ComplaintsforThe Neat Company, Inc

• Initial Complaint

  04/11/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Billing/Collection Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  Neat Company raising my monthly charge with no notice to me - just billing my credit card. I notified them back in December that if I could not continue the $8.99 rate, I no longer wanted the service. They agreed to adjust my December, 2021 billing back to $8.99 and continue that rate for 12 months. Then they auto billed my credit card for the $11.99 rate in January, 2022, February 2022, and March 2022. They have advised that finally they discontinued my service; however, I have been asking them to do so since back in December!! They need to credit my account and keep their word!

  Business response

  04/21/2022

  *****, 
  
  I am so sorry about this and I am sorry about the frustration and inconvenience this issue has brought to you. We see you spoke with an agent in December 2021 who successfully processed a refund and grandfathering of your $8.99 price for 12 months. At that time, you had agreed to keep your account open as long as you were billed at the $8.99 price for 12 more months.  Unfortunately, in the new year, we moved to a new billing system and we had a few hiccups in moving to the new billing system resulting in your plan not being billed at the agreed-upon price. 
  
  We see you spoke with another agent in March who tried to correct this issue by offering to re-grandfather your plan, but you had decided you wanted to cancel your plan at that point. The agent assisted you with your cancellation, but never properly requested your refund or addressed your concerns and I am very sorry about that. We've reviewed that case and found that agent's behavior to be unacceptable. We have pulled that agent for a review. 
  
  At this point, your account is not active. It is canceled. I have processed a refund for your January, February, and March 2022 billing. The refund will take about 3-8 business days to complete. 
  
  It does look like you are storing a significant amount of data in the Neat Cloud, that you will no longer have access to as a result of canceling your account. If you are willing to give Neat another chance, we can reactivate your account at the $8.99 price for 12 months starting April 2022, this will allow you to continue to use Neat as normal. If you would prefer to discontinue using Neat altogether then we can arrange to give you temporary access to your data and a way to download all your items to your local hard drive as PDF files. Please note that once your account is inactive for over 180 days your data will be wiped from our Cloud. Please let us know if you need to collect any data or would consider giving Neat another chance. 

  Customer response

  04/28/2022

  [A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response.  If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]
  
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. I would like assistance in downloading files but I no longer am interested in dealing with NEAT for my reasons stated.  Thank you for your response.
  
  Regards,
  
  *********************
  

• Initial Complaint

  03/03/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Guarantee/Warranty Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  Provide me with my files so that I can store them and access them In an organized fashion For tax purposes in the next 7 years without their subscription as that's the intent and purpose from 2014 SoThey can be stored on a hard drive in an organized fashion Unless I continue my subscription at 300 plus dollars a year

  Business response

  03/15/2022

  *****,
  
  Thanks for reaching out. 
  You can download all your files from the Neat Cloud by installing the Neat Light-Weight Application. This application will allow you to download all your files in bulk to a local folder. Below are the installation links for Mac & Windows: 
  
  Windows: 
  https://support.neat.com/smartorganizationsystem/install-neat-desktop-smart-organization-software
  
  ***: 
  https://support.neat.com/smartorganizationsystem/install-neat-desktop-smart-organization-software
  
  Once installed, you can follow the steps here to create a backup and local copy of all your items: https://support.neat.com/smartorganizationsystem/create-a-local-backup
  
  Please keep in mind that the Light-Weight Application will only allow you to download the files as PDFs. The download will not include your folder structure or any notes/metadata associated with your items. 

  Customer response

  04/11/2022

  [A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response.  If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]
  
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. 
  
  Regards,
  
  ***** ********
  

• Initial Complaint

  01/18/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Billing/Collection Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I uploaded my Neat account to the cloud. The folder structure and the items showed. I went to download my items and found out they weren't there. I was also unable to scan and upload into this cloud account. Any image of a receipt or document - the very things they were supposed to hold in the account and I should have been able to access at any time (cloud account) weren't/aren't there. They charged me full price each year for service they knew wasn't functional.

