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The whole point of not allowing you to cancel the account is twofold: 1. To make it difficult and frustrating to cancel by wasting the user's time. 2. To allow

The whole point of not allowing you to cancel the account is twofold: 1. To make it difficult and frustrating to cancel by wasting the user's time. 2. To allow the company the opportunity to haggle the price of the subscription down, convince you not to cancel, or worse, upsell you on other services. I can totally foresee some kind of Google Duplex detection in the future intended specifically to ensure that they're wasting the time of a human, not a pile of linear algebra in a Google datacenter. Or perhaps they play legal games with two-party consent states to try and find a way to sue Google into not offering the service.

lmilcin 6y ago
Just introduce a law that when the client tells the magic sentence three times they have to invoke cancellation part of the agreement no questions asked. Let people record their conversations and hold companies accountable.
- DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
  IANAL, but I'm fairly certain that's already the case today - except the "magic sentence" is a physically mailed "please cancel my account" letter sent by USPS with signed-delivery to the company's registered head office address. All registered companies in all US states must respond to bona-fide customer correspondence sent to their registered address. It's just unfortunate that mailing a physical letter is such a pain. It could be worse: it was only 4 years ago I needed to cancel my HVAC installation with Sears Home Services and invoked my right to cancel the contract under WA law - and Sears required me to send an actual telegram (yes, the old-school, hand-delivered, all-caps short text messages) to their head-office address. I used this company: https://www.americantelegram.com/timedatestamp.php https://www.americantelegram.com/timedatestamp.php - to send it (and yes, it worked and I got out of the contract). But wow. I don't know how this can possibly be legal as it places an unnecessary undue burden on consumers unless there's some archaic legal carve-out for telegrams specifically?
  - lmilcin 6y ago
    I think if the company allows the client enter into contractual obligation by phone it should also be possible to invoke the cancellation part of the contract the same way. These days we get into so many contractual obligations (I can't even count the number of different subscription services I use) exactly because it is easy to make them and the law should protect users by preventing companies from making it hard to cancel it. So, if a company allows the client to create a contract by phone or Internet, it should also be easy to cancel it the same way.
    - pishpash 6y ago
      Or just information would be sufficient. I'd like to know the walkthrough for backing out of a contract as experienced by an actual person before I sign.
  - derefr 6y ago
    Obviously, there should be a SaaS API for sending templated physical-mail cancellation letters. The company could even keep a notary on staff to notarize everything they send at no extra cost.
    - kube-system 6y ago
      There are a good number of APIs that will mail physical letters, pretty sure they’ve been a thing since the dot com bubble.
    - anamexis 6y ago
      There was a startup called AirPaper that would do this for cancelling Comcast, $5/pop. It's no longer around, which I know because I was trying to look them up the last time I needed to cancel Comcast.
  - TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
    > All registered companies in all US states must respond to bona-fide customer correspondence sent to their registered address. I’ve never heard of such a law before, but if one exists, it would be individual state law since corporations are incorporated at the state level. Do you have a link for this?
- p4coder 6y ago
  Talaq! Talaq!! Talaq!!!
  - earthboundkid 6y ago
    Did you sign a prenup?
    - mardifoufs 6y ago
      >Upon talaq, the wife is entitled to the full payment of mahr if it had not already been paid. The husband is obligated to financially support her until the end of the waiting period or the delivery of her child, if she is pregnant. In addition, she has a right to child support and any past due maintenance, which Islamic law requires to be paid regularly in the course of marriage The prenup is hardcoded.
      - ArnoVW 6y ago
        Reality is, as often, more complex. I highly recommend the feature length fly on the wall style documentary 'divorce iranian style'. Entirely recorded in an Iranian divorce court: https://youtu.be/BBm8GqMNwXU
  - erklik 6y ago
    Interestingly, the common understanding of this is somewhat false. It's not that easy to simply divorce anyone in Islam. There needs to be arbitration by both families beforehand, and a three month waiting period. Only after that, should a divorce occur.
    - ibn_khaldun 6y ago
      This is entirely incorrect. An utterance of a single "Talaq" will render the marriage void until it is renewed.
- cactus2093 6y ago
  There's a law in California that if you sign up for an account online you have to be able to cancel it online. However I've come across a lot of companies that just ignore it, most recently Zipcar. I guess I could try to sue or something, but I feel like companies can just call the average consumer's bluff that you're not really gonna bother suing over this so they can just ignore the law.
  - artificial 6y ago
    I was not aware of this and was on a phone call to cancel service earlier today. Thanks! I found this in a quick search, 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...
  - MiroF 6y ago
    > Zipcar As best as I can tell, Zipcar seems to be a shell of a company barely still functioning.
    - rrdharan 6y ago
      That’s because Avis acquired them back in 2013.
- gnopgnip 6y ago
  CA has a law that requires companies to accept cancellations in the same way you can sign up, online for instance, but it is mostly enforced against more serious scams, not legitimate companies that make cancellation difficult
- smarx007 6y ago
  In Germany a company must process physical mail requests, there is are sites with templates for a large number of companies, e.g. https://www.kuendigung.org/vodafone-kuendigung-vorlage/ https://www.kuendigung.org/vodafone-kuendigung-vorlage/. In many EU countries, post within the country almost never takes more that a few work days to arrive. Just trying to broaden the perspective, not start a heated discussion :)
  - chokma 6y ago
