VitalSpark

Taken delivery of E350 which has FREE trial of Sirius & MBrace for 6 months. Well the Sirius is a proper free trial but MBrace will not activate the trial unless you give them a credit card number!!
So its an automatic opt IN. There is no way I am giving them my card number to sit on their system waiting to trigger an auto payment in 6 months. Would you?
Either they activate it & give me the option to suscribe AFTER the trial period or I don't have it. So I guess I wont have it.
Dealer can activate it of course but guess what? He gives them your credit card number.

clkwork

Sadly that's the standard practice for most subscription service "free" trials. If you want it just take the free 6mo as a bonus, otherwise forget it.

cvinfig

A lot of credit card web sites let you generate a temporary credit card number to use for on-line transactions instead of using your real number. Just do that if you're worried about them charging you as it won't be valid in six months.

VitalSpark

Thnx cvinfig I might just try & get one of those. It's not what you expect from Mercedes that way of selling.

ghstudio

First, they are supposed to remind you that the free trial is about to end. Initially, I said no to the offer, but then as I drove the car for a day or two, I realized that it would be nice to be able to talk to someone who could explain things to me (how to use comand, etc) so I went back to the dealer and accepted the offer. I also was curious to see how it worked and what it really offered.

I've had it for a week now...and my take is that I will cancel before the free subscription ends.

1) I won't need any more help in a few weeks but yes, I have used it and the folks have been helpful.

2) The ability to send an address to the comand system...but not send a routing...seems like a useless marketing add on...I want to be able to plan a route on the computer with multiple stops and send it my car....nope, can't do that.

3) It's a personal decision whether I want to pay $20 a month just in case I am in an accident and can't dial my cell phone.....but, of course, I have to be in an area where the mbrace can get cellphone coverage or it's useless.

4) The more useful services cost even more....good luck selling those Mercedes

I would find Comand Internet more useful (internet access from comand)...and I would gladly pay Mercedes $20 a month for connectivity with that feature assuming it would give me unlimited data so I could afford to watch the moving google maps. Without that, the cellular data costs might well be so high that Mercedes might as well not implement that feature in the US.

hyperion667

vital, I have to agree, I felt the same way AND didn't give it to them either.....
thankfully, I have never in my life been in a situation where I'd need the thing to
begin with.....
but I agree with your original sentiment.......
if it's free they need only know I bought the car, and they should hold up their 'end'
of the deal with no strings......

happy motoring

BudC

It's no big deal to me. I just put a reminder on my calendar to tell MBrace that I will not be renewing it. I do that about 30 days in advance.

The one thing I don't like is that there is no way to remove your credit card from your MBrace account. I buy things off the Internet and in every other situation, I can go to to my account on the website and remove payment information (iTunes, Amazon, New Egg, eBay, PayPal, etc.).

Stick Girl

I didn't end up activating mine for that very reason. When I called, I gave them my Mastercard debit number, which I know by memory and didn't have to fuss to find while driving. The rep asked me was this a debit card and I said yes. She told me that it had to be a credit card (a debit Mastercard does NOT count for them but works everywhere else - go figure...)

hyperion667

guess visa isn't everywhere we want to be.........

ghstudio

in many cases a mastercard/visa debit card can also be used as a credit card. Is your card ONLY a debit card or did you just assume that because it says "debit card". Don't always believe what you see in print Call your credit card contact number and ask them.

RNBRAD

They must have changed this because I did not give them my CC# to activate the mbrace trial.

Pntblnk

For those of you that DID sign up for this "free trial" be careful The way Embrace cusotmer service explained it to me was that on the 1st day your trial membership expires, Embrace will charge your credit card the FULL yearly fee not a monthly reoccurring payment! That was all it took for me to say no.


I will share that I had to ask very specific questions about how my card would be charged to get this to come out. BUYER BEWARE!

ImInPA

I have mBrace and find it quite useful. I like that the concierge service can be turned on and off (you do have to pay for the month) but I have found them to be very helpful. I use the Send to Benz functionality quite often to send addresses to the nav system. When I am traveling to a city I am not familiar with, I purchase the concierge service and have used them for making restaurant reservations to checking availability of concert tickets. I do not use the Concierge service enough to justify having it always on, but, the base mBrace I use quite often. The OP is somehow trying to insinuate that there is some sort of deceptive practice taking place with mBrace, and I patently disagree with that. If you do not wish to sign up for personal reasons, that is fine with me, but, to warn folks that there is "foul afoot" is just not right.