  Business response

  01/26/2022

  ****, 
  
  Thanks for reaching out, and I apologize for any trouble. After a deep dive into your account history, we found the following: 
  
  January 2013
  You originally registered your account with Neat in January 2013. It appears that at the time you were using the Legacy Desktop software which did not require a Cloud plan. 
  
  July 2013
  You signed up for a Neat Cloud plan which allowed you to sync your data from the Legacy software to the Cloud. During that time, you synced about 1300 files to the Cloud.
  
  September 2013
  You canceled that Neat Cloud plan. 
  Our terms and conditions, which you would have had to agreed upon at the time of signing up for a Neat Cloud plan indicate "Certain Services offered by Neat may be used for remote storage of your data. These storage Services are only applicable to designated folders on your computer that pertain directly to Neat and are not a substitute for a back-up and recovery solution. Neat shall not be responsible or liable for any data lost or any failure of any storage service. Any data stored through Neat's cloud storage services may be deleted 30 days following cancellation of your subscription or account, as applicable."
  
  February 2019
  After 6 years of inactivity on the Cloud and no active Cloud plan, your account was wiped and archived, per our terms and conditions. While your account would retain the folder structure and some metadata, your images were deleted from our system.
  
  April 1, 2019
  You purchased a new Neat Lite Cloud plan. Unfortunately, this was already after your account data had been wiped and archived. 
  
  April 2, 2019
  Our support team reached out to you to offer onboarding assistance. Notes on the case indicate that the phone number on the account at the time was *************, which was not accepting calls and we had no option to leave a voicemail. 
  
  April 14, 2019 
  Our system shows that this is the last time you logged into the Neat Cloud. At that time, your account data had already been wiped and archived, but you didn't contact support then to inquire about your data. Our support records indicate that before 1/13/2022, you never contacted support for any reason. 
  
  Based on this, your account and Neat Cloud plan functioned completely as normal and we have provided our services to you according to our terms and conditions. As a result, we cannot provide you with a refund for your 2019, 2020, and 2021 payments based on our terms and conditions.
  
  What I can do for you is connect with a support rep who can check to see if your data is still stored in the old Legacy Desktop Software. I can't guarantee that we will be able to recover anything, but it's worth a shot. If you have records, communications, or other evidence that support your request for a refund, please send them over and I will be happy to re-evaluate your refund. 

  Customer response

  02/14/2022

  [To assist us in bringing this matter to a close, you must give us a reason why you are rejecting the response. If no reason is received your complaint will be closed as Answered]
  
   Complaint: ********
  
  I am rejecting this response because:
  Since I was not notified, I was unaware that you were taking my money for nothing. I'm owed a refund for the fraudulent exchange. I paid for something that wasn't delivered and when the account was renewed, you had an opportunity to let me of the purge and did not. You just kept taking my money. Regards,
  
  *****************
  

  Business response

  03/16/2022

  ****, 
  
  Our terms and conditions clearly state that "Any data stored through Neat's cloud storage services may be deleted 30 days following cancellation of your subscription or account, as applicable."
  
  You agreed to these terms and conditions at the time of signing up for both your subscriptions in 2013 and in 2019. We are not obligated to tell you when your account is wiped based on these terms and conditions. 
  
  There was no fraudulent exchange as you never talked with anybody in 2019 about the status of your account. No one provided you with incorrect information or promised you that your old data was still stored in Neat. 
  
  Though we attempted to reach out to you in 2019 to offer you an onboarding session to get started with Neat, we never talked to you and you never reached out for any assistance after that.
  
  What you paid for is a Neat Cloud subscription which gives you unlimited file storage, a free Neat Mobile app, a NeatCloud import email address, the document and organization system, plus many more features, which were delivered to you. Your account continued to renew as you never canceled the account. 
  
  Based on this, your account and Neat Cloud plan functioned completely as normal and we have provided our services to you according to our terms and conditions. As a result, we cannot provide you with a refund for your 2019, 2020, and 2021 payments based on our terms and conditions. At this point, your account is canceled and will not renew this year. 
  
