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Quebec's Consumer Protection Act makes it outright illegal to auto-bill after free trials for non-business individual customers based here, regardless of what l

Quebec's Consumer Protection Act makes it outright illegal to auto-bill after free trials for non-business individual customers based here, regardless of what legalese those consumers agree to. How does Apple's policy allow for that? They can't claim they can ignore Quebec law, as they have both an Apple Store and a corporate office in Montreal and already acknowledge another provision of the same Quebec law on their Canadian online store website. (Quebec has no problem with requiring payment information at the time of sign-up, per se, whether as an anti-fraud measure or to make it easy for the customer to subsequently opt in for paid service.)

Marsymars 6y ago
I don't know about the App Store in particular, but the approach of most companies in Quebec is to simply not have free trials. (e.g. and to have the fist 13 months of service cost the same as the first 12 months of service in other locales.)
- jkaplowitz 6y ago
  What companies based in Quebec do the "add an extra month to the first subscription cycle" approach? I haven't experienced that from any local company. I've only seen foreign companies use that as an attempt to hand-wave past Quebec public policy here without having to program anything different, by simply rephrasing the fine print. For example, even though Amazon's systems have plenty of information that my ISP and my main shipping and billing addresses are in Quebec, Amazon markets 30-day Prime free trials to me and then notes in the fine print that Quebec residents get a 13-month first yearly cycle or 2-month first monthly cycle instead. But they also don't charge Quebec consumers for the 13-month or 2-month subscription until the end of the first month, and they don't charge us at all if we cancel during the first month. Smells just like a rebranded free trial with auto-billing. I'm not convinced Quebec courts would uphold that as legitimately different from a free trial with auto-billing if challenged. The law isn't in place just to force a change in language, it's to force a change in billing or pricing behaviour. This isn't that. Do you know if the compliance of this approach has already been ruled on? Additionally, the same law covers cancellation penalties and Amazon is noncompliant. Even after the free trial, Amazon is not supposed to charge a cancellation penalty more than the lesser of C$50 or 10% of the pro-rata remainder contract amount. So, with the annual plan here still costing C$79/year, cancelling right after the first charge should cost Quebec residents at most C$7.90, possibly less since part of the first charge is officially allocated by the fine print to the initial month for Quebec residents. In practice Amazon keeps 100% of the cost in this scenario. Article from 2015 discussing this: https://ricochet.media/en/519/amazons-quebec-users-could-face-surprise-bills https://ricochet.media/en/519/amazons-quebec-users-could-fac...
  - Marsymars 6y ago
    Sorry, can't answer your questions - I don't live in Quebec, so my exposure is purely from reading the fine print notes for Quebec and seeing how they differ. They may very well not actually be compliant with the laws. I'm a bit surprised that Amazon hasn't even bothered to adjust the billing for their 13-month cycle, that can't be the case for every company offering 13-month first yearly cycles, can it? Most recently I was looking at credit cards (HSBC, is particular) - it seems they can't waive the fist year's annual fee in Quebec, so they instead offer Quebec customers an additional welcome bonus of points equivalent to the annual fee.

Marsymars 6y ago

I don't know about the App Store in particular, but the approach of most companies in Quebec is to simply not have free trials. (e.g. and to have the fist 13 months of service cost the same as the first 12 months of service in other locales.)

jkaplowitz 6y ago
What companies based in Quebec do the "add an extra month to the first subscription cycle" approach? I haven't experienced that from any local company. I've only seen foreign companies use that as an attempt to hand-wave past Quebec public policy here without having to program anything different, by simply rephrasing the fine print. For example, even though Amazon's systems have plenty of information that my ISP and my main shipping and billing addresses are in Quebec, Amazon markets 30-day Prime free trials to me and then notes in the fine print that Quebec residents get a 13-month first yearly cycle or 2-month first monthly cycle instead. But they also don't charge Quebec consumers for the 13-month or 2-month subscription until the end of the first month, and they don't charge us at all if we cancel during the first month. Smells just like a rebranded free trial with auto-billing. I'm not convinced Quebec courts would uphold that as legitimately different from a free trial with auto-billing if challenged. The law isn't in place just to force a change in language, it's to force a change in billing or pricing behaviour. This isn't that. Do you know if the compliance of this approach has already been ruled on? Additionally, the same law covers cancellation penalties and Amazon is noncompliant. Even after the free trial, Amazon is not supposed to charge a cancellation penalty more than the lesser of C$50 or 10% of the pro-rata remainder contract amount. So, with the annual plan here still costing C$79/year, cancelling right after the first charge should cost Quebec residents at most C$7.90, possibly less since part of the first charge is officially allocated by the fine print to the initial month for Quebec residents. In practice Amazon keeps 100% of the cost in this scenario. Article from 2015 discussing this: https://ricochet.media/en/519/amazons-quebec-users-could-face-surprise-bills https://ricochet.media/en/519/amazons-quebec-users-could-fac...
- Marsymars 6y ago
  Sorry, can't answer your questions - I don't live in Quebec, so my exposure is purely from reading the fine print notes for Quebec and seeing how they differ. They may very well not actually be compliant with the laws. I'm a bit surprised that Amazon hasn't even bothered to adjust the billing for their 13-month cycle, that can't be the case for every company offering 13-month first yearly cycles, can it? Most recently I was looking at credit cards (HSBC, is particular) - it seems they can't waive the fist year's annual fee in Quebec, so they instead offer Quebec customers an additional welcome bonus of points equivalent to the annual fee.