    It's also a good idea to cancel services via mail and to demand a written response confirming the cancellation. Otherwise, Vodafone (from your example) may conveniently forget the exact date of your cancellation... and good luck proving you cancelled an account on time if the confirmation SMS is now stored on a no longer valid SIM card, you cannot prove anything. Yeah, Vodafone ... still sending invoices which deny I cancelled my contract half a year ago. edit:grammar
    - Liquid_Fire 6y ago
      You should still be able to access the SMS messages stored on a disabled SIM. It just won't connect to the network. (Also, obviously you can copy the message to the phone memory, screenshot it, etc)
    - smerdyakov 6y ago
      Consumer protection is definitely lacking in Germany in this regard. Especially the automatic 6 month renewal of contracts if you don't explicitly cancel 3 weeks before the end of the contract! It really irks me. Automatic renewal is definitely not enforceable under e.g. UK law and I'm pretty sure also under EU law and yet it persists in Germany somehow. Argh!
      - levosmetalo 6y ago
        No, your contract doesn't get renewed automatically. In Germany usually your contract says it will automatically extend for a year unless cancelled. This basically makes your contract open ended with cancellation option, which you need to exercise if you want to cancel. You can also cancel your contract in case the other party change anything related to it. There's nothing wrong with that, you just need to read what you sign. And it's a common practice, not a surprise. If you want to be sure your contract will not extend, you can always hand over the cancellation request at the time of signing the contract.
- maeln 6y ago
  I know that in France (and I think in the EU in general) this exists. You send a letter, but in France a email is also valid, and they have to cancel your subscription asap. I actually worked for a company that implemented an AI to try to recognized those email to automate the cancellation process (there was still a human at the end to validate the cancellation to avoid false positive).
- TuringNYC 6y ago
  The magic sentence is usually pressing 0 a number of times until you get an operator. A more sophisticated approach is this https://pleasepress1.com/ https://pleasepress1.com/ -- they give you the sequence of numbers to get past menus to a human
- rmc 6y ago
  The GDPR, the EU Privacy law, allows processing personal data if the person consents to it. Consent can be withdrawn, and, as the law says, “It must be as easy to withdraw consent as to give it”. That simple formulation is easier. “It must be as easy to cancel a service/subscription as to sign up”. Able to sign up online? Then it must be possible to cancel online
matheusmoreira 6y ago
So why can't we simply refuse to pay? We should be able to just cancel the payment and that should be the end of it. They'll cancel the service for us when they see we didn't pay for it. No user interaction necessary.
- vkou 6y ago
  > So why can't we simply refuse to pay? Because legal consumer protections in the US are not very strong, and if you are wronged, you are instead supposed to go to arbitration, or file a lawsuit.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  In most cases you can. If you've taken reasonable steps to cancel in good faith and the merchant is uncooperative then canceling the payment is the logical next step. They can still send your account to collections or ding your credit record, but you can still refuse to pay; ultimately the only way they legally force you to pay is by going through the courts system but I expect that if you have documentation of your (unsuccessful) efforts to cancel the case should be in your favor (which is why this will never reach the courts in the first place).
- dbcurtis 6y ago
  This seems like a great credit card benefit. CC's offer all sorts of "cash back", "insured against loss/damage", "miles", and other things to attract customers. How about a "no hassle cancellations service". How about: "Switch your monthly Comcast bill to pay through us, and cancel any time with one quick call or do it online!" CC company gets a nice stream of monthly charges out of it.
  - matheusmoreira 6y ago
    I completely agree. Cancelling a service should be as easy as asking the bank to block the payments. The problem will solve itself. Gotta be careful with online service accounts though. Doing charge backs actually violates their terms of service and will probably get people's accounts banned/deleted. Not a good idea to do a charge back on something like a Steam account with over $2000 spent on it. The woes of DRM...
derefr 6y ago
If they want to go that far, why not just charge you a cancellation fee? Making you wait is already a way of extracting a fee in the form of a proof-of-work; but, unlike an actual cancellation fee, a cancellation proof-of-work can't be spent.
- kube-system 6y ago
  That could be prohibited by law in some places for some things
TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
AOL pioneered and optimized this cancellation game like no one ever had before and made millions from people who could not cancel. IIRC there was a class action lawsuit about it years ago. EDIT: looks like they settled for $1.25 million, a ridiculous salon on the wrist when their take home was many many times that https://www.cbsnews.com/news/aol-settles-cancellations-suit/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/aol-settles-cancellations-suit/ There may have been other suits... this one was limited to NY?
pishpash 6y ago
It comes down to money. Maybe corporates will have more money to throw at bots, or maybe consumers will have more money in aggregate to throw at bots.
sagarm 6y ago
In California, if you can sign up online they must allow you to cancel purely online as well.
pjmlp 6y ago
While back in most European countries if I get pissed off with such attitudes, I just need to report the company to the consumer's protection agency and they will take it from there. It might not be as fast as one would like, but it usually does the trick.
- hisnameisjimmy 6y ago
  lol, I've never had worse customer support than while in Europe. I had no idea how good we had it in the US until living in Europe. I'm not sure what my threshold is for reporting a company to a bureaucratic institution in hopes for resolution, but I think it would have to be very high.
  - afurculita 6y ago
    Ok. What was the experience? Sometimes the customer is not right.
john_minsk 6y ago
Thanks to such practices Apple Pay subscriptions services are so competitive. Unfortunately, Spotify got burnt by it and many other honest actors. Just like AdBlockers all over again