  The only thing I can do for you is to connect you with a support rep who can check to see if your data is still stored in the old Legacy Desktop Software. I can't guarantee that we will be able to recover anything, but it's worth a shot. If you have records, communications, or other evidence that support your request for a refund, please send them over and I will re-evaluate your refund. 

• Initial Complaint

  12/03/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Problems with Product/Service

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  I had a plan with The Neat company for 79.99 a year, this year they jacked the price up to 300.00 a year, I am on a fixed income and cannot afford this so I had to cancel my plan. Now they are telling me that unless I pay them 300.00 dollars they will not let me access my documents. They are holding my documents hostage until I pay 300.00. Which I do not have.

  Business response

  12/14/2021

  *****, 
  
  Thanks for reaching out. We apologize for the increased cost of Neat, however, the reason the price has increased is that Neat has added several new features and enhancements to the application.
  
  Neat is now so much more than just a document organization software. In Neat, you can access your data from anywhere with our Cloud and NeatMobile application. You can connect your bank and credit card accounts to Neat for even more thorough expense tracking and reporting. You can share your account and files with others for smooth collaborations. You can customize, create, send invoices and even accept online payments for those invoices all through Neat. Finally, Neat is no longer just limited to Neat scanners anymore, you can also get items into Neat via mobile scanning, importing, emailing in, and we even allow for 3rd party scanner compatibility with our Neat Scan Utility.
  
  After reviewing your account history, it appears you chose to cancel your old Lite plan back in October of 2021. You canceled the plan in October due to the price of the old Lite plan increasing from $79.99 to $199.99. At that time, we offered to grandfather your Lite plan price point at $79.99 for one more year which you declined to take. As a result of declining our offer and canceling your plan, that old Lite plan is no longer available for purchase. If you wanted to sign up for Neat and continue using it, you would have to purchase a Neat Files plan, which is currently $300. As a courtesy, we could offer a $100 discount on that plan bringing the plan down to $200, but that is the most we could offer as the Neat Files plan includes even more features and functionality.  
  
  Alternatively, if Neat no longer fits your needs and you would like to discontinue using Neat, then we can certainly give you 14 days of access to your account and send you the Neat Lightweight Application which would allow you to down sync all of your NeatCloud files directly to your computer hard drive. After 14 days, you would lose access to both the Lightweight Application and the NeatCloud. After your account is canceled, your data remains in the Cloud for 180 days, after which it will be deleted from our system entirely. 
  
  Please let us know how you would like to move forward. 

  Customer response

  12/28/2021

  [A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response.  If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]
  
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. 
  
  Regards,
  
  ***********************
  

• Initial Complaint

  10/05/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Problems with Product/Service

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I had applied for a trial subscription to Neat and during that process I had reached out to the company to cancel my trial subscription to Neat Company. I have reviewed bank charges and they had took out $323.25 on 09/30/21 I had called the customer service office over 30 times to request a refund. I had left over 30 message. On 10/05/21 at 9:00am a Neat Company Rep reached out to me on my request for a refund has been received. This request for a refund is subject to 90 day review and approval by the finance department. We will provide you with an update shortly about the status of your refund request. I advised the rep that I am requesting for my refund back into my account within 3 business day.

  Business response

  10/12/2021

  *******, thanks for reaching out. 
  
  For clarification purposes, we reviewed your account history and we were unable to find any cancellation request from you before 10/5/2021. This is why you were billed. Had you reached out to us before your trial conversion you would have received a cancellation confirmation email before your billing on 9/30/2021. 
  
  Additionally, we were very concerned about your reports of calling support dozens of times to get assistance. However, after reviewing your call history we only see that you contacted support 6 times, 5 of which were shorter than 30 seconds. 
  
