How do I avoid final payment for Epic Pass auto renewal?

C

Crawnic13

New member
I didn't realize that signed up for auto renewal last year for Epic Pass / Vail Resorts for my wife and my passes. Vail charged $49 / pass down payment last March. I called Vail yesterday and was told, very rudely, That there's no way to cancel once the $49 down payment goes through. I lost my job this summer and can't afford to pay $1000 for 2 passes so I'm desperate to get out of this final $1000 payment because of auto renewal. I did not purchase pass insurance.

Options:

1. I called credit card company and they said I could dispute the charge once it comes through because I tried to cancel previously with Vail. But no guarantees I will win dispute of fine print when I purchased pass.

2. Cancel credit card so they can't charge me. However, not sure if they will pursue through collections?

Any help or advice on how others have handled this situation would be great!

UPDATE 11/9/18: I did not want to chance this going to collections and hurting my credit so I disputed the charge through my cc company, Discover. I WON the dispute for $1000 (two passes). I did not dispute the initial deposits of $50/pass. The final decision said Vail Resorts never responded.

If this happens to you, make an attempt to cancel the pass through vail resorts prior to the full charge. Document the call and include this in your dispute with the cc company once the charge goes though. Hopes this helps others in the future.

**This thread was edited on Nov 9th 2018 at 3:47:40pm
 
topic:Crawnic13 said:
2. Cancel credit card so they can't charge me. However, not sure if they will pursue through collections?
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similar threads have been posted before and they absolutely will pursue you unfortunately, vail is sneaky like amazon with Prime where they make it way too easy to be on auto renewal without noticing, it sucks but they got you by the fine print
 
Yeah cancel the card as said before. No way you're gonna win through dispute. Also may be considered fraud since you agreed to the terms and conditions. Surprising that they didn't let you cancel considering you haven't used it yet. Such trash customer service, but I'd expect it from Vail.

They may or may not care to follow with collections. There's a ton of reddit threads on this Epic Pass issue, and it does appear that they do follow with collections. I'm not sure if it's the type of thing that can show on credit reports or not (I'd look into that too.). It all depends on if you want to risk it showing on your credit report (can stay for up to 10 years).

Do some go googling and if anyone has been able to weasel out of it.

**This post was edited on Sep 11th 2018 at 6:33:06pm
 
13942028:IsitWinterYet17 said:
Yeah cancel the card as said before. No way you're gonna win through dispute. Also may be considered fraud since you agreed to the terms and conditions. Surprising that they didn't let you cancel considering you haven't used it yet. Such trash customer service, but I'd expect it from Vail.

They may or may not care to follow with collections. There's a ton of reddit threads on this Epic Pass issue, and it does appear that they do follow with collections. I'm not sure if it's the type of thing that can show on credit reports or not (I'd look into that too.). It all depends on if you want to risk it showing on your credit report (can stay for up to 10 years).

Do some go googling and if anyone has been able to weasel out of it.

**This post was edited on Sep 11th 2018 at 6:33:06pm
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i don't know the details of OP's situation but in my mind it'd be better to take the hit on the credit card and slowly pay it off rather than risk his credit score. but regardless, like you^ said, OP should definitely sleuth around to at least get a feel for what other people's experiences have been
 
I've had a somewhat similar situations with another organization putting me on autopay with fine print. The company refused to refund me so I filed a dispute with my credit card company, Chase Bank. Chase instantly refunded my money with very little hassle. I wouldn't be surprised if you could win a dispute. Maybe go ahead and dispute the down payment with your bank and speak with them about the upcoming unwanted charge. They are charging you for a service they have not provided and you do not want. Seems like you should be able to get out of it.

**This post was edited on Sep 11th 2018 at 7:31:43pm
 
13942044:WalkerAndrews said:
I've had a somewhat similar situations with another organization putting me on autopay with fine print. The company refused to refund me so I filed a dispute with my credit card company, Chase Bank. Chase instantly refunded my money with very little hassle. I wouldn't be surprised if you could win a dispute. Maybe go ahead and dispute the down payment with your bank and speak with them about the upcoming unwanted charge. They are charging you for a service they have not provided and you do not want. Seems like you should be able to get out of it.

