Suit yourself! I provided you a potential way out of a contract you signed and failed to adhere to. You are (I think?) an adult with ability to comprehend what you sign up for. Mobility even has this all in English which is not a given and their terms are pretty simple.

But go complain that it's not your own fault and it's the bid bad business fault instead if it makes you feel better!

If you call the company that expects you to stand by the terms of the single page plain English contract you signed unethical then I think it is a fair comparison.

You call it fine print, to me it is one of the shortest and clearest contracts I’ve seen.

Several years ago they apparently had a policy that they would let you retroactively cancel if you had not used the new subscription (but this policy might have changed):
https://www.reklamation.ch/complaint.php?id=439

Yes I have found them pretty reasonable! But it does require approaching them with a dose of humility which the OP seems to be missing. Don't see them being willing to help if accused of being "unethical" by someone who did not read the contract and potentially the follow up email.

I have covered this in post 15. The process is designed in a way that most folks who sign up for the trial will miss the point on auto renewal.

From the Mobility website where they introduce the trial subscription -

"TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION – THE NON-BINDING SUBSCRIPTION FOR BEGINNERS"

"Hop in with our trial subscription: you can try Mobility for four months without any obligation"

After you sign up, a mail is sent with a link to the contract.

As a consumer-friendly practice, it would be reasonable to bring things like auto renewal which includes a fee to the notice of the customer upfront and explicitly. Why not put it as a key bullet point under the trial section on the website?

While you can say it is my fault 'technically', hope the above helps understand where I am coming from.

From what I've seen I would say it was misleading.

I haven't read the contract or anything, but there are people in society who struggle understanding things (posts on this forum generally go off topic very quickly because of this) and thus consumer agreements need to have a certain amount of 'idiot-proof-ness' for want of a better term.

If that is the process then the contract sent after you sign up would not be legally binding, only the information provided before signing.

But actually their signup process says the following on a check-box that you have to tick with links to the contracts:

I accept the general terms and conditions and the privacy policy (read as PDF) as well as the Mobility contract (read as PDF)

Which seems completely standard to me, maybe you should have noticed / mentioned this instead of implying you didn't get given the contract?

Agreed. This thread is a prime example of a few folks demonstrating the uselessness about being reasonable.

Obviously if you don't read the contract you can claim it's misleading - as the OP did.

But since reading and understanding the contract is one of the signup requirements, how is this relevant?

I am surprised you expect every consumer to read contracts like a lawyer while not expecting Mobility to take any responsibility whatsoever on the the misleading business practice.

Auto-renewal is an important point. Why can't they mention this clearly during sign-up that it will be an auto-renewal instead of mentioning it on Point 9 of the contract?

Why do you think the onus on the consumer (of which there would be thousand of normal people who might be in a similar situation) rather than the business who can engage with all their customers in a more transparent manner?

I'm not trying to be condescending. I've also been stuck in contracts for things I don't want anymore. Hopefully, I've learned to read.

So, welcome to the concept of personal responsibility in CH. Adults are treated like adults. You can base jump from any mountain ridge you want or contact EXIT for assisted suicide and there's no nanny state telling you No, that's too risky. Same for contracts, there's the freedom to contract almost anything. But, all the freedom has a price, which is to read contracts like a lawyer.

Of course, one dedicates more attention to an apartment rental contract, a mortgage, job contract or an EXIT contract. Smaller things are treated like smaller things otherwise one goes crazy.

I think the constructive way out of this situation is to acknowledge they got you. Start thinking on a way to win this poker game where they have the best cards.

I'm torn on this one... The T&C governing the contract are a single page, if you cannot be bothered to read a single page, then you should not sign contracts.

However, I agree that both in German and English, they use wording that could be understood as the test subscription having no further obligation attached. Mobility argues that they automatically convert the trial subscription into a full one for the convenience of its customers since the majority choose to continue after a trial period. Considering how much hassle this probably causes them, they should definitely consider making it an opt-in rather than an opt-out.