lmilcin 6y ago

Just introduce a law that when the client tells the magic sentence three times they have to invoke cancellation part of the agreement no questions asked. Let people record their conversations and hold companies accountable.

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
IANAL, but I'm fairly certain that's already the case today - except the "magic sentence" is a physically mailed "please cancel my account" letter sent by USPS with signed-delivery to the company's registered head office address. All registered companies in all US states must respond to bona-fide customer correspondence sent to their registered address. It's just unfortunate that mailing a physical letter is such a pain. It could be worse: it was only 4 years ago I needed to cancel my HVAC installation with Sears Home Services and invoked my right to cancel the contract under WA law - and Sears required me to send an actual telegram (yes, the old-school, hand-delivered, all-caps short text messages) to their head-office address. I used this company: https://www.americantelegram.com/timedatestamp.php https://www.americantelegram.com/timedatestamp.php - to send it (and yes, it worked and I got out of the contract). But wow. I don't know how this can possibly be legal as it places an unnecessary undue burden on consumers unless there's some archaic legal carve-out for telegrams specifically?
- lmilcin 6y ago
  I think if the company allows the client enter into contractual obligation by phone it should also be possible to invoke the cancellation part of the contract the same way. These days we get into so many contractual obligations (I can't even count the number of different subscription services I use) exactly because it is easy to make them and the law should protect users by preventing companies from making it hard to cancel it. So, if a company allows the client to create a contract by phone or Internet, it should also be easy to cancel it the same way.
  - pishpash 6y ago
    Or just information would be sufficient. I'd like to know the walkthrough for backing out of a contract as experienced by an actual person before I sign.
- derefr 6y ago
  Obviously, there should be a SaaS API for sending templated physical-mail cancellation letters. The company could even keep a notary on staff to notarize everything they send at no extra cost.
  - kube-system 6y ago
    There are a good number of APIs that will mail physical letters, pretty sure they’ve been a thing since the dot com bubble.
  - anamexis 6y ago
    There was a startup called AirPaper that would do this for cancelling Comcast, $5/pop. It's no longer around, which I know because I was trying to look them up the last time I needed to cancel Comcast.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
  > All registered companies in all US states must respond to bona-fide customer correspondence sent to their registered address. I’ve never heard of such a law before, but if one exists, it would be individual state law since corporations are incorporated at the state level. Do you have a link for this?
p4coder 6y ago
Talaq! Talaq!! Talaq!!!
- earthboundkid 6y ago
  Did you sign a prenup?
  - mardifoufs 6y ago
    >Upon talaq, the wife is entitled to the full payment of mahr if it had not already been paid. The husband is obligated to financially support her until the end of the waiting period or the delivery of her child, if she is pregnant. In addition, she has a right to child support and any past due maintenance, which Islamic law requires to be paid regularly in the course of marriage The prenup is hardcoded.
    - ArnoVW 6y ago
      Reality is, as often, more complex. I highly recommend the feature length fly on the wall style documentary 'divorce iranian style'. Entirely recorded in an Iranian divorce court: https://youtu.be/BBm8GqMNwXU
- erklik 6y ago
  Interestingly, the common understanding of this is somewhat false. It's not that easy to simply divorce anyone in Islam. There needs to be arbitration by both families beforehand, and a three month waiting period. Only after that, should a divorce occur.
  - ibn_khaldun 6y ago
    This is entirely incorrect. An utterance of a single "Talaq" will render the marriage void until it is renewed.
