scammers operating just within the law or legitimate, acceptable business practices?

Ok, so one of my team subscribes to a month's free trial tender alert from a seemingly reputable company. During this subscription service she is bombarded by several emails a day which ended being caught in the spam filter. At the end of the subscription, she was phoned up by the company and asked if she wanted to continue. She said "no" and they said, as is specified in their terms and conditions, that she needed to put this in writing via email or letter. As is the case with such things, she forgot to do so. A month later, an invoice arrives on our doorstep for over £1500 for the year's subscription because in failing to notify them in writing, it automatically accepted the contract on our/her behalf. Initially this made me rather angry but then it made me wonder - is this a valid and common business practice or is it, as several thousand forum and blog posts indicate, a scam that operates *just* within the law? Charging for a month seems reasonable based on a misunderstanding but charging 25% of the contract fee for a cancellation is somewhat unreasonable.

A possible example of this sort of miscommunication/business practice can be found on this thread here:

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?245844-BIP-Solutions!!!!-Lookout-Issues&p=3135463#post3135463

I could never run a business that way - we make sure people sign off on costs before we ever do any work for them and that they're well aware of what they're spending and on what. So when a seemingly reputable firm fails to change their (still legal but, imho bad) business practices to make themselves more transparent to their customers, I have to question their motives. Surely to continue operating in such a way (where people who make an honest mistake by forgetting to cancel a subscription - and no, no credit card details were parted with during the set up of the free trial) will continue to build up more and more bad will for the company in question?

I'm a staunch advocate of good karma-rketing. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Live and let live, eat drink and be merry and all that jazz. Is there room in a globalised marketplace for any other way of business in this century?


Mmm I'm tempted to take this to linkedin to see what others think of this. Perhaps I'm being naive but I suspect I'm just beginning to understand the law of the business jungle and the need for an empowered trading standards body that can police the grey areas of the law where exploitation occurs..

E&OE