I’ve been an AAA member for a long time. The past few years I upgraded to their Gold card service. I have a 30 year old vehicle that I love and that I intend to drive until it can’t be driven anymore.
Last year, I had my vehicle towed to an automotive repair shop about 10 miles from home. This was the first time I’ve used their towing privilege in years.
My annual renewal date is in the middle of May. I realized in late April that I hadn’t received an invoice so I log in to my online account. The account shows no payment is due so I’m thinking “hmmm, this is strange.” Anyhow, I’m thinking that there has been some mistake on their part that will be discovered later so I probably should send in my payment through my bank’s bill pay service so my coverage doesn’t drop.
Two weeks later I receive a notification from my bank that AAA has rejected my payment. I can only assume that I’ve been passively “fired” as a customer without notice.
Moral to the story is not only is there a fairly recent societal thing called “quiet quitting,” but apparently there is also something that is best described as “quiet firing”…and the band played on!
I originally thought about that but nixed the idea because the AAA website itself never posted an invoice. My belief is they dropped me because when I used their towing service last year, the vehicle was already ancient by auto industry standards. I chalk it up to a business decision that recognizes the odds are decent that I won’t continue to be a profitable customer.
I ain’t mad at 'em - I just figure they took what for them was the easy route of ignoring me since there was no contactual obligation beyond the expired service period. I wanted to share the quiet firing part to see if this is indeed a thing now or was simply a one off experience for me.
At the very least, you should get an official written explaination of what’s going on. There should be details in your contract and a ton of consumer protection laws that detail exactly what procedure is required and they generally will include some requirement to contact you ahead of time. If a procedure isn’t followed, it’s possible to get some kind of redress from the company because they don’t want regulators looking into things.
This is a car towing service that’s like $60/year. You’re allowed like three or four tows per year before they charge you. I 100% guarantee you that they didn’t drop OP for one tow. OP screwed up somehow.
It’s a little confusing because AAA also offers regular auto insurance but this is different.
I agree that you should call them for an explanation rather than assuming this was intentional. For one thing, I’d expect them to have sent you a letter or email stating that it was deliberate.
As for your assumption that you weren’t a “profitable” customer, you’re probably an outlier but many people with newer cars pay for the service for years without needing assistance. Consider how infrequent flat tires are, for instance, compared to a few decades ago. And the auto clubs make money through things other than the towing service, like package tours and such. And isn’t there a magazine like the ones for AARP, NRA or Costco? Those can be extremely profitable.
For at least the last ten years, they carry batteries on their trucks and will charge for the new battery and take away the old one on the spot.
Yes, there is a magazine. It’s called Westways (maybe they are regional and that’s the one by me). I couldn’t tell you much about it. It goes straight to recycling.
They offer great hotel discounts, similar to AARP. The card pays for itself with just one or two hotel stays.
You can use your tows to bail out friends which I have done several times. It doesn’t have to be your car or you even driving.
One would have to be insanely abusing the service to get fired.
If for no other reason than that there is a corollary of Murphy’s Law out there somewhere that says, “if you call they will reinstate your service, you will pay for it and NEVER need it again, and if you don’t call, your car will break down within one week and you will wish you’d at least tried to get your AAA membership back.”
I’ve had triple AAA roadside assistance for 25 years. It’s $85/year around here.
They may not have dropped OP for using the service, but for driving a 30 year old car.
In the 25 years we’ve called them once, a dead battery which they charged enough for me to get home and replace it myself (this was twenty years ago).
My parents, whose “new” car was 20 years old, used them a lot.
One call per year per household is enough to turn their business model upside down very badly. They literally need 80+% of customers not to have a call each year in order for the $85 to pay off. Because they are paying the tow truck hundreds per call on average.
I know a few years ago (okay more than a few, I’m old) there was an issue with AAA New England paying so little that wreckers were de-prioritizing the calls from AAA, no matter what the contract said.
EVERYONE is optimizing their customer base and trying to profile customers that have an expected cost higher than the revenue they bring in.
Wow, is that a recent change? It used to be that it had to be your car, the AAA rep would ask if it was when you called. They didn’t ask for verification, but you did have to state it was your car.
The first time I did it was in San Diego in the late 80s. The most recent time was earlier this year. The registered owner of the car has to be there (they check) or you have to have the pink slip in hand.