  Finally, the agent who assisted you appears to have followed our cancellation and refund policies correctly and escalated your refund request appropriately. That refund was approved and processed by our account services team on 10/6/2021. Once a refund is processed on our end, it is up to your bank and their policies as to when those funds will be available in your account. If you still have not received your refund, then we suggest you reach out to your financial institution for further assistance. Thank you. 

• Initial Complaint

  08/01/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Problems with Product/Service

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I bought 2 Neat Scanners. The first was a model **-****. The second was **-****. I have been using the software that came with them. I now want to use it on a different computer. They however removed an important item so installing on another computer will not work. I read on their web site that I had better convert all my files to PDF or I will lose all my years of backed up data if my existing computer crashes. I paid over 300 bucks each for these scanners. They are trying to make it so I have to pay a 36 dollar a month subscription to use them or to use different software, but I won't have my data from the last 10 years that I have saved.

  Business response

  08/06/2021

  Hello ******, 
  
  Thanks for reaching out. It appears you are reaching out about the free Legacy Neat software that was discontinued in 2014. Since its retirement, the old Legacy software that came with your scanners has received no enhancements and is not supported. 
  
  Neat has not removed anything from the software installation package to prevent you from installing it. Rather, the software is so old that it is no longer compatible with newer operating systems. This is due to limitations from ********** not Neat. ********* has stopped supporting and discontinued key C++ files required for installing the old Legacy software. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do to make it so you can install the Legacy software on newer PCs because of these limitations. 
  
  Since the retirement of the Legacy software, we have let Legacy customers know that they can continue to use the Neat Legacy software at their own risk. We have also adamantly suggested that Neat Legacy users move their data out of Legacy versions of Neat to prevent any data loss. This is because Neat has not released any enhancements or updates to the Legacy software since its retirement and therefore newer operating systems and changes made by ********* and ***** may render this software inoperable.
  See more here: https://support.neat.com/retired/neat-to-end-support-of-legacy-desktop-software
  
  You absolutely do not need to purchase anything to continue to use your Neat scanner. If you still have access to the Legacy software on your old computer, then you could recover your data from that software and move it out of the old software to your computer hard drive. Then you could continue using your Neat scanner for FREE using the Neat Scan Utility. The utility will allow you to continue to use your Neat scanner to scan your documents to your computer hard drive. 
  https://support.neat.com/scanutility/install-neat-scan-utility
  
  Additionally, Neat technicians may be able to recover data from older versions of Neat into the Neat Cloud, but we cannot guarantee it. What we can offer you is a one-time courtesy support session with a Neat technician who can attempt to recover your data. If the data is recoverable, then they will move it to your computer hard drive. Keep in mind though, they will not be able to install the Legacy software on a newer computer with a new OS, they will need to try to recover the data from your older PC with the Legacy software still installed. Please let us know if you would like to schedule a one-time courtesy support session and we will connect you with a Neat technician. 

• Initial Complaint

  06/22/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Billing/Collection Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Neat Co. charged **** account $199.99 on 6/04/2021 for renewal of subscription to software subscription. Account and subscription had been cancelled in 2018 and Neat Co. software and services have not been accessed or used since 2018.Emailed and called Neat Co. Account Services. Received email response instruction me to respond to email with details but email response address for Neat not valid. Phone call to Account Services went to offshore call center. Could barely speak English and read from script. Instead of agreeing to refund charges, attempted to upsell me on new subscription at a lower cost. Indicated that my request was within 30 day cancellation period and promised to issue refund and send confirmation. No confirmation received. Highly suspicious.

  Business response

  06/30/2021

  A refund for $199.99 has already been processed on June 23rd, 2021 for ***** to the **** card on file. Neat support agents were professional and followed our policies and procedures correctly. They sent 4 different confirmation emails to ***** about the account being canceled successfully, about the received request for refund, and about the confirmation of the refund being processed. 