**This post was edited on Sep 11th 2018 at 7:31:43pm
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Yeah never thought about that. If you have a good credit card company that you funnel a ton of cash through, they may be more helpful to get you out of your situation
 
why the fuck is auto renewal a thing for a ski pass? It's a YEARLY cycle with constantly changing prices? This is some bull shit.
 
If you refuse or cancel the payment, for them to enforce collection they need to get a judgment. Usually what will happen is they will have in house or contracted collectors call you/send letters to collect on the front end, but they have no power to enforce collection at that point. Ignore those requests for payment, and as a creditor they will literally need to judicially get the debt reduced to a judgment. They need use a court to do this - by filing a suit against you, and pay to have you served. You can defend yourself in that suit if you have a basis, or you can ignore it and default. Once that is done, the judgment is good against you indefinitely, and they will typically sell the judgment to a collection agency. The collection agency will then hound you for payment, and you can usually settle for less than the original charge, or not pay and it will affect your credit, or there could be a lien, but even then you can dispute that with each individual reporting agency.

Frankly, I am surprised to hear Vail follows through on any of this, because it is expensive and you usually only ever see judgments for much higher amounts. Typically low dollar creditors will attempt to collect without a judgment and most people will pay. I suspect Vail probably enforces a small percentage of these debts to create the appearance that they go after everyone.

This is also the reason you should never pay those $50 parking tickets that are issued by a private parking lot. They will never spend the money to collect. NOT EVER.

**This post was edited on Sep 12th 2018 at 1:23:04am

**This post was edited on Sep 12th 2018 at 1:23:48am

**This post was edited on Sep 12th 2018 at 1:25:07am

**This post was edited on Sep 12th 2018 at 1:25:44am
 
13942044:WalkerAndrews said:
I've had a somewhat similar situations with another organization putting me on autopay with fine print. The company refused to refund me so I filed a dispute with my credit card company, Chase Bank. Chase instantly refunded my money with very little hassle. I wouldn't be surprised if you could win a dispute. Maybe go ahead and dispute the down payment with your bank and speak with them about the upcoming unwanted charge. They are charging you for a service they have not provided and you do not want. Seems like you should be able to get out of it.

**This post was edited on Sep 11th 2018 at 7:31:43pm
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I can second this as a Chase customer who found myself in a similar situation with an unwanted auto draft that was so huge it actually put me in the red. Chase was cool about it, asked if I had used any of the services (you haven’t at this point) and gave me my money back within 24 hours. Good luck. I have a hard time believing someone more important than just a rep at Vail is persistent on charging 1k to someone who just lost their job and hasn’t used the pass at all. Stories like this make me never want to ski Vail wooow.
 
Isn't the whole point of a down payment to put in a unrefundable deposit toward reserving a "discounted" season pass rate that you can later choose to buy or not?

Sounds like some bullshit man, good luck
 
13942444:S.C said:
Isn't the whole point of a down payment to put in a unrefundable deposit toward reserving a "discounted" season pass rate that you can later choose to buy or not?

Sounds like some bullshit man, good luck
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Why? So that Bill Lumburgs stock will go up a quarter of a point.
 
13942044:WalkerAndrews said:
I've had a somewhat similar situations with another organization putting me on autopay with fine print. The company refused to refund me so I filed a dispute with my credit card company, Chase Bank. Chase instantly refunded my money with very little hassle. I wouldn't be surprised if you could win a dispute. Maybe go ahead and dispute the down payment with your bank and speak with them about the upcoming unwanted charge. They are charging you for a service they have not provided and you do not want. Seems like you should be able to get out of it.

**This post was edited on Sep 11th 2018 at 7:31:43pm
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Chase bank also did the same for me after I realized I was on autopay for the epic pass. Thankfully I hadn't paid the full amount for the epic, just the $49 for auto renewal. If you have chase and didn't pay the full amount yet, call Chase explain what's happening and you might get lucky like me and Crawnic. But if you have already paid the full amount for the pass, best of luck.
 
Did you accidentally check the box for auto renew or do they just put it in the fine print when you signed for it?

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