Bitten by a Monkey

This is a cautionary tale that I hope will empower you to learn ahead of my mistake so it’s never yours. We all use Survey Monkey – it’s a great platform right? Most people use the free version and they have become a classic go to in the online world for surveys and have risen to tech giant after many solid years.

Once a year we hold The Altitude Awards to shine spotlight on achievement, leadership and community involvement. We had some public voted categories and we needed a way for the public to vote for their nominees, so we set up a survey, people logged in and typed their favourite. In essence, it wasn’t really functioning as a survey and it served a quick and easy solution.

I needed to be a financial member to allow more than 100 responses through, so I delegated to my team member to check out the survey monkey plans. I chose a $21 per month plan and here is where the sting and lesson is. I did not read the fine print. This allowed me to collect up to 1000 responses. After 1000 they charged for every response singularly at .21 cents per response. , We collected over 9,132 responses. Doing the math? That’s right, around $1322. The kicker was that they did not warn me, no advise was given and this amount went straight out of my account.

The lesson? Well there are a few LOL. Firstly, delegation and abdication are separated by the finest of hairs, Whilst my team member presented the options, and I glanced over it, the fine print was missed. For me, I didn’t ask the right questions. Are there any more charges? What is the fine print? Next when it comes to subscriptions and payments, I can’t delegate that, I need to look myself. The next lesson? Time… again. When it comes to payments, take some time and take YOUR time to review and decide and read the finer print. I know we all hate doing this, but the alternative could be money being taken out of your account that you will have to fight to get back, which will take even more time.

My suggestion? Allocate a special credit card with a limited budget for these types of things. If you have a card with a $500m limit for small subscriptions, rather than a debit credit card, you will protect your cashflow.