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Companies that make it difficult to unsubscribe should be penalised, I live in Europe and got the New York Times on a 12 month trial for €4 a month. Trial just
by mywacaday 6y ago
Companies that make it difficult to unsubscribe should be penalised, I live in Europe and got the New York Times on a 12 month trial for €4 a month. Trial just ended and it's now €8 a month, only way to cance is to ring them, have tried once so far and was on hold for 20 mins before I hung up. There should be a law that if you can sign up online you can cancel online.
- thih9 6y agoThanks for sharing this. This sounds absurd and discourages me from supporting them. On the other hand I cancelled and re-enabled netflix a number of times. I’m currently subscribed and happy that I can change it anytime.
- adamtulinius 6y agoActually we have such a law in the EU. Not sure what it's called, but I'm sure it exists. I believe the wording to be something like it has to be possible to cancel in a similar way you signed up.
- elcomet 6y agoIf it exists, it is not followed. In France, Le Monde (most famous daily newspaper) requires you to send a paper mail (and not a regular mail, but a registered mail, which costs around 5-10€) to cancel your subscription. Even if you subscribed on the website, for a 100% online subscription. It's really shady.
- erk__ 6y agoIt may not be followed in every country, but at least in Denmark the "forbrugerombudsmanden" slams down on things like that, I think that they recently sent out a message that online services should be able to be unsubscribed online as well.
- martin_bech 6y agoAlso that you should sent out an option to cancel, before each withdraw for the membership.
- imafish 6y agoReally? Not done by any of the Danish services I subscribe to
- t0mas88 6y agoThat's illegal in the EU. So you could just send them a cancellation email and stop paying.
- KMnO4 6y agoThat’s the problem with credit cards. Once they have your number, it’s very difficult to “stop paying”.
- war1025 6y agoDo people really have the same credit card number for that long? I feel like every year I end up with a new card for one reason or another and suddenly I have to track down all the places that can no longer process my payments. I learned that you can request a replacement card with the same number, which I was initially very excited about. But when you get the new card it has a different expiration date, so it still needs to be updated most places.
- kevinmchugh 6y agoThere's a process for some card providers by which merchants can automatically update their card details for recurring purchases. Visa calls it Account Updater and at least Braintree has had support for it for over a decade.
- war1025 6y agoWell that would be super convenient for me. At this point I'm just slowly transitioning to always using my checking account number directly for payment since that is stable.
- Tagbert 6y agoThe risk with that is you have no ability to contest a charge. With a credit card, you can contest and the card issuer will do a chargeback to return the funds.
- kappuchino 6y agoAs for media companies with cheap offers and shady cancelation tactics, I discovered the following: I send them a cancelation by eMail citing a german court ruling that states (roughly) "If you subscribe electronically, you must be able to unsubscribe electronically". I additionally cc one or two journalists writing about consumer issues (sometimes on cancelation oh joy) on the topics from that exact media. Works every time. And if you want to rub salt in the wound, request a detailed gdpr information about you and your account. gdpr even applies if it is not a european country based media company.
- sjwright 6y agoThe GDPR does apply to foreign companies that trade within the EU but does not (because it cannot) apply outside of the EU’s jurisdiction.
- kuschku 6y agoThe GDPR also applies to non-EU companies in non-EU countries targeting EU nationals, although it can not be directly enforced (yet).
- sjwright 6y agoOnly if there’s a clear link to the EU. Not refusing to sell to EU residents isn’t sufficient to show targeting—but offering Euro pricing or Swedish language options might be. And at the end of the day, all law fits into the cross-section of jurisdiction and motivation. If you’re a Singaporean company offering global services, there’s no jurisdiction and (unless your activities are especially egregious) no prospect of motivation.
- hyperman1 6y agoWhich basically means that if the foreign company tries to collect, sends to an EU collection agency, .... they come in jurisdiction. So they can only bark but not bite.
- kappuchino 6y ago
- rypskar 6y agoI had a case with another company. They required a letter to cancel, so I sent an email. Got automated reply that they have received it and later an email that they required a letter. I sent back an email pointing to the law. After some weeks I got a claim from a debt collection agency. I sent the email history to the agency, it did take less than 1 hour before they answered that all claims where dropped since it wasn't a legal claim
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Denvercoder9 6y agoLet them come after you. Just cancel the service in the same way you signed up (send an e-mail if you've signed up online), and then stop paying them (or block the direct debits, or reverse the credit card charges). I haven't had any company that actually bothered to send it to collections (or even sue me). Only once I got a mail that I hadn't payed, and when I replied with the cancellation e-mail attached, they said "oh, ok" and never bothered me again.