Pntblnk

I wouldn't say there is "foul afoot" just clever marketing. The major issue I had was that they would charge the full year membership fee on day 181 rather than allow me the choice of to going month by month. The EMBrace rep also told me that this charge was non-refundable so once it hits on day 181 or year 2, 3, 4... you are locked in.

I don't like anything that automatically renews. I want to give my consent at the time of renewal so it is a conscious choice to spend the $$$ vs value received. Sure I can set a reminder in outlook but it's just one more date I need to keep track of and action every year.

ghstudio

I suspect you won't be subscribing to Sirius either because they have the same terms, once you sign up on any of their promotions like the 5 months for $25 rate they will likely offer you when your trial is up. After 5 months, your service will automatically roll over to their $150 or so annual rate.

This is the new norm for getting folks to sign up for a year or two at a higher rate.

Have you noticed that your CD's (in some banks) automatically roll over from that great promotional rate to a new CD at "the rate in effect at that time" unless you specifically tell them not to in a 10 day period after your current CD expires (Regions bank,.....).

Mercedes isn't doing anything more sinister than your local bank, Sirius, and everyone else.

AMGTTV8

I will be the first to say that from a business perspective, I agree with their policy.

Although you guys may be correct about ulterior motives, I believe that the root cause of the policy is vastly different..

Let's say that someone signs up for the trial, and the day that the trial expires, said driver gets into a major accident on a road with no one around and flies off into a ditch where he can't be seen. As a result of the accident, the driver is unconscious but at the same time sustaining massive internal bleeding. Since the Mbrace trial period expired on this day, the car doesn't call in the deployment of airbags where the operator would get a non-responsive driver, and immediately dispatch emergency services.

To make the scenario worse, the driver, as a result of not getting immediate medical attention through the services of Mbrace, sustains either severely impairing injuries or is dead. Wife sues Hughes Telematics as well as Mercedes because her husband had planned to renew the service that night but didn't have the chance because he never made it home. Negligence to continue service with the type of responsibility involved would be a no brainer for an attorney.

Anyone think that they do this from a risk-mitigation perspective before trying to dupe customers into a service?

Again, I agree it's a means to an end, but I believe the end justify the means.

Thoughts?

listerone

It could be argued that requiring a credit card number is "unfair" but,IMO,mBrace and similar plans (onstar,BMW Assist) are worth the $$$...if only for their ability to automatically call EMS in the vent of a serious accident.For that matter the ability to track a stolen car probably saves $$$ in insurance premiums as well,so....

listerone

To avoid such a situation they could make it 6 months and a day (183 days).

hyperion667

personally I think we need to look to ourselves for a higher degree of personal accountability.......for example: hang up and drive, don't speed in bad weather etc......

lessen our chances of 'running off the road, down into a ditch'

CEB

I suspect that most everyone here owns a cell phone and/or a computer.

These devices all have these neat little things called calendars. You can set a reminder for a week or two before the trial ends to remind you to either cancel or renew.

If you don't own electronic doodads, then there is that old school paper version that does the same thing. I use one of those to mark every time the lawn guy comes so I can compare it to the bill. Works great.

ImInPA

Of course if you do not own electrical do-dads, you probably would not use mBrace.

RSIKR

An MBrace feature is the ability to unlock your car if you locked the keys in it. Another is they will notify you via cellphone, text, or email (your choice) if your alarm went off.

I think it is worth the money. I think it could could have even better features however.

justdonating

My 3 month trial of mBrace plus ended today. I called to cancel. It took 2 minutes to cancel. Although I like the additional features, I just don't use them enough to justify the expense.

mbuster25

I for one did not want the mBrace so I had called early to let them know I didn't want it during the trial, and a week before the end date. Nevertheless they charged my credit card on file, and did not credit back until I called back. They said it could take a billing cycle to reflect the credit.

It is what it is

hyperion667

IT IS