cactus2093 6y ago
There's a law in California that if you sign up for an account online you have to be able to cancel it online. However I've come across a lot of companies that just ignore it, most recently Zipcar. I guess I could try to sue or something, but I feel like companies can just call the average consumer's bluff that you're not really gonna bother suing over this so they can just ignore the law.
- artificial 6y ago
  I was not aware of this and was on a phone call to cancel service earlier today. Thanks! I found this in a quick search, 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...
- MiroF 6y ago
  > Zipcar As best as I can tell, Zipcar seems to be a shell of a company barely still functioning.
  - rrdharan 6y ago
    That’s because Avis acquired them back in 2013.
gnopgnip 6y ago
CA has a law that requires companies to accept cancellations in the same way you can sign up, online for instance, but it is mostly enforced against more serious scams, not legitimate companies that make cancellation difficult
smarx007 6y ago
In Germany a company must process physical mail requests, there is are sites with templates for a large number of companies, e.g. https://www.kuendigung.org/vodafone-kuendigung-vorlage/ https://www.kuendigung.org/vodafone-kuendigung-vorlage/. In many EU countries, post within the country almost never takes more that a few work days to arrive. Just trying to broaden the perspective, not start a heated discussion :)
- chokma 6y ago
  It's also a good idea to cancel services via mail and to demand a written response confirming the cancellation. Otherwise, Vodafone (from your example) may conveniently forget the exact date of your cancellation... and good luck proving you cancelled an account on time if the confirmation SMS is now stored on a no longer valid SIM card, you cannot prove anything. Yeah, Vodafone ... still sending invoices which deny I cancelled my contract half a year ago. edit:grammar
  - Liquid_Fire 6y ago
    You should still be able to access the SMS messages stored on a disabled SIM. It just won't connect to the network. (Also, obviously you can copy the message to the phone memory, screenshot it, etc)
  - smerdyakov 6y ago
    Consumer protection is definitely lacking in Germany in this regard. Especially the automatic 6 month renewal of contracts if you don't explicitly cancel 3 weeks before the end of the contract! It really irks me. Automatic renewal is definitely not enforceable under e.g. UK law and I'm pretty sure also under EU law and yet it persists in Germany somehow. Argh!
    - levosmetalo 6y ago
      No, your contract doesn't get renewed automatically. In Germany usually your contract says it will automatically extend for a year unless cancelled. This basically makes your contract open ended with cancellation option, which you need to exercise if you want to cancel. You can also cancel your contract in case the other party change anything related to it. There's nothing wrong with that, you just need to read what you sign. And it's a common practice, not a surprise. If you want to be sure your contract will not extend, you can always hand over the cancellation request at the time of signing the contract.
maeln 6y ago
I know that in France (and I think in the EU in general) this exists. You send a letter, but in France a email is also valid, and they have to cancel your subscription asap. I actually worked for a company that implemented an AI to try to recognized those email to automate the cancellation process (there was still a human at the end to validate the cancellation to avoid false positive).
TuringNYC 6y ago
The magic sentence is usually pressing 0 a number of times until you get an operator. A more sophisticated approach is this https://pleasepress1.com/ https://pleasepress1.com/ -- they give you the sequence of numbers to get past menus to a human
rmc 6y ago
The GDPR, the EU Privacy law, allows processing personal data if the person consents to it. Consent can be withdrawn, and, as the law says, “It must be as easy to withdraw consent as to give it”. That simple formulation is easier. “It must be as easy to cancel a service/subscription as to sign up”. Able to sign up online? Then it must be possible to cancel online