- pm3003 6y agoI've had a German collection come after me for 2 years with payment notices. I had unsubscribed by mail (which they got) and some email. They stopped last year after I wrote to them I considered I didn't own anything (a human probably read the file and dropped it).
- lucasverra 6y agoyeah, when i saw that i got so mad that I created a virtual credit card, changed the billing method, and then deleted the card. You can not imagine the big smile on my face when i received the email "we cannot charge you".... Reaaaaaally big smile on my face
- danlugo92 6y agoHow can i create such a virtual card?
- mathewsanders 6y agoThere a few options for virtual cards. Ive been using https://privacy.com/ https://privacy.com/. I’ve been using this not only for subscriptions, but also when I’m making an online purchase at a store that I think may not have the best security in place.
- Reason077 6y ago> "In France, Le Monde (most famous daily newspaper) requires you to send a paper mail (and not a regular mail, but a registered mail, which costs around 5-10€) to cancel your subscription." What is it with French companies? BlueCity, the UK arm of the French "Autolib" car sharing service, had this same ridiculous "send us a letter in the post to cancel" policy. Since they charged to a credit card rather than use direct debit like most UK companies would, you couldn't easily cancel the payments through your bank either. Since I'm quite lazy I never got around to sending them the letter and the £5/month continued (and I did use the service, occasionally). Finally a few months ago they went out of business and the charges stopped.
- gryn 6y agoYes a lot of French companies do this, I signed up for gym membership at fitness park on the internet, they had the same behavior.
- virgilp 6y agoCan you not call the bank to block the card on account of fraud and get a new one? The subsequent payments would surely be declined...
- elcomet 6y agoIt's quite a hassle, you don't have your card for a few days..
- heavenlyblue 6y agoIn the UK, last time I did this my bank themselves have shared the updated details with which they could charge me again.
- virgilp 6y agoUgh, that sucks. I've changed banks for less.
- secfirstmd 6y agoI think you might mean the GDPR interpretation about signing up online meaning you should be able to access, modify, remove online etc.
- g_p 6y agoThere is a similar sounding provision in GDPR, which requires that it is as straightforward to withdraw consent as it is to grant it (i.e. it must be possible through the same procedure, so preventing postal letters being sent to a dedicated address). Not sure if there's a similar provision for cancelling paid services, but potentially if the service relies on consent for data processing, you could use GDPR grounds to force a cancellation through the same means you signed up.
- radu_floricica 6y agoIt's worth a try, but GDPR specifically excludes contractual information. So if you have pending bills, whatever info they need to charge you is not protected by GDPR. And even after you pay, they still need your name for accounting purposes (you received $100 last year? from whom exactly? will the law ask, and you have to be able to answer)
- avianlyric 6y agoI believe there is also another EU law that requires banks and credit card providers to support merchant blocking. If you’re struggling to cancel a subscription, contact your bank and ask them to block the subscription.
- mqus 6y agoI know only a law in germany where you have to be able to cancel your phone contracts with the same medium you accepted them... But I don't know anything about more broad laws.
- jaxonrice 6y agoI had exactly the same issue and worked around it by switching my payment method to Paypal and then cancelling the subscription agreement in Paypal.
- Grollicus 6y agoThat might be dangerous. At least in Germany there's a difference between the service agreement and the payment. As long as you don't cancel the service, if you are not paying you just amass more and more money that you owe them.
- misnome 6y agoExactly same issue a few years ago with The Times in the UK, with the ringing and very odd restricted availability hours, except they also said it was “technically impossible” to cancel without charging three more “monthly” charges. I cancelled my card and somehow they managed to rescind access.
- dimitar 6y agoAlso in Europe, I tried unsubscribing by SMS, and it seems to be pretty frustrating, I confirmed a few times I wanted to cancel and instead all I got was more questions and offers. In the end I took the offer of 25 cents a week for a year, waiting to see how they'll charge my PayPal.
- cpv 6y agoOne reason I try to never give my card to lots of websites. If they have paypal, good. Or playstore subscription, sure. A one time/non recurring payment via a platform/provider/bank, ok. But never the card. Reading such user horror stories, or Terms & Conditions, makes me turn around and never come back.
- sytelus 6y agoPaypal allows canceling subscription but they have hid this link deep inside. I don't know how well that even works. Also, Paypal payment protection is basically a joke. If you get dupped by someone and try to get refund through their payment protection, you get nothing no matter how right you are. That's my first hand experience.
- varjag 6y agoAfter my kid was banned on Fortnite, I filed a bunch of paypal chargebacks on Epic Games for all the packs and extensions we bought, going back like 8 months. Got all of them back. Not to say that Paypal won't screw you over, just that it doesn't do so all the time.
- iso1210 6y agoMy understanding of paypal is that it screws people receiving money more than those paying via it.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- wdb 6y agoI never use PayPal as they still keep over thousand pound due some bullshit reason and don't want to release it. And it's pain to get to speak to a human. Currently, it's at the Financial Ombudsman
- varjag 6y agoI use a separate credit card for paying on dodgy services. Restaurants and small stores abroad, online payments not via PayPal, things like these. Relatively few monthly statements on it make anything funny stand out, and it's easy to just report/cancel the card.
- tracer4201 6y agoCalifornia has such a law, and at least on one website I changed my address from WA to California do it would show me the option to cancel directly on the website.
- jacques-noris 6y agoYou can also cancel the NYTimes by chat. Still painful, but easier and faster than by phone.
- rogem002 6y agoI believe Visa has started working on requiring platforms "Provide customers with a digital or SMS cancellation method", though due to Covid it's been pushed back a year [1]. 1. https://support.stripe.com/questions/2020-visa-trial-subscription-requirement-changes-guide https://support.stripe.com/questions/2020-visa-trial-subscri...
- g_p 6y agoThis sounds like a good and sensible step. It is a shame it has been pushed back due to Covid, as this is really not a particularly onerous requirement. Given how many companies are resorting to limited "service levels" as they have emptied their call centres and contact centres, it seems this should be expedited rather than delayed.
- harimau777 6y agoIt would be interesting to see a credit card company differentiate on this. Have an internal team which works through the various companies (presumably in order of popularity) and does the leg work of figuring out how to subscribe. So the customer would be presented with: Go to these locations and upload this information. Or even: Enter your username and password and this information and our scripts will unsubscribe you.
- klyrs 6y agoSome credit card companies do allow you to generate extra CC numbers. You can use one per service, and nuke the card to unsubscribe
- NolF 6y agoWhen I was in Europe for a holiday I subscribed to Eurosport to watch the tennis. Unfortunately, when I returned to my country, due to geofencing, I could not access the relevant Eurosport site to cease the subscription... Fortunately it was via Paypal and I could achieve the same outcome by revoking the authority...
- davchana 6y agoNYT is not even stopping me sending newsletters even after unsubscribing multiple times.
- enz 6y agoI use a virtual card (valid only once) when there isn’t a simple and clear way to unsubscribe.
- customersmoney 6y ago“Legally speaking, we can’t allow you to cancel via the app. You can only cancel via a web browser but unfortunately that system is down. Please mail a letter to PO Box 937192 or send a fax. We will process your cancellation with 4-6 weeks once we have the legally required paper request. Thank you for being a valued customer.”
- arkitaip 6y ago“But the plans were on display…” “On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.” “That’s the display department.” “With a flashlight.” “Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.” “So had the stairs.” “But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?” “Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
- joyj2nd 6y agoAs a private consumer, likely the law of your place of residency applies and they may be obligated to honour all kinds of cancellations, e.g. in California. https://www.cnet.com/news/companies-must-let-customers-cancel-subscriptions-online-california-law-says/ https://www.cnet.com/news/companies-must-let-customers-cance... Depending on the law if your jurisdiction, an email may be enough. Then cancel any future charges on your CC. IANAL. IANYL.
- metric10 6y agoTell your credit card company that it’s an unauthorized charge and request a new credit card. Some will even ship it expedited for free if you request it.
- kemitche 6y agoMaybe it's different based on how you signed up, or what kind of subscription you have, but for me at least there's a "cancel subscription" link when I go to manage my subscription online on this page: https://myaccount.nytimes.com/seg/subscription https://myaccount.nytimes.com/seg/subscription I remember it didn't exist when I signed up a few years back, and they made a big deal about announcing that I could now cancel/change my subscription online when it launched.
- hwerehqrw 6y agoYou're probably in California, or your account is tagged as being in CA.
