In November of 2019 I paid for an annual subscription to Qobuz. They had a promo going on and I signed up for $149.99 for the year. Payment was made using my PayPal account. In May of this year I was going through my PayPal records, something I only do a few times a year. I found that Xandrie (Qobuz’s parent) had been charging me $14.99 since January which I did not authorize.
On June 23rd I submitted a ticket request with Qobuz informing them of the issue. On June 24th Sebastien from Qobuz replied asking for additional information. I provided screenprints of the transaction in the body of the email and downloaded the Xandrie/Qobuz statement from PayPal in a pdf and attached it to the email as well as other info. I didn’t hear back from him. On June 27th Qobuz charged my PayPal account for $14.99 again. I followed up with Sebastien who informed me to cancel their service from my PayPal account so I wouldn’t be charged again. I did that. He said if he didn’t get back to me by July 13th (2 weeks later) to contact him again. I contacted him on July 21st requesting a status. He replied saying “Thanks for your follow up email. I’m sorry to say we can find no evidence of your monthly billing. Please cancel at PayPal while we continue to investigate your claim. If you have other email addresses we can look for that would be great.” I had already cancelled PayPal. At this point Qobuz had charged my PayPal account a total of $89.94 from Jan - June without my authorization.
I emailed Sebastien back on July 21st with a pdf of each month’s PayPal statement which included the Qobuz Transaction ID, Invoice ID and Order number. I followed up on July 22nd and 23rd and received no response. I followed up again on August 9th, then again on the 11th. He finally replied saying “Thanks for your follow up email. Our billing department has authorized me to offer you a code for one month of Qobuz service or one complementary Hi-Res audio download.”
I replied “Qobuz double charged me $89.94 for the months of Jan - June 2020. One month of service does not equal $89.94. I would either accept a credit of that amount toward continued Qobuz service or a refund to my payment method. I would be happy to discuss this with you over the phone.”
He replied on Aug 12th saying "Thanks for your follow up email. I’ll let the billing team know you have rejected their offer. "
I replied on Aug 13th saying “Does billing understand how much I was overcharged? Do they have the receipt copies I provided to you? What happens next?”
He replied on Aug 13th saying “Thanks for your follow up email. Yes, the billing team has all of your provided information. They offered you compensation, and you rejected the offer. If there is anything else I can help you with, please let me know.”
I have emailed Sebastien back 7 times since then asking him a simple question “Do you and your billing department recognize that you overcharged me $89.94?”. He has not responded. I opened a new ticket request and he has not responded.
I filed complaints with PayPal for each month except January which was too long ago to file against. PayPal sided in my favor and refunded me each of the transaction costs. So I have recouped all but $14.99. Several things upset me about this situation. Qobuz being a French company is very difficult to communicate with. I called Xandrie a couple times and spoke with someone once who could not help me. It was a black hole. You have read Sebastien’s comments verbatim here. They just upset me to no end. I rejected their offer of a download or free month when they charged my account $89.94 without authorization.
I authorized the annual charge and they used that authorization to continually charge me. I have never experienced this before and now will need to check my PayPal statements monthly. You may not think this is theft because I authorized the original annual charge which opened up the door to Qobuz, but they refused to return what they charged. They provided no additional service for what they charged. They now refuse to communicate. That qualifies as theft.
Well, you took the only option available to you and let PayPal handle it.
That’s why I just use PayPal to pass the charge over to my MasterCard.
I’ve found that, in cases like this, no one argues with MasterCard. They are too afraid of having enough complaints that would cause them to lose the MasterCard privilege.
At the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, I got cheated on three separate buys from China. MasterCard posted refunds for all of them and on the next billing cycle after my complaint…
My past impressions of Qobuz are that they don’t know what [moderated] they’re doing.
I also have had problems with Qobuz customer no service. Last November I signed up for there special annual $149.99 deal and because I still had 4 months left on my old annual subscription I was supposed to receive a refund of about $71.00 so l emailed them about it and was told they would be issuing refunds starting 12/9/19. Long story short after numerous emails and months later they finally sent me a code for 3 months free service. I told them that does not add up to $71.00 but got no reply. I disputed with credit card company and won the dispute. My subscription is up this November and I plan to delete my account with them about a month early so they don’t charge me again ( I already canceled it so it’s not supposed to renew but I don’t trust them). I will not be using the code for 3 months free as I never want to deal with this despicable company ever again.
I use three different cash-back credit cards. One of them is linked to Pay-Pal. I check charges against all three almost every day. I get emails from PayPal for each and every charge to my PayPal account. I also check my PayPal automatic billings frequently and delete any no longer needed. It’s easy to forget about these.
I’m sure Qobuz has not intentionally stolen money from anyone. However, in today’s complex business maze, you really need to stay on top of all your finances. Unfortunately, stuff like this happens too often.
