I run a small business. We deal with a lot of contracts with our customers, and one day I thought it might make life easier for everyone if we had some sort of e-signature solution. That way they could sign the contract right from their computer, and we wouldn’t have to shuffle paper around.
Well right around this time I bought our first home, and the real estate agent was using a company called DocuSign for all of the real estate documents. I thought if it was legal for large real estate transactions, then it was probably going to be alright for my business. I also wanted to take things a step or two further and automate the contract generation process using the DocuSign API. So I contacted DocuSign, and the salesman assured me I could do everything I wanted to do and more. “It’s easy!” he said, “and we have great customer support”.
The way DocuSign works, you have to pay for all of your contracts (they call them “envelopes”) in advance. They call the whole process a “subscription”. In theory you have to use all your envelopes during the year long subscription. But there’s flexibility: “Don’t worry,” the salesman tells me, “if you don’t use up all your envelopes we’ll just roll them over to the next year”. So with his assurances I paid $5,400 for my subscription, and another $500 so I could use their API.
A couple days later an account manager assigned to me called and asked when I would get going, and I said I was going to need a couple months to write the code to integrate their API.
So far so good. But this is where everything goes horribly wrong.
I spent some time reviewing the API. It was a lot more complicated than the salesman had led me to believe. I was going to need some serious help to implement what he had described as “easy”. I have decent enough web programming skills (I wrote every line of code for the PHP/MySQL asset management system we were using at the time), but this was way over my head. I debated whether I should hire a programmer. But then things got worse. A lot worse.
About two months after signing up, I started having what appeared to be minor health issues. However over a period of several months these issues kept getting worse until finally it was discovered that I had cancer. This was a devastating experience not only for myself, but also my family and my young children.
Throughout this time the account manager kept calling and sending me emails, and I told him I just could not focus on DocuSign at the moment, and after a few of these conversations I had to point blank say don’t call me anymore, I’ll call him when I’m ready. The calls stopped.
At around ten months in it was clear I was in a battle for my life. I moved our quote and billing system to an outside company so I could focus on treatment. Since we were no longer handling quotes and billing on our own servers, there was no way we could use DocuSign. So I called DocuSign, and I very politely told them I had never used their service that I had paid thousands of dollars for. I want to make this part clear: I never used their service. Not one single time.
In light of this fact I asked them if they would consider issuing a partial refund. And I want to make this part clear: I told them even a partial refund would be fine. I just thought it was a bit much to pay close to $6k for nothing.
The account manager was sympathetic and said he would get back to me.
A month went by and I didn’t hear back from them. So I sent an email to the account manager saying very politely that I had not heard back from him as promised, that I had never used the service, and would they please consider issuing a partial refund? I even said I would be willing to make some introductions to several decision makers I knew who I thought might be interested in their service.
A DocuSign manager responded the next day by saying it is their policy to not issue refunds. Period. He acknowledged I had never used their service. However even though my subscription wasn’t over when I made my initial refund request, it was nearing the end of the subscription period, and as a result they didn’t feel I had any “leverage” (their word) to request any money refunded (not even pro rated for the month or so remaining!). They said they could offer me a discount on future services if I ever decided to use them again.
So I wrote another email, and I said I was unable to use my subscription during the term because I had cancer, and I was battling for my life. And that I hadn’t discussed it with them earlier in the subscription term because I was a little busy with diagnosis and radiation treatments. Frankly I didn’t think my battle with cancer was even relevant as I thought they should consider at least a partial refund if for no other reason than I had clearly never used the service. I certainly did not want to divulge my serious health issues to people I didn’t even know. But since they thought it was an issue I didn’t tell them soon enough, I thought they should know there is a pretty damn good reason why I didn’t tell them earlier. Once again I emphasized that even a partial refund would be acceptable.
They never responded to that email.
A couple months go by. I finish my radiation treatments. I’m talking to my attorney about how wonderful people have been. And then the subject comes up of people that have been less than wonderful. And I mention DocuSign. My attorney gets very angry hearing this story and offers to write a letter to DocuSign. I accept.
A letter is written. We now demand a full refund because it’s outrageous that we have to go to these lengths to get them to do the right thing (but frankly I still would have accepted a partial refund if they had offered). And we put them on notice that I am prepared to publicly discuss my dissatisfaction.
DocuSign’s legal team responds. Not only do they refuse to refund a single dollar, but they actually threaten to sue me if I tell my story online. Think about this for a second: a company who has raised over $56 Million dollars is threatening a cancer patient with legal action for telling the truth about paying them thousands of dollars and getting absolutely nothing in return.
The irony here is that in all likelihood they spent more money paying their lawyers to write that letter than what I was asking for in the first place.
We were flabbergasted, and we discussed taking them to court. My attorney says I have a case. But legal action is stressful, and frankly I don’t need any more stress. And no matter how strong my case is, there is always a chance I could lose even more money chasing them in the court system.
And I’ll be candid: their legal threat scared me. I know truth is an absolute defense, but I also know you can go broke defending the truth. And they have a lot more money than me.
But after sitting on this for a couple months I’ve decided they should not get away with this. So I am writing this blog.
Here are the things you need to know:
- I don’t care about the money. I’m over it. As far as I’m concerned that money is gone.
- I don’t personally want any attention. It’s not about me, it’s about them.
- This blog is not monetized, at least not by me. I can’t speak for Google.
- Other than the story told in this post I have had no business dealings with DocuSign or any of their competitors. There are no hidden agendas.
So what do I want?
- I want them to be ashamed of how they acted. The end.
Regardless of the legal ins-and-outs, some things are just wrong. And they deserve to be called out. And it seems like lately there is a trend in tech companies to treat human beings like they are just something in the way of the next funding round.
In my case at around the same time they were telling me they couldn’t refund me a single dollar for services never delivered, they were raising $27 Million dollars.
At the same time they were telling me I would be sued for telling the truth they were signing up to spend $30k+ a month to put up a billboard right around the corner from my house.
Even if you actually think they are entitled to every dollar I gave them, don’t you think it’s an extraordinarily unwise move to play games with their valuable brand in this way over what is at most a couple thousand bucks? Do they really need the money that bad? And if they are this stupid about something small like this, how can anyone trust them to be smart about things that matter?