Want your break-up with Regus to be painful, expensive, and protracted? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
So I wrote down some "pro tips" based on my experience handling thousands of Regus cases.
Here are three ways to make a clean break with Regus. (Too many people forget tip number 2.)
1. Move out, and move on.
When you take the position that you are legally entitled to terminate your Regus contract--which, for example, is what you do when you hire Veeto to handle your Regus case--there's no need to hang on to your Regus office for any longer than it is useful to you.
Logistically, this means you can plan to move out of your Regus office immediately following the effective termination date, if you have not already done so. Usually, the effective termination date you demand will be in the past or near future (almost always within 30 days).
One element to consider is the effective termination date. The other element is the fees you have either paid or incurred--or will incur in the event you do not move out of the office. By the time people decide to terminate their agreement with Regus, they tend to not want to even use the office anymore. Sometimes this is because they have since replaced the Regus office with some other office, and thus have no further need for the Regus office. Other times they just want to escape the madness of the Regus machine as soon as possible:
- Maybe the local office staff is rude or hostile.
- Maybe the Regus billing errors keep piling up.
- Maybe you don't feel safe in the private office anymore--or you don't feel safe storing confidential client records there--because the door lock is broken (or, as we have also seen hundreds of times, several former Regus tenants are walking around with keys to your locked office, simply because Regus couldn't be bothered to retrieve them at the end of their tenancy).
Another way to look at this is this. By moving out soon after you hire Veeto, you are not only escaping some of the nonsense described above, but you are taking away from Regus the argument that you are still a tenant and are this incurring new monthly fees. By moving out, it establishes the fact that, despite any other point of contention, there is a single date on the calendar beyond which you are no longer using any Regus services. This makes harder, therefore, for Regus to justify continuing to charge you.
Lastly, moving out makes you a more credible opponent. Why? Because remaining in the office after you have notified Regus of the termination could send the message that you are not serious about the position you have taken against them--or, at least, that you do not have confidence in it.
We know that moving is inconvenient, but it is necessary for the break-up, and honestly, if you're reading this article now, you are probably looking forward to breaking up with Regus...finally!
Breaking up can be hard to do, but it can be a bit easier if you follow these 3 steps. If you find these three tips helpful, feel free to share them with your Regus office neighbors. Suggested subject of the email: “Here’s the list of 3 Must Dos when breaking up with Regus.” Neighbor-of-the-year award!
2. Revoke Regus’ authorization to charge you.
Many Regus customers opt-in to be automatically charged for rent (and ancillary fees) each month. While we wholeheartedly advise against ever entrusting Regus with your credit card information to begin with, our advice usually does not find Regus customers until they're ready to break-up with Regus. So if you're reading this article now, it is likely that you have authorized Regus to debit your bank account or charge your credit card automatically.
Now that you have terminated your agreement with Regus, it is time to revoke their authorization to automatically charge your credit card (or bank account) each month. This might strike you as a redundant step, insofar as terminating the agreement should itself revoke Regus's authorization to keep charging you. And I totally agree with that reaction. But unfortunately--and this might not surprise you--Regus tends to play by a different set of rules, and one example of this is when Regus continues to charge your card even after your have terminated the agreement with them.
There are 2 main steps you should take here.
- Notify Regus that you revoke their authorization to charge your account and ask them to remove your financial information from their database. When Veeto handles your case, the demand letter implicitly covers this. Heads up, though: just because you ask Regus to do this does not mean that they will comply. Even if they respond in compliance, it does not mean that they have actually taken the steps to remove your financial information from their database, and from what we’ve seen, they likely will not have removed your information as you requested. You may have even discovered this yourself if you tried to remove your credit card information from your online Regus account. Surprise! It usually does not let you do that. So the second step is also important.
- Notify your financial institution (bank, credit card company) that you have revoked Regus’ authorization charge you. Each institution has its own set of rules for handling this, so you may need to provide them with documentation showing that you have terminated your relationship with Regus. If your financial institution requires documentation, you should be able to use your Veeto demand letter, for example, to satisfy that request. To put your request in context for the bank rep you speak with, you might say something like: "We've been a Regus customer for awhile, and we've now terminated the relationship; but since Regus has a long history of committing billing errors, I just want to make sure that I remove Regus' ability to keep charging me, even if by accident."
As a related side note, if there are any past, but recent, charges Regus has already hit you with that were either erroneous or unauthorized, you could also "dispute" each of those charges with your bank (or credit card company) during this same conversation. Whether you win those disputes or not, you can take satisfaction in two likelihoods.
First, many banks charge merchants like Regus "dispute fees" every time a dispute is filed, and in the event that Regus loses the dispute, Regus must give back both the amount of the disputed charge plus pay the bank the "dispute fee." [Blow on pointer finger shaped like gun barrel.]
Second, some banks might declare you the winner of the dispute outright, and of those that don't, there is usually an "investigation" that follows your dispute action, to which Regus must either respond or lose by default. All of this conspires to stack the dispute deck in your favor. So utilize it when you must.
3. Limit all further communication with Regus to email.
No more phone calls, no more in-person meetings--just email. This way, you have a written record of who said what when, and you can more ably protect your time against circular conversations with $12/hour Regus reps. (As a general rule in life, you should avoid trading time with people whose time is worth less than yours; this is one of the fundamental reasons, in fact, we built Veeto.) For further reading, here are are 3 Reasons Why You Should Try to Never Speak to Regus By Phone.
This also makes it super easy, and efficient, for you to pass along any and all documentation to a third-party service provider helping you with your Regus case, whether Veeto, an attorney, or someone else. Just hit the forward button. You can't do that with a phone call or in-person meeting.
There’s an old song by Neil Sedaka called “Breakin’ Up Is Hard To Do.”
It's about a break-up that he doesn’t want to go through. We’ve all been through the heartaches of a breakup before: returning that shirt that he left at your place, taking down all of the pictures, getting rid of those items that remind you of your now-ex. It's a chore to break up with someone.
But it does help when you can get advice from someone who has done it before--and even better if that person has done it thousands of times!
Most Regus Tenants Don't Know This (Do It Today)
For nearly a decade, Veeto has been helping people break up with companies like Regus, and we have compiled a ton of data, from handling thousands of cases, that we can leverage to help make your break-up with Regus as smooth as possible.
Need to chat about your Regus issue. Hit the easy button below to book a micro-consultation.