As previously mentioned, you are not the first person to have an issue with the opt-out and they state here that a retroactive cancellation is possible subject to you not actually using the new membership yet. You probably went in guns blazing rather than saying "sorry, I didn't realise this is how it worked, unfortunately I cannot afford to pay the full membership and would truly appreciate it if you could cancel it for me." This may make you look disorganised AND broke, but who cares what they think - it would make no sense for them to come after the money you say you don't have, the cost of doing so would exceed what they get from you.

Most of us have fallen into the auto-renewal trap and it amazes me how stubborn businesses are about cancelling. For me, it was the gym membership that I never used and didn't realise I had to cancel three months in advance and could only cancel before the start of the new full yearly contract. Because they were so utterly unhelpful (I ultimately had to go the route of arguing medical reasons for not being able to use the gym to get them to concede partially, they still made me pay three months but better than twelve), I will never again become a member there and don't recommend the place to people. It is really short-term thinking from businesses who insist on this rule, negative word of mouth spreads much faster than positive and most people forget what the reason for their friend's dissatisfaction was, they just associate the business with something negative.

However, if it is something where you cancelling without notice creates a genuine problem, such as for a class that requires at least four people to participate to cover the costs and they are only three without you, then I totally support charging the full amount. Same for the verbal agreement you make with hairdressers and other service industry staff: if you cancel less than 48 hours before the appointment or simply don't show up, thus making it almost impossible for them to find someone else to fill that now vacant time and compensate for the loss of earnings, they should be allowed to charge you. They don't because they know it will only create trouble, but you will usually find that they won't give you another appointment so easily. Obviously, if you are sick or there is some genuine emergency, then most are pretty understanding but some people are serial cancellers, there is always something... Kudos to all service industry staff who have the resolve to block such clients from making appointments in the future. There should be Google reviews for clients too...

I think what can to be said about your options for this issue has been said. I think the idea of telling them you have money issues is a good one, as they might cancel the contract instead of risking incurring in extra admin costs.

I however have to add that with a careless attitude to reading and evaluating contracts (you said yourself you don't read them in full), you are probably being royally screwed by your bank, credit card companies, 3a pension scheme and cantonal tax authorities. Meaning fees up the wazoo, large opportunity costs due do bad deals, and forgotten deductions.

Thanks for this. It is hardly a hassle for the customer to click an opt-in button. The current process is designed for such things to happen which I have a strong objection to.

Take explicit consent while renewal/extension rather than expecting each customer to go through each clause of a contract and putting the onus on them to cancel. ​

It keeps the interest of both the business and customer by making things more transparent and upfront. Less headache for all involved.

Maybe my initial post sounded like that as I cut right to the chase here instead of boring the forum with the niceties I exchanged with them at the beginning.

"Subscription fee of CHF 129 per year"

https://www.mobility.ch/en/private-c...l-subscription

Tom

From the same page
"Policy Deductible 300 (optional) CHF 150 per year (info)"

So, not only did you sign on for a yearly subscription, you also signed on for the optional insurance!

Tom

Auto-renewing contracts are a fact of life here, so it's probably simply best to be prepared to deal with them. The more respectable companies send you a reminder a few days before the renewal/cancellation date (like the SBB with the 1/2 price abos), but many people don't seem to read e-mails (or snail mails for that matter) and claim they never saw the reminders.
Put yourself in the other position, all subscriptions auto-cancel unless you do something to renew them. You get on a train with an invalid ticket because you failed to renew your 1/2 price abo and then blame the inspector because you failed to renew your abo. As one of the other posters said, you need to take responsibility for your actions (or inactions in this case). You can't have it both ways.

So how did you conclude that it was misleading?

To be fair it's not explicitly mentioned when you sign up, but you do have to click the box saying you've read and understood the contract, which is, as previously mentioned, a single page, and contains the following clause: