18 ms·

Imagine having a business model so fragile that your only line of defense is to obscure the cancellation process through these tactics. Do they really think th

Imagine having a business model so fragile that your only line of defense is to obscure the cancellation process through these tactics. Do they really think that they can curve their churn this way? I mean best you’re doing is getting maybe another month or so of revenue from a customer who is just pushing the pain of cancelling because they are busy or lazy. And at the end instead of getting what could be a dormant customer who can sign up later again, what you get is someone who hates your company. What an incredibly stupid way to erode the brand of a publication, whose major asset to survive is precisely its brand.

Theory5 6y ago
This happened to me with audible. They didn't have the cancel subscription on the app. Had to hunt for it on the site. Was asked if i was suuuuuuure i wanted to leave, 3 separate times before it canceled. Definitely not thinking of doing that again, or like i do for some streaming services, pay for a couple months, stop, then pay for a few more. Utterly rediculous.
- treeman79 6y ago
  Signed up for some hosting online. Cancelation apparently required a fax. Got a legal friend to help me write a scary letter. Service was promptly canceled.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
  Another related dark pattern: When cancelling a Prime trial, Amazon makes it appear as if you're going to lose the Prime benefits immediately, not at the end of the trial, to keep you from cancelling early. (It seems like you DO keep them until the end of the trial, but you only get told that after cancelling) Together with their decreased support quality (agents barely understanding what I write + the typical "tell the customer what they want to hear so they go away and give you a good CSAT, by the time they realize you lied it won't matter for you anymore"), I have a _very_ low opinion of Amazon. They still have a service (delivery time), price (free shipping) and consistency advantage in many cases, but it's quickly shrinking, and I am much more likely to buy from alternative places if they can make a competitive offer.
  - slang800 6y ago
    I've experienced the opposite with Amazon. If you complain about a product you've gotten they simply refund the full purchase price, no need to return the item or anything. I've even gotten months of prime refunded by telling them I forgot to cancel. I assume that eating the cost of a bad purchase is cheaper for them than upsetting a long-term customer.
    - dingaling 6y ago
      I've never had that experience with Amazon UK, they've always demanded that the broken / damaged item be returned. On one occasion when I had to return an item I ended up £30 out of pocket because it had to go by courier instead of post, due to length. I had to argue with their customer support to obtain recompense despite it having been them who told me to send it courier. The item was only worth £80. Nowadays I just use Amazon as a price baseline but shop elsewhere.
      - vinay427 6y ago
        On returned items, both Amazon US and Amazon DE have been quite helpful. I think Amazon US is even more over-the-top, but I think the local retail standards for this are much higher in the US so it makes sense. On memberships, I don't mind the Prime cancelling issues very much because they seem to always credit back a month if you later tell them you forgot to cancel. Unfortunately, there are annoying dark patterns when signing up, hiding the "No thanks" button when trying to get through an order, etc.
      - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
        I just returned an item and they arranged for a courier to collect. They acknowledged the return after one day and credited my account the following day. The only thing I noticed is they hide the collection options under a button. By default they encourage you to drop off at a depot or post office.
    - alpaca128 6y ago
      In my recent experience this has changed drastically. Amazon was on average the cheapest, fastest online marketplace I'd used, and any issues were resolved within an hour. Now I'm still waiting for a product I ordered 3 months ago. The only option I have is contacting the seller - who doesn't respond. I wrote a review about the experience, which then got promptly removed. More recently I've ordered a few things from multiple places, the one outstanding delivery is from Amazon, and now almost a week late. It'll probably be the last one; their obvious lack of interest regarding fake reviews, review resetting and obfuscation, misleading pricing, counterfeit products and the constantly shrinking number of quality products have taken a toll. More often than not products are shipped from China, making it a worse choice than many local competitors who may ask higher prices for delivery but at least ship in two days instead of two weeks, have a phone support hotline and a reason to care. Very slowly but steadily the reasons I started using Amazon's platform eroded away until it became more or less a more approachable middleman for aliexpress dropshippers.
- Causality1 6y ago
  Same, then you get bombarded with ads on Amazon for a free trial despite the fact you're logged into your Amazon account and Amazon knows damn well you're not eligible for the free trial anymore. I quit Audible after prices stopped being related to length. At the $17 a pop for the three-hour books I was buying it was going to cost me $900 to get the whole series. Nope!
- jcims 6y ago
  The other issue with audible cancellation is that you throw away your credits...but then if you try to spend 5-10 credits quickly it becomes challenging...so you don't cancel. lol
  - xxxtentachyon 6y ago