- jdxcode 6y agoTry clicking it, I see this when I do: https://imgur.com/a/zbVvCgj https://imgur.com/a/zbVvCgj Also, I live in California.
- playeren 6y agoLast time I fell for their tricks, the "cancel subscribtion" link pointed to a page with a phone number and no other options.
- wolco 6y agoI didn't know they locked you into this dark pattern. New York Times has lost a lot of quality recently. They keep afloat from past reputation.
- vorpalhex 6y agoBetween pricing games and how hard it is to unsubscribe, I won't give them a penny. Washington Post gives you upfront yearly billing and cancellation is a few clicks, and I am a happy paying customer for them.
- 354 6y agoI really like reading nytimes and have a digitial subscription since a year back (EU citizen) but wanted to cancel it to get away from the news cycles for a while, but now found out that there is no option to cancel other than calling a phone number. The signup page mentions canceling subscriptions several times, which isn't false, but it isn't what you expect from a subscription-based page in 2020. This is in my opinion a dark pattern today. It probably would have been ok...20 years ago! Ironically they even shed light on these things a few years back, warning about different patterns: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/technology/personaltech/when-websites-wont-take-no-for-an-answer.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/technology/personaltech/w...
- sjs382 6y agoSame story with myself and NYT almost a decade ago. Keep an eye on your statements: they kept charging me and I kept needing to cancel for 3ish more months until it all finally stopped.
- unreal37 6y agoI have a NY Times subscription and didn't know this. Shady, shady.
- teekert 6y agoYeah, Adobe did this to me, then I reminded them that they broke Dutch law by increasing my contract term by 1 year after a year (this can only be done automatically for a month), after talking to bosses of bosses of bosses they finally ended my subscription.
- wpietri 6y agoYeah, agreed. I canceled my NYT subscription a while back in protest over some of their editorial misbehavior. It took me weeks to get in canceled and all my money back. Especially frustrating is that they dragged out the process and then charged me for the time that I was trying to unsubscribe. Eventually I just made American Express take the extra $2 back. I want to resubscribe eventually, as they put out a lot of good journalism. But there is no way in hell I'm doing it until it's as easy to quit as to join.
- Fezzik 6y agoOne sort of workaround is to subscribe through Apple. Then cancelling is as simple as toggling your subscription to Off. As an added bonus, when you subscribe this way, you do not even have to give the NYT any of your contact info - Apple has it set-up so you can use randomized tokens to login. One of the many things I appreciate that Apple does.
- dark 6y agoUse one of the services that allow you to generate a temporary credit card with set limits. That way you have lot more control.
- diebeforei485 6y agoIf you're an Apple user, subscribe through their in-app purchase with Apple. Apple lets you cancel monthly subscriptions fairly easily.
- halfdan 6y agoIn Germany there is.
- gizmo 6y agoEmail them and say you want to cancel and state that you're deaf so you can't do it over the phone. They have to oblige because of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
- grompotr0n 6y agoSame with me. And somehow, their online costumer service was always unavailable... What a coincidence! Luckily, in my country there is a service that allows us to create temporary credit cards and I had subscribed with one. It was just a matter of canceling that card.
- BonoboIO 6y agoWhich service is it?
- efitz 6y agoWe need a law that requires it to be no more difficult to unsubscribe from anything then it is to subscribe to that thing. If you can subscribe with one click on the website then you must be able to unsubscribe with one click on the website. The law should make it individually actionable in small claims court for each subscriber that is inconvenienced to recover damages and not allow arbitration clauses to override that right.
- silverdrake11 6y agoThis reminds me of my gym membership. They said I had to come in person to cancel it instead of by phone. So I cancelled my credit card naively thinking that my gym membership would be cancelled. After a few months I get letters and calls from a collection agency demanding the monthly payments and an additional late fee of $100
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- zambal 6y agoAs someone fromnEurope, I was in the same boat as you with a NY Times trial subscription. I didn't even tried to call them, since they not only require you to call them to cancel your subscription, but do it during US east coast office hours too. In the end I just canceled the recurring payment contract at PayPal. A few weeks later I received a 'Sorry to see you go' email from them and that was it. I'm not sure if credit cards also allow you to cancel recurring payment contracts, but sepa directdebit does (which is the payment method used if you used for example the Dutch iDeal payment method as initial payment.
- xeromal 6y agoWe have that law in California. A trick for non-californians is to change your address to a California one and sometimes the site will let you cancel. Depends if they use your shipping or billing address though.