SAN FRANCISCO, California – Tech start-up and maker of artificial hearts “beats-for-keeps”, is threatening to terminate service to customers after a switch to a pay-per-beat model. The price increase will see the monthly cost to customers rise from approximately $300 to as much as $3000 per month, leaving many claiming the companies is heartless.
A company spokesperson said “ten years ago we pioneered the subscription heart model, providing artificial hearts at zero up front cost to tens of thousands of Americans. Amid the current economic conditions, venture capital has all but dried up, leaving us in the rare situation unheard of for many Unicorn companies – we’re going to have to make a profit. To this end we’ve devised a pay-per-beat model, which we feel is the most equitable way to charge our customers.”
“We appreciate that some customers may not be able to pay the price increase, and although we can offer some leeway, we will have to terminate customers who can’t pay.”
We asked the company spokesperson to clarify what they meant by “terminate”, to which they responded “oh we mean literally terminate our customers, they’ll drop dead the moment we remotely disable the heart. Of course we offer our heart-felt condolences, however we remind families of the recently deceased that the heart remains property of beats-for-keeps, so unless the next-of-kin wants debt-collectors knocking down their door, the heart will have to be removed. Professional removal of the device by a trained technician costs $499.99; we don’t encourage relatives to remove the heart themselves, as apart from being heart-breaking emotionally, they may literally break the heart, which would mean they’ll need to bear the full retail cost of the unit , which is around $50k for our entry level slow-beats model and in excess of $200k for our super-beats range.”
Beats-for-keeps also advised us of an important product update, “with the success of the B-series heart, we are announcing that the original A-series heart, which was sold between 2010 and 2019, has gone end-of-life; unless customers with the unit also wish to go end-of-life, we recommend upgrading to the B-series. As stock of the B-series is limited, customers wishing to continue uninterrupted service will need to apply quickly, otherwise they may find up to a 6 month wait between when their existing A-Series heart stops working and the installation of their new B-series heart.”
Many customers have taken to social media claiming that beats-for-keeps’ price increases are an attack on their hearts, labelling it a “heart attack”. Despite the heart palpitations the bad publicity must being giving them, head of marketing at beats-for-keeps has confirmed that people are still beating down their door for an appointment “we’re really pumped about the opportunity in the artificial heart market! With the recent launch of our new have-a-heart campaign, which offers no-money down and deferred payments for the first 12 months, sales are through the roof! You can’t beat – get it beat – our low low up front prices!”