• Initial Complaint

  05/27/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Problems with Product/Service

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I brought hardware and was pushed into a cloud subscription with the Neat scanning company. The company was double charging because there were two email addresses on file for my account. When I realized what was happening, I contacted the Neat company and was issued a refund. This incident occurred in 2020. This year after reviewing my credit statements, I realized the Neat company was still double charging me. After contacting them, I was told again that there were two email addresses on file for me. In this case, it was the same address, but they had added an "s" after the name. They overcharged me a total of  539.67. Again I called and was told they would issue you the refund. I received the refund today for less than half the amount I was charged and was told they would only issue a refund for up to one year. This company is committing fraud and should be penalized for the fraudulent practices. I'm not sure how they managed to add an s after my email address.

  Business response

  06/04/2021

  Thank you for submitting a review.

  After further review of your account, we will be issuing a check in the amount of $419.75 to your address on file. We can see that your last log in was August of 2018 and as a courtesy, Neat provided credits to your account that would take care of your payments from July 2018-February 2019. We apologize for any inconvenience caused and you should be expecting your check with the next 7-10 business days. If you have any further concerns or questions, please reach out to our support team for assistance. Thank you again for submitting a review. 

• Initial Complaint

  04/21/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Billing/Collection Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  Neat company is a cloud based service which allows an individual to scan documents/receipts into the cloud. We have not used this service for several years and had been being billed annually without realizing this. My ******** ******* statement had a charge of $211.99 billed on 2/27/21 to my charge card. However, my statement is not received until April as due date for that billing cycle is due on 4/21/21. I called Neat around 4/5/21 to cancel service and have charge removed. The first representative said there would be no problem removing the charge. However, they noted we had about 3,000 documents that I may want to download first. Then to call back when finished and they would remove the charge. They sent me an email for how to download documents and gave me a case number of ********. However, I was going out of town and just now tried to download the documents. It is worthless as they only allow one document at a time in PDF format. The CVS format just lists the information in line format and can only be done in quantities of 10 at a time. Therefore, I called today 4/21/21 and relayed the case number and just told them to remove the charge as I am not happy with this service at all and cannot download my information anyways. Now they are saying I am outside of the alowable cancellation period. I want this service CANCELLED and my money REFUNDED. I also contacted ******** ******* via computer however the format they ask if is this was a subscription and if I cancelled within an allowable period. I could not explain the details of this transaction.

  Business response

  04/30/2021

  Hello *******,

  A review of our records shows that a refund has already been issued on April 26, 2021 in the amount of $211.99. Once processed on our end, the refund may take up to 8 business days to appear in your account depending on your creditor's processes. 

  It is also worth noting that when you contacted us on April 21, 2021, our representative offered a no-cost and much faster alternative to retrieving your documents from the cloud. 

  Regards,

  The Neat Company

  Customer response

  05/11/2021

  [A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response.  If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]
  
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. 
  
  Regards,
  ******* ********
  
  

• Initial Complaint

  02/17/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Problems with Product/Service

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Cannot contact. company without a current subscription. My subscription ended more than a year ago, yet, they continue to bill me. I cannot log in and remove my credit card unless I renew my subscription (and pay them). They owe me a refund for more than a years worth of charges and I would like that now!

  Business response

  02/19/2021

  ****, 
  
  After reviewing the account under ************@*****.com, we see that you requested a cancellation on 6/11/2020. That request was honored and your account was canceled and we have not billed you for that account since. 
  
  We located another account under ************@*******.net. This account was canceled on 6/6/2019 after we received a cancellation request on 6/6/2019. We have not billed you for that account since. 
  
  We located another account under ****@*********.com. This account is canceled as per your request on 2/17/2021. We have reviewed this account and there are no prior cancellation requests on this account to 2/17/2021. Your cancellation request has been honored, however, we cannot honor your refund request as we have no record of a previous cancellation request and you have been using that account to store over 300 items in the Neat Cloud. If you have proof of a previous cancellation request on this account, then please share that with us and we will re-review your refund request. 
  
  If you need access to the account under ****@*********.com to collect data, then we can assist you with that. You will be able to log in to and access the data stored in this account until 3/5/2021. Please let us know if you need assistance accessing this data. 

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