I’ve never experienced a situation like this. I have had my credit card number compromised before and the card company was very quick to act. They also refunded the fraudulent charges. I should verify all my charges in checking, credit cards, PayPal, etc on a more frequent basis. I would have caught this sooner, no question. When charging some services, like subscriptions, on PayPal they are considered an open account to the seller. I do close any accounts I don’t use anymore, but Qobuz was in use. I would have been fine if they charged me annually, automatically.
If a company makes a mistake, and I don’t believe Qobuz intentionally charged my account to steal money from me, they should own up to it and make good on the mistake. By not returning the money they withdrew from my account they stole. The evidence was provided. Why they didn’t elect to correct their mistake is beyond me. In my opinion a good company would recognize this, provide restitution and at least offer an apology. This company and Sebastien in particular chooses to ignore their customers.
I regularly attend Audio conferences and ones where Qobuz reps are present. I intend to bring this up in person.
I find this post extremely interesting - thank you @Johnseye
No doubt it wouldn’t be something that occurs often, but a definite red flag & caveat emptor for those that advocate using a VPN to pass Qobuz country restrictions & use this streaming service willingly with full knowledge it is not available in their country.
One may not get this kind of positive outcome if found breaking Qobuz terms of service.
When I first signed up for a year with Qobuz, my bank immediately shut down my card and ordered me a new one. After talking with the bank, they told me that it was Xandrie activity immediately after my year subscription purchase that flagged the card number to be suspended…but it was not the subscription cost itself that was flagged. The bank would not elaborate on what it was.
I purchase a lot from Qobuz and have many Xandrie charges on my account. I think I will audit those purchases tomorrow. Thanks for the heads up.
I’ve had a couple of very poor customer service experiences with Qobuz too, so unfortunately I am not entirely surprised by your ordeal. I won’t bore you with more details, but they were extremely unprofessional. I avoided them for a long time because of this, but eventually returned because I found their sound quality better than Tidal.
My experience of Qobuz is the exact opposite of most described here.
I tried their service for a few months and then decided to start a subscription. I did this and after a few months i found the service and the goods so pleasing i decided to purchase Sublime+ instead.
All of these transactions have been flawless, and i have since bought dozens of digital downloads through their store.
On a couple of occasions i have had complaints on the quality or format of the downloads, but these have always been swiftly adressed by generous compensation.
Now, i am not a resident of a country where Qobuz if publicly available, but i started my account through my iPad a few years ago, and i never had to lie or claim that i am a resident of another country.
I have since seen that Qobuz has me registered as a resident of the UK.
So, i hope this becomes resolved. Whatever the reason…
About a year ago I bought and downloaded a Qobuz album that contained one single track that was incomplete. I immediately contacted support, and in less than a week I got a full refund for the whole album, although there was nothing wrong with any of the other tracks. As you can imagine, I was more than pleased with their service. I have a Sublime+ subscription.
I started a monthly Qobuz plan last October in the USA. I paid monthly using PayPal for three months with no issues. In December, I switched to the $149.99 annual plan one week before my December monthly plan was over. As a result, Qobuz billed my PayPal account only $144 for the annual plan.
To me, it sounds like the OP ended up with two plans, an annual plan and a monthly plan and was billed accordingly by Qobuz. Exactly why this happened is hard to know. There are usually two sides to every story.
i designate one credit card specifically for subscriptions. when i sign up for annual billing and\or re-billing for subscriptions i lock my credit card after the first payment. i’ll unlock and re-lock it when i sign up for an additional different service.
as others have mentioned always dispute charges with your credit card company. it’s easier and infinitely less time consuming. it will always get resolved in your favor.
That is very unlucky.
I moved to annual subscription in March and my monthly subscription stopped after that. I also use PayPal but did not subscribe to any promotion.
Hoping you get your money back.
I’ve had problems with Qobuz as well. I had a Sublime subscription for a year but as I didn’t buy enough downloads I decided I’d switch to an annual plan. I cancelled the Sublime subscription a month early and expected to get a message a month later saying that my plan had been cancelled and to resubscribe, instead on the anniversary date Qobuz took the Sublime payment again from my Visa card even though I had cancelled! A mail to their Customer Service received no response so I took it up with Visa who have refunded me. I like the Qobuz service but I’m now tempted to switch over to Tidal.
Have you tried Dan Mackta yet? Assuming he’s still at Qobuz, he’s US Managing Director. [Private information removed by mods] I’ve found him very helpful. Good luck.
Thanks for the heads up. Fortunately, I get an email every time my Paypal account is charged so I can catch it quickly. It is unfortunate that there is such a communication breakdown. If Qobuz hopes to continue growing they had best get someone who can respond to complaints in a proper manner. Your experience reminds me of the old SNL Cheeseburger/Pepsi skits that Belushi and Aykroyd made famous.