    They say this, but your credits aren’t actually thrown away immediately (at least they weren’t in 2018 or thereabouts). I learned this by ending up in exactly the position you describe - trying to get rid of credits before canceling - except I gave up with one or two left. To my surprise, they were still there once I was done canceling.
    - jcims 6y ago
      This is excellent info thank you!
    - 8note 6y ago
      When I cancelled audible, it wouldnt even let me use the app, let alone use credits I had
      - HenryBemis 6y ago
        Stating the obvious here: it is a Service. When you stop the provision of a cellular service, you immediately lose access to the the service. If you have not consumed the remaining of your points/credit/etc. I find it hard that the service provider would be nice enough to let you consume them points/credit/etc. Exceptions will exist, but the general rule is such.
        vinay427 6y ago
        That's not how Audible works. You buy the credits with your subscription unlike an unlimited-consumption model such as Netflix. As a result, they have a policy of allowing credits to be used for a limited time after canceling: https://help.audible.com/s/article/do-i-keep-my-credits-if-i-cancel-my-audible-premium-plus-membership?language=en_US https://help.audible.com/s/article/do-i-keep-my-credits-if-i...
- BugWatch 6y ago
  Ah, that must be famed "Beetlejuice(, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!)" technique.
- tvphan 6y ago
  This probably has to do with Apple charging 30% for any in-app payments so Audible didn’t bother implementing any payments / subscriptions functionality on their app.
- Dissley 6y ago
  When I canceled my audible subscription I wasn't aware that I also would loose my remaining 7 credits... I will not subscribe again after this experience.
JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
This isn't the first time I've seen NYT cancellation process in my social feeds. It has to be a negative feedback loop cycle. People that read HN are absolutely the type that would consider paying for NYT (or at least the two cohorts have great overlap). This cancellation process never considered the impact of internet cancel culture and rage reactions. It's far easier to damage a brand than it is to build it up.
- kortilla 6y ago
  > People that read HN are absolutely the type that would consider paying for NYT (or at least the two cohorts have great overlap). Unlikely considering the general popularity of articles highlighting their incompetence/malfeasance. See: slatestarcodex articles of the last week
- gostsamo 6y ago
  How often do you see NYT articles on the front page? It is very rarely for me.
  - hctaw 6y ago
    They've been trending the last couple days.
    - gostsamo 6y ago
      Last couple days have only one story from NYT with ore than 100 upvotes. I didn't bother with checking further than second page of results, but though there are lots of submissions, rarely they get more than a couple of upvotes. https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=nytimes.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=nytimes.com
      - ma2rten 6y ago
        Here is an easier way of checking that: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=false&query=nytimes.com&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=fa...
tech-historian 6y ago
Back in 2006 an AOL subscriber recorded their conversation with an AOL customer service agent while trying to cancel the service. It was really bad, way worse than this NYTimes process. The NYT wrote an article about the debacle [1] and had this to say about Netflix's great customer service and ease of cancellation, compared to AOL's awful service: "Seeing how Netflix would be so protective of my time were I to leave makes me all the more unlikely to do so." Maybe the NYT should take their own advice. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/02/business/yourmoney/02digi.html https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/02/business/yourmoney/02digi...
- samcheng 6y ago
  Netflix is notoriously generous here. They allegedly auto-cancel accounts that don't use the service for too long! https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/netflix-account-cancel-delete-subscribe-renew-email-a9527626.html https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/net...
  - hda2 6y ago
    I wouldn't call this generosity. This is the normal conduct of normal honest businesses.
    - e-clinton 6y ago
      Normal? What other business does that? I can’t think of one.
      - bumby 6y ago
        The fact that it’s NOT normal to act reasonably should be telling us something. Imagine if you had to go through this exhausting process in your personal life. After half an hour since asking your spouse to help with the dishes, your spouse finally says “now that we realize using paper plates will solve your problem of dirty dishes, is there anything else I can help you with?” We wouldn’t tolerate that in our personal life so why do we in business? After all, corporations are people... Reminds me of the quote “Being well adjusted to a sick society is not a measure of health”
AlexandrB 6y ago
> Do they really think that they can curve their churn this way? I don't know. Ask Amazon[1] I guess? My point is that it's wrong to attribute this to a "fragile" business model. It's just plain, old greed and contempt for the customer. [1] https://www.techtimes.com/articles/255977/20210114/amazon-prime-dark-pattern-service-cancellation-explained-why-consumer-groups.htm https://www.techtimes.com/articles/255977/20210114/amazon-pr...
JohnTHaller 6y ago