matheusmoreira 6y ago

So why can't we simply refuse to pay? We should be able to just cancel the payment and that should be the end of it. They'll cancel the service for us when they see we didn't pay for it. No user interaction necessary.

vkou 6y ago
> So why can't we simply refuse to pay? Because legal consumer protections in the US are not very strong, and if you are wronged, you are instead supposed to go to arbitration, or file a lawsuit.
Nextgrid 6y ago
In most cases you can. If you've taken reasonable steps to cancel in good faith and the merchant is uncooperative then canceling the payment is the logical next step. They can still send your account to collections or ding your credit record, but you can still refuse to pay; ultimately the only way they legally force you to pay is by going through the courts system but I expect that if you have documentation of your (unsuccessful) efforts to cancel the case should be in your favor (which is why this will never reach the courts in the first place).
dbcurtis 6y ago
This seems like a great credit card benefit. CC's offer all sorts of "cash back", "insured against loss/damage", "miles", and other things to attract customers. How about a "no hassle cancellations service". How about: "Switch your monthly Comcast bill to pay through us, and cancel any time with one quick call or do it online!" CC company gets a nice stream of monthly charges out of it.
- matheusmoreira 6y ago
  I completely agree. Cancelling a service should be as easy as asking the bank to block the payments. The problem will solve itself. Gotta be careful with online service accounts though. Doing charge backs actually violates their terms of service and will probably get people's accounts banned/deleted. Not a good idea to do a charge back on something like a Steam account with over $2000 spent on it. The woes of DRM...

derefr 6y ago

If they want to go that far, why not just charge you a cancellation fee? Making you wait is already a way of extracting a fee in the form of a proof-of-work; but, unlike an actual cancellation fee, a cancellation proof-of-work can't be spent.

kube-system 6y ago
That could be prohibited by law in some places for some things

TedDoesntTalk 6y ago

AOL pioneered and optimized this cancellation game like no one ever had before and made millions from people who could not cancel. IIRC there was a class action lawsuit about it years ago. EDIT: looks like they settled for $1.25 million, a ridiculous salon on the wrist when their take home was many many times that https://www.cbsnews.com/news/aol-settles-cancellations-suit/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/aol-settles-cancellations-suit/ There may have been other suits... this one was limited to NY?

pishpash 6y ago

It comes down to money. Maybe corporates will have more money to throw at bots, or maybe consumers will have more money in aggregate to throw at bots.

sagarm 6y ago

In California, if you can sign up online they must allow you to cancel purely online as well.

pjmlp 6y ago

While back in most European countries if I get pissed off with such attitudes, I just need to report the company to the consumer's protection agency and they will take it from there. It might not be as fast as one would like, but it usually does the trick.

hisnameisjimmy 6y ago
lol, I've never had worse customer support than while in Europe. I had no idea how good we had it in the US until living in Europe. I'm not sure what my threshold is for reporting a company to a bureaucratic institution in hopes for resolution, but I think it would have to be very high.
- afurculita 6y ago
  Ok. What was the experience? Sometimes the customer is not right.

john_minsk 6y ago

Thanks to such practices Apple Pay subscriptions services are so competitive. Unfortunately, Spotify got burnt by it and many other honest actors. Just like AdBlockers all over again