Back at the end of February 2023, I was looking to buy an used car imported from the USA to Georgia at the Rustavi auto market.
Not being an auto expert I decided to use some online tool/app to help check car VIN numbers. That's how I discovered bumper.com.
Bumper.com offered to try out their service for just $1 for 7 days, and then automatically put me on the paid subscription plan of $19.99/mo. Fair enough, I was informed about the service and how it works.
I cannot say I was very happy about the results from the bumper site, well at the start I was, but in the end, we hired a local guy, who was using some cracked Ukrainian car VIN check tool, which showed more results and even actual photos from the car history, something bumper.com was not showing.
Anyhow, we bought our Jeep Renegade car and were lucky enough, just obviously I forgot about bumper.com and their warning they will enroll me on the paid plan and take away my precious dollars for service I'm not using and doubt will ever use again.
7 days passed and $19.99 were taken from my PayPal account (I applied via PayPal). Ok, my fault, for not canceling the subscription earlier, I thought. But again, forgot for another month, when noticed $19.99 again has been taken away from my PayPal account.
Enough is enough! I thought, and decided to cancel my subscription, by visiting their website - well, huge was my surprise learning I cannot access my account, I tried several passwords, nada.
I started to google it - is bumper.com a scam or not? And there you go, there are zillions of warnings not to use bumper, because of that. Okay, okay I thought.
In general, I have nothing against such a business model, but what wondered me - why da heck I cannot log in to my account and actually cancel it?
So i decided to write to support at support@bumper.com
Reinis Fischer, Apr 26, 2023, 9:54 AM EDT:
Hi please cancel my subscription to bumper.com website
registered with the email r****@gmail.com or r****@****.eu
after couple of hours I got a reply:
Christopher Maramara, Apr 26, 2023, 3:41 PM EDT:
Hi Reinis,
Thank you for reaching out to us.
I would like to honor your wishes and cancel your account immediately. However, I was unable to locate an account associated with the information you provided. There are no accounts registered to r****@***.eu or r***@gmail.com. Can you please provide the member ID or the full name and email address that is associated with this account?
We look forward to hearing from you so we may assist you as soon as possible.
Wuahaha I thought - these are the only two e-mail adress I ever use when subscribing up for something, and now it looks very fishy, but I decided to look again and figure out what is happening here.
I looked thorugh the Bumper.com website and it looked that my account there was created automatically, when I enetered payment details for my 7-day trial using PayPal account, and most probably account was associated to the e-mail adress used with PayPal, I decided to give it another try:
Reinis Fischer, Apr 26, 2023, 4:35 PM EDT:
Hi!
Could you please cancel subscription for account i***@****.com
Many thanks
In about an hour I got a reply, saying that my account is canceled
Christopher Maramara, Apr 26, 2023, 5:27 PM EDT:
Hi Reinis,
Thank you for providing additional information. Please know that I am more than delighted to heed this humble request.
Your account is now canceled, as you requested. If you have any paid time remaining in your plan, you still have access for the remainder of that time, however, you will not be billed going forward.
We're sorry to see you go, but glad you were able to try out our website. Please know that you always have access to log back in and reactivate if you need our services again in the future.
If you have additional questions, please don't hesitate to contact us.Kind regards,
Bumper Customer Care
Wuala. Finally!
I wouldnt call bumper.com a scam website, their service is as it is, and every member is warned. The cancelation process could be easier. Hope it helps!