I said the phrase "I want to cancel cable but keep internet" 23 times to a Time Warner retention specialist then their supervisor, and I may have talked to her supervisor, too. They get paid to ignore you and read back canned responses like "but what about your favorite channels?", "what about watching sports?", etc. It was the first time my girlfriend had ever seen me angry.
- walrus01 6y ago
  If you ever need to cancel comcast, time warner or similar entirely and quickly, just tell them you're going to prison. No joke, it works.
  - smachiz 6y ago
    "I'm going to prison, but I'd like to keep my internet"
    - walrus01 6y ago
      Note the part about 'entirely'
    - walrus01 6y ago
      Alexa, search for very small android phones suitable for the prison wallet.
      - iSnow 6y ago
        Like the Jelly Pro? :)
  - iammiles 6y ago
    I told AT&T I was moving out of the country. The very valiant retention specialist still offered a discount on text messages for a year.
    - em-bee 6y ago
jdauriemma 6y ago
> Do they really think that they can curve their churn this way? I'd bet that a small percentage of cancellation requests are waylaid by these sorts of underhanded tactics. Even if the success rate is low, it's still not zero.
- rjmunro 6y ago
  But are they measuring the effect of people telling their friends how bad the experience was, or posting it on HN?
D13Fd 6y ago
Honestly they got me for a couple of years with this. The $10/month digital subscription was hitting my credit card, but every time I tried to cancel I ran into issues. It took took quite a while before I got annoyed enough to put the effort in to actually cancel it. It is such a scummy tactic. I tell everyone not to subscribe to NYT just based on that experience.
dheera 6y ago
I had a similar thing with Comcast which kept referring me to their retention department and asking me to call. I replied to them no less than 5 times, each time pointing out that (a) I don't have time for phone calls (b) their terms and conditions permits cancelling by e-mail. Another way is to notify them once by e-mail to end your subscription per [insert T&C clause and citation] and just stop paying. If they don't get payment they'll stop anyway, and if they come chasing after you, you have the notification you sent.
franklovecchio 6y ago
I've had success pursuing bad i.e. potentially illegal cancellation practices by filing a complaint through the attorney general's office where the company is located. In my case: 1) First I had a rough time cancelling my account _in person_ at a T-mobile store. The remote T-mobile employees in charge of cancellation kept hanging up on the T-mobile employees calling them from the store because cancellations are bad. This was so normal to the local T-mobile employees it was laughable to them. 2) T-mobile never cancelled my account - they suspended it...and didn't tell me! They reopened it 6 months later, charged me for a few months w/o notifying me, then sent the unpaid dues to a local debt collector. I only found out after being contacted by a debt collection agency. I was able to get both T-mobile and the collection agency they work with to "look into it", but I could not get a direct answer from T-mobile about how to fix the situation after multiple calls to them, and the collection agency relied on T-mobile to strike the debt clean. Bob Ferguson is the attorney general for Washington where T-mobile's HQ is. Bob is THE man in case you were wondering. After filing a complaint to his office, which was then forwarded to T-mobile, I heard back from someone at T-mobile specializing in these situations in a week's time and was informed the situation was fixed and the debt was removed from my credit report.
- sliken 6y ago
  Wow, had similar. I cancelled online, they said my account was in good standing, nothing owed, and killed my t-mobile.com account. A few months later I got a collections notice for $500 from t-mobile, went to a t-mobile store, said that my account looked weird, and they had recorded me as not owning my phone, despite a clear account history that I paid full price for the phone and didn't owe anything. Still get collection notices, but it's now over 7 years, and my credit card recovered by some 70 points or so when it aged out.
  - alfiedotwtf 6y ago
    All these stories... is this an American-only thing and is common place? Because there’s no way that could happen here in Australia
    - 6y ago
jrochkind1 6y ago
comcast has been doing it for years, it seems to be working out pretty well for them?
christkv 6y ago
I just tell them I’m unemployed and wosh nobody wants to offer me any services at all.
- criddell 6y ago
  In the past I've responded "it's personal" when they ask why I'm cancelling. That seems to work.
slg 6y ago
>Do they really think that they can curve their churn this way? Yes, because it actually does work. If you need proof, just call up one of these companies and say "I am cancelling because your service is too expensive." Odds are decent that you will get some type of promo offer to keep you. If there is any competition in your area for internet/cable and you have never done this, you are wasting money. OP could have also had any number of other problems that could have been solved by these retention specialists. Basically they are doing the equivalent of an IT person asking if you have turned it off and back on again. That might be frustrating for the type of people who read HN and know better, but the reason they ask it is because there are legitimately issues that can be solved by this extremely basic level of support.
helsinkiandrew 6y ago
I wonder if this isn't a profitable practice though. However much annoying these processes are (I had to suffer an identical Financial Times cancellation process last week) They know how much it costs to take cancelling users through an account specialist and presumably they get enough people to continue subscription to make it worth while. A continuing paying customer now is worth far more than someone who may subscribe again in the future. And even if you're sick of their cancellation process, if you want to read NY Times news again you'll signup.
- HenryBemis 6y ago
  A question can to mind, and this is the answer: Thousands of Americans Waste $348 a Year on Subscriptions They’re Not Using [0] It makes perfect sense to have a 'shield' that will minimize the 'quitters'. And this article focuses on streaming services only. People who want to leave a service are probably NOT coming back. So an effort to keep vs lose forever has little downside. https://www.gobankingrates.com/saving-money/budgeting/americans-waste-subscription-services-survey/ https://www.gobankingrates.com/saving-money/budgeting/americ... Edit/addition: regarding your ".. I wonder if this isn't a profitable practice though." Well they keep doing it, so.. at some point they ran the numbers and they saw it is better for them. Perhaps in 10y this may change, we will notice by the change of corporate practices. Profit will determine this.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  What they can't measure is the fact that I won't sign up in the first place because of their poor reputation. My guess is there are a lot of potential subscribers reading stories like this and deciding not to bother with a subscription.
Puts 6y ago
I pay for a lot of subscription services like music- and film streaming, and SAAS-services but would never ever give my contact- and payment details to a newspaper or magazine. Newspapers and magazines brought their death on them self imo. People will pay for your service if they can trust them with their information, and not be harassed.
christophilus 6y ago
This is what throwaway credit card numbers are for. I'd like to see that concept become more mainstream. If you make it hard for me to cancel a service, fine. It's a single click in a well-designed financial app: delete card.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  Gyms will send you to collections for this, as not paying isn’t the same as canceling. I’d be afraid of the NYT doing the same.
  - hnrodey 6y ago
    SiriusXM did this exact thing to me. Temp credit card declined and they kept my service active and continued to try to collect from me. I wasted hours of my life going through this cluster.
- jrrrr 6y ago
  CapitalOne calls these "virtual numbers". I think the primary feature is limiting the damage of a compromise. It sounds great to also use this as a way for the customer to cancel service with an unwilling company, but I think in practice they may come after you with a collection agency.
ilaksh 6y ago
I bet there are one or two executives who decided it would be this way. They should be named and removed. This is a prime example of an issue with simple hierarchies: the single point of failure.
eplanit 6y ago
Its brand is about all it has going for it. It's the IBM of journalism. We like to think it's still a leader, but we're kidding ourselves in doing so.
- xkeysc0re 6y ago
  I had this thought the other day - what was the last big story the NYT broke that wasn't Trump related in some way? Like, actual investigative work whether in local governments or in other countries. I can't think of a single significant story that the NYT itself broke and led the charge on
  - eppsilon 6y ago
    FWIW, they won a Pulitzer for this investigative story about NYC taxi drivers: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/nyregion/nyc-taxis-medallions-suicides.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/nyregion/nyc-taxis-medall...
    - xhkkffbf 6y ago
      Good try, but just grep for Trump and you'll find the connection. "Mr. Freidman, who was partners with Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, disclosed the plan in a 2012 speech at Yeshiva University. "
      - CRConrad 6y ago
        TBF, that single mention is just a tangential remark for characterisation; IMO that doesn't count as the article as a whole or in itself being "Trump-related." It's more like, in any story where they want to point out that the subject is a sleazeball, they say he has "mob connections." That doesn't make it a story about the mafia. (Yeah, that this was the example that came to mind does say something. More about Trump than about me, I think.)
  - Bud 6y ago
    If you think this, you clearly don't read the NYT regularly.
snarf21 6y ago
This is why we need a CPA with teeth. The should be that if you can sign up with a click on mobile, you can cancel the same way. The amount of regulatory capture in our plutocracy is maddening.
jboog 6y ago
I get that ending the subscription is annoying and I wish they hadn't done it but claiming they have a "fragile" business model is just wrong. They are WILDLY successful. Their operating profit jumped 28% last year and literally are blowing away the competition in overall subscriber numbers and growth. It's really not even close https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/business/media/new-york-times-q3-2020-earnings-nyt.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/business/media/new-york-t...
speby 6y ago
As with many things in life, if it didn't work, they wouldn't do it. So to answer your question, yes, it probably does reduce churn, if only slightly. Is there an occasional person who goes to try and cancel, runs into this byzantine process and then says, ah fuck it, I'll just stay subscribed so they don't have to deal with this bullshit? Yes, but probably only infrequently. Instead, it infuriates all the rest who DO go thru the byzantine process and add more frustrating to whatever reason they were already intent on canceling from in the first place, as was demonstrated in this OP's chat transcript.

Theory5 6y ago

This happened to me with audible. They didn't have the cancel subscription on the app. Had to hunt for it on the site. Was asked if i was suuuuuuure i wanted to leave, 3 separate times before it canceled. Definitely not thinking of doing that again, or like i do for some streaming services, pay for a couple months, stop, then pay for a few more. Utterly rediculous.

treeman79 6y ago
Signed up for some hosting online. Cancelation apparently required a fax. Got a legal friend to help me write a scary letter. Service was promptly canceled.
tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
Another related dark pattern: When cancelling a Prime trial, Amazon makes it appear as if you're going to lose the Prime benefits immediately, not at the end of the trial, to keep you from cancelling early. (It seems like you DO keep them until the end of the trial, but you only get told that after cancelling) Together with their decreased support quality (agents barely understanding what I write + the typical "tell the customer what they want to hear so they go away and give you a good CSAT, by the time they realize you lied it won't matter for you anymore"), I have a _very_ low opinion of Amazon. They still have a service (delivery time), price (free shipping) and consistency advantage in many cases, but it's quickly shrinking, and I am much more likely to buy from alternative places if they can make a competitive offer.
- slang800 6y ago
  I've experienced the opposite with Amazon. If you complain about a product you've gotten they simply refund the full purchase price, no need to return the item or anything. I've even gotten months of prime refunded by telling them I forgot to cancel. I assume that eating the cost of a bad purchase is cheaper for them than upsetting a long-term customer.
  - dingaling 6y ago
    I've never had that experience with Amazon UK, they've always demanded that the broken / damaged item be returned. On one occasion when I had to return an item I ended up £30 out of pocket because it had to go by courier instead of post, due to length. I had to argue with their customer support to obtain recompense despite it having been them who told me to send it courier. The item was only worth £80. Nowadays I just use Amazon as a price baseline but shop elsewhere.
    - vinay427 6y ago
      On returned items, both Amazon US and Amazon DE have been quite helpful. I think Amazon US is even more over-the-top, but I think the local retail standards for this are much higher in the US so it makes sense. On memberships, I don't mind the Prime cancelling issues very much because they seem to always credit back a month if you later tell them you forgot to cancel. Unfortunately, there are annoying dark patterns when signing up, hiding the "No thanks" button when trying to get through an order, etc.
    - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
      I just returned an item and they arranged for a courier to collect. They acknowledged the return after one day and credited my account the following day. The only thing I noticed is they hide the collection options under a button. By default they encourage you to drop off at a depot or post office.
  - alpaca128 6y ago
    In my recent experience this has changed drastically. Amazon was on average the cheapest, fastest online marketplace I'd used, and any issues were resolved within an hour. Now I'm still waiting for a product I ordered 3 months ago. The only option I have is contacting the seller - who doesn't respond. I wrote a review about the experience, which then got promptly removed. More recently I've ordered a few things from multiple places, the one outstanding delivery is from Amazon, and now almost a week late. It'll probably be the last one; their obvious lack of interest regarding fake reviews, review resetting and obfuscation, misleading pricing, counterfeit products and the constantly shrinking number of quality products have taken a toll. More often than not products are shipped from China, making it a worse choice than many local competitors who may ask higher prices for delivery but at least ship in two days instead of two weeks, have a phone support hotline and a reason to care. Very slowly but steadily the reasons I started using Amazon's platform eroded away until it became more or less a more approachable middleman for aliexpress dropshippers.
Causality1 6y ago
Same, then you get bombarded with ads on Amazon for a free trial despite the fact you're logged into your Amazon account and Amazon knows damn well you're not eligible for the free trial anymore. I quit Audible after prices stopped being related to length. At the $17 a pop for the three-hour books I was buying it was going to cost me $900 to get the whole series. Nope!
jcims 6y ago
The other issue with audible cancellation is that you throw away your credits...but then if you try to spend 5-10 credits quickly it becomes challenging...so you don't cancel. lol
- xxxtentachyon 6y ago
  They say this, but your credits aren’t actually thrown away immediately (at least they weren’t in 2018 or thereabouts). I learned this by ending up in exactly the position you describe - trying to get rid of credits before canceling - except I gave up with one or two left. To my surprise, they were still there once I was done canceling.
  - jcims 6y ago
    This is excellent info thank you!
  - 8note 6y ago
    When I cancelled audible, it wouldnt even let me use the app, let alone use credits I had
    - HenryBemis 6y ago
      Stating the obvious here: it is a Service. When you stop the provision of a cellular service, you immediately lose access to the the service. If you have not consumed the remaining of your points/credit/etc. I find it hard that the service provider would be nice enough to let you consume them points/credit/etc. Exceptions will exist, but the general rule is such.
      - vinay427 6y ago
        That's not how Audible works. You buy the credits with your subscription unlike an unlimited-consumption model such as Netflix. As a result, they have a policy of allowing credits to be used for a limited time after canceling: https://help.audible.com/s/article/do-i-keep-my-credits-if-i-cancel-my-audible-premium-plus-membership?language=en_US https://help.audible.com/s/article/do-i-keep-my-credits-if-i...
BugWatch 6y ago
Ah, that must be famed "Beetlejuice(, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!)" technique.
tvphan 6y ago
This probably has to do with Apple charging 30% for any in-app payments so Audible didn’t bother implementing any payments / subscriptions functionality on their app.
Dissley 6y ago
When I canceled my audible subscription I wasn't aware that I also would loose my remaining 7 credits... I will not subscribe again after this experience.

JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago

This isn't the first time I've seen NYT cancellation process in my social feeds. It has to be a negative feedback loop cycle. People that read HN are absolutely the type that would consider paying for NYT (or at least the two cohorts have great overlap). This cancellation process never considered the impact of internet cancel culture and rage reactions. It's far easier to damage a brand than it is to build it up.

kortilla 6y ago
> People that read HN are absolutely the type that would consider paying for NYT (or at least the two cohorts have great overlap). Unlikely considering the general popularity of articles highlighting their incompetence/malfeasance. See: slatestarcodex articles of the last week
gostsamo 6y ago
How often do you see NYT articles on the front page? It is very rarely for me.
- hctaw 6y ago
  They've been trending the last couple days.
  - gostsamo 6y ago
    Last couple days have only one story from NYT with ore than 100 upvotes. I didn't bother with checking further than second page of results, but though there are lots of submissions, rarely they get more than a couple of upvotes. https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=nytimes.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=nytimes.com
    - ma2rten 6y ago
      Here is an easier way of checking that: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=false&query=nytimes.com&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=fa...

tech-historian 6y ago

Back in 2006 an AOL subscriber recorded their conversation with an AOL customer service agent while trying to cancel the service. It was really bad, way worse than this NYTimes process. The NYT wrote an article about the debacle [1] and had this to say about Netflix's great customer service and ease of cancellation, compared to AOL's awful service: "Seeing how Netflix would be so protective of my time were I to leave makes me all the more unlikely to do so." Maybe the NYT should take their own advice. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/02/business/yourmoney/02digi.html https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/02/business/yourmoney/02digi...

samcheng 6y ago
Netflix is notoriously generous here. They allegedly auto-cancel accounts that don't use the service for too long! https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/netflix-account-cancel-delete-subscribe-renew-email-a9527626.html https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/net...
- hda2 6y ago
  I wouldn't call this generosity. This is the normal conduct of normal honest businesses.
  - e-clinton 6y ago
    Normal? What other business does that? I can’t think of one.
    - bumby 6y ago
      The fact that it’s NOT normal to act reasonably should be telling us something. Imagine if you had to go through this exhausting process in your personal life. After half an hour since asking your spouse to help with the dishes, your spouse finally says “now that we realize using paper plates will solve your problem of dirty dishes, is there anything else I can help you with?” We wouldn’t tolerate that in our personal life so why do we in business? After all, corporations are people... Reminds me of the quote “Being well adjusted to a sick society is not a measure of health”

AlexandrB 6y ago

> Do they really think that they can curve their churn this way? I don't know. Ask Amazon[1] I guess? My point is that it's wrong to attribute this to a "fragile" business model. It's just plain, old greed and contempt for the customer. [1] https://www.techtimes.com/articles/255977/20210114/amazon-prime-dark-pattern-service-cancellation-explained-why-consumer-groups.htm https://www.techtimes.com/articles/255977/20210114/amazon-pr...

JohnTHaller 6y ago

I said the phrase "I want to cancel cable but keep internet" 23 times to a Time Warner retention specialist then their supervisor, and I may have talked to her supervisor, too. They get paid to ignore you and read back canned responses like "but what about your favorite channels?", "what about watching sports?", etc. It was the first time my girlfriend had ever seen me angry.

walrus01 6y ago
If you ever need to cancel comcast, time warner or similar entirely and quickly, just tell them you're going to prison. No joke, it works.
- smachiz 6y ago
  "I'm going to prison, but I'd like to keep my internet"
  - walrus01 6y ago
    Note the part about 'entirely'
  - walrus01 6y ago
    Alexa, search for very small android phones suitable for the prison wallet.
    - iSnow 6y ago
      Like the Jelly Pro? :)
- iammiles 6y ago
  I told AT&T I was moving out of the country. The very valiant retention specialist still offered a discount on text messages for a year.
  - em-bee 6y ago

jdauriemma 6y ago

> Do they really think that they can curve their churn this way? I'd bet that a small percentage of cancellation requests are waylaid by these sorts of underhanded tactics. Even if the success rate is low, it's still not zero.

rjmunro 6y ago
But are they measuring the effect of people telling their friends how bad the experience was, or posting it on HN?

D13Fd 6y ago

Honestly they got me for a couple of years with this. The $10/month digital subscription was hitting my credit card, but every time I tried to cancel I ran into issues. It took took quite a while before I got annoyed enough to put the effort in to actually cancel it. It is such a scummy tactic. I tell everyone not to subscribe to NYT just based on that experience.

dheera 6y ago

I had a similar thing with Comcast which kept referring me to their retention department and asking me to call. I replied to them no less than 5 times, each time pointing out that (a) I don't have time for phone calls (b) their terms and conditions permits cancelling by e-mail. Another way is to notify them once by e-mail to end your subscription per [insert T&C clause and citation] and just stop paying. If they don't get payment they'll stop anyway, and if they come chasing after you, you have the notification you sent.

franklovecchio 6y ago

I've had success pursuing bad i.e. potentially illegal cancellation practices by filing a complaint through the attorney general's office where the company is located. In my case: 1) First I had a rough time cancelling my account _in person_ at a T-mobile store. The remote T-mobile employees in charge of cancellation kept hanging up on the T-mobile employees calling them from the store because cancellations are bad. This was so normal to the local T-mobile employees it was laughable to them. 2) T-mobile never cancelled my account - they suspended it...and didn't tell me! They reopened it 6 months later, charged me for a few months w/o notifying me, then sent the unpaid dues to a local debt collector. I only found out after being contacted by a debt collection agency. I was able to get both T-mobile and the collection agency they work with to "look into it", but I could not get a direct answer from T-mobile about how to fix the situation after multiple calls to them, and the collection agency relied on T-mobile to strike the debt clean. Bob Ferguson is the attorney general for Washington where T-mobile's HQ is. Bob is THE man in case you were wondering. After filing a complaint to his office, which was then forwarded to T-mobile, I heard back from someone at T-mobile specializing in these situations in a week's time and was informed the situation was fixed and the debt was removed from my credit report.

sliken 6y ago
Wow, had similar. I cancelled online, they said my account was in good standing, nothing owed, and killed my t-mobile.com account. A few months later I got a collections notice for $500 from t-mobile, went to a t-mobile store, said that my account looked weird, and they had recorded me as not owning my phone, despite a clear account history that I paid full price for the phone and didn't owe anything. Still get collection notices, but it's now over 7 years, and my credit card recovered by some 70 points or so when it aged out.
- alfiedotwtf 6y ago
  All these stories... is this an American-only thing and is common place? Because there’s no way that could happen here in Australia
  - 6y ago

jrochkind1 6y ago

comcast has been doing it for years, it seems to be working out pretty well for them?

christkv 6y ago

I just tell them I’m unemployed and wosh nobody wants to offer me any services at all.

criddell 6y ago
In the past I've responded "it's personal" when they ask why I'm cancelling. That seems to work.

slg 6y ago

>Do they really think that they can curve their churn this way? Yes, because it actually does work. If you need proof, just call up one of these companies and say "I am cancelling because your service is too expensive." Odds are decent that you will get some type of promo offer to keep you. If there is any competition in your area for internet/cable and you have never done this, you are wasting money. OP could have also had any number of other problems that could have been solved by these retention specialists. Basically they are doing the equivalent of an IT person asking if you have turned it off and back on again. That might be frustrating for the type of people who read HN and know better, but the reason they ask it is because there are legitimately issues that can be solved by this extremely basic level of support.

helsinkiandrew 6y ago

I wonder if this isn't a profitable practice though. However much annoying these processes are (I had to suffer an identical Financial Times cancellation process last week) They know how much it costs to take cancelling users through an account specialist and presumably they get enough people to continue subscription to make it worth while. A continuing paying customer now is worth far more than someone who may subscribe again in the future. And even if you're sick of their cancellation process, if you want to read NY Times news again you'll signup.

HenryBemis 6y ago
A question can to mind, and this is the answer: Thousands of Americans Waste $348 a Year on Subscriptions They’re Not Using [0] It makes perfect sense to have a 'shield' that will minimize the 'quitters'. And this article focuses on streaming services only. People who want to leave a service are probably NOT coming back. So an effort to keep vs lose forever has little downside. https://www.gobankingrates.com/saving-money/budgeting/americans-waste-subscription-services-survey/ https://www.gobankingrates.com/saving-money/budgeting/americ... Edit/addition: regarding your ".. I wonder if this isn't a profitable practice though." Well they keep doing it, so.. at some point they ran the numbers and they saw it is better for them. Perhaps in 10y this may change, we will notice by the change of corporate practices. Profit will determine this.
tonyedgecombe 6y ago
What they can't measure is the fact that I won't sign up in the first place because of their poor reputation. My guess is there are a lot of potential subscribers reading stories like this and deciding not to bother with a subscription.

Puts 6y ago

I pay for a lot of subscription services like music- and film streaming, and SAAS-services but would never ever give my contact- and payment details to a newspaper or magazine. Newspapers and magazines brought their death on them self imo. People will pay for your service if they can trust them with their information, and not be harassed.

christophilus 6y ago

This is what throwaway credit card numbers are for. I'd like to see that concept become more mainstream. If you make it hard for me to cancel a service, fine. It's a single click in a well-designed financial app: delete card.

ceejayoz 6y ago
Gyms will send you to collections for this, as not paying isn’t the same as canceling. I’d be afraid of the NYT doing the same.
- hnrodey 6y ago
  SiriusXM did this exact thing to me. Temp credit card declined and they kept my service active and continued to try to collect from me. I wasted hours of my life going through this cluster.
jrrrr 6y ago
CapitalOne calls these "virtual numbers". I think the primary feature is limiting the damage of a compromise. It sounds great to also use this as a way for the customer to cancel service with an unwilling company, but I think in practice they may come after you with a collection agency.

ilaksh 6y ago

I bet there are one or two executives who decided it would be this way. They should be named and removed. This is a prime example of an issue with simple hierarchies: the single point of failure.

eplanit 6y ago

Its brand is about all it has going for it. It's the IBM of journalism. We like to think it's still a leader, but we're kidding ourselves in doing so.

xkeysc0re 6y ago
I had this thought the other day - what was the last big story the NYT broke that wasn't Trump related in some way? Like, actual investigative work whether in local governments or in other countries. I can't think of a single significant story that the NYT itself broke and led the charge on
- eppsilon 6y ago
  FWIW, they won a Pulitzer for this investigative story about NYC taxi drivers: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/nyregion/nyc-taxis-medallions-suicides.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/nyregion/nyc-taxis-medall...
  - xhkkffbf 6y ago
    Good try, but just grep for Trump and you'll find the connection. "Mr. Freidman, who was partners with Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, disclosed the plan in a 2012 speech at Yeshiva University. "
    - CRConrad 6y ago
      TBF, that single mention is just a tangential remark for characterisation; IMO that doesn't count as the article as a whole or in itself being "Trump-related." It's more like, in any story where they want to point out that the subject is a sleazeball, they say he has "mob connections." That doesn't make it a story about the mafia. (Yeah, that this was the example that came to mind does say something. More about Trump than about me, I think.)
- Bud 6y ago
  If you think this, you clearly don't read the NYT regularly.

snarf21 6y ago

This is why we need a CPA with teeth. The should be that if you can sign up with a click on mobile, you can cancel the same way. The amount of regulatory capture in our plutocracy is maddening.

jboog 6y ago

I get that ending the subscription is annoying and I wish they hadn't done it but claiming they have a "fragile" business model is just wrong. They are WILDLY successful. Their operating profit jumped 28% last year and literally are blowing away the competition in overall subscriber numbers and growth. It's really not even close https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/business/media/new-york-times-q3-2020-earnings-nyt.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/business/media/new-york-t...

speby 6y ago

As with many things in life, if it didn't work, they wouldn't do it. So to answer your question, yes, it probably does reduce churn, if only slightly. Is there an occasional person who goes to try and cancel, runs into this byzantine process and then says, ah fuck it, I'll just stay subscribed so they don't have to deal with this bullshit? Yes, but probably only infrequently. Instead, it infuriates all the rest who DO go thru the byzantine process and add more frustrating to whatever reason they were already intent on canceling from in the first place, as was demonstrated in this OP's chat transcript.