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The worst one is probably trying to make it hard for users to stop paying for a service, like cancelling a subscription. That shit should be punishable by liter
by fpig 5y ago
The worst one is probably trying to make it hard for users to stop paying for a service, like cancelling a subscription. That shit should be punishable by literal prison time.
- bmiller2 5y agoThe worst I’ve seen was Nord VPN. Three or four modals / screens where the action to stop your subscription was the smaller, secondary UI element, almost not even noticeable. How a dev or PM can live with themselves while implementing that I have no idea.
- nitrogen 5y agoHow a dev or PM can live with themselves while implementing that I have no idea. Dev builds it the user-friendly way. PM uses Google Tag Manager to inject JS that changes the stylesheets to the evil way.
- reaperducer 5y agoNord has all kinds of problems. My Nord subscription went from $5/month to $200/month recently. When I complained, the CSR told me to just cancel the account and sign up using the special offer link and a throwaway e-mail address. That tells me there are deeper problems, and I'm not interested in doing business with that company.
- dmix 5y agoAbout 10yrs ago NBA did this to me. They made it impossible to cancel a $99/m sub. Their instructions were login and go to the cancel button but the cancel button was broken and said call this number. But no one ever picked up the number. I will never buy a NBA branded thing after that obvious bullshit scam.
- shiftpgdn 5y agoNew York Times does this also. As far as I can tell it's literally impossible to cancel a subscription. I had to close the card attached to my account.
- astrea 5y agoMy girlfriend and I were both able to cancel. The number worked for us, but we had to say no through a bunch of sales pitches before we got it successfully canceled.
- throwawayboise 5y ago> we had to say no through a bunch of sales pitches Just repeat the phrase "I want to cancel my subscription" to any question they ask. They'll get the message pretty quickly.
- lostlogin 5y agoNicely timed, thank you. They have a sale on I was contemplating taking up. Nope.
- inglor_cz 5y agoI heard that as far as web cancellation of NYT goes, the Cancel button magically appears if you enter your location to be in California.
- jrockway 5y agoI'm highly in favor of making this illegal. My credit card expired and I switched my NYT subscription from through their website to through Apple (so I could cancel), and they sent my account to collections! Working with the collections agency to get it removed was easy, however. I guess the law that I would be in favor of is twofold: 1) You must be able to cancel subscriptions from the same website that you created it from. After you cancel, the subscription must last until the end date. (So you aren't forced to set a calendar reminder for the day before.) 2) Sending an account to collections falsely should carry a 100x penalty. If they make a mistake and their billing system sends your account worth $300 to collections, they pay a $30,000 fine. Should motivate someone to write some unit tests for that.
- consp 5y agoI do not know how it is in the US, but where I live those automatic subscriptions are cancelable (and usually refundable) by the user via the bank or credit card company if the company collecting it is not responding. This is very easy in the first 56 days and a bit harder afterwards. They can retry to collect but you can keep doing it. The idea is you send them a official letter telling them you revoke your authorization which they have to do, not adhering to that request is their problem not yours. Depending on the contract this might trigger fines or require you to front the entire bill at once but for normal recurring subscriptions this is not an issue and otherwise should be reasonable (paying a 'fine' higher than the total sum is not allowed for instance).
- tobmlt 5y agoThanks for pointing this out! I wonder if someone can start a service to facilitate this for people. So many dark patterns, so many opportunities to ease the transaction costs/friction of disentangling? ;)
- judge2020 5y agoIt's the same in the U.S. If you do this, the failed charges might be sent to collections agencies, but that doesn't usually matter much to lenders if it's a small subscription - although this $100/mo NBA charge might cause some issues.
- Phlarp 5y agoAmerican debit cards generally don't have these protections, but American credit cards absolutely do have robust consumer protection mechanisms. It's also a pretty big negative mark for merchants that get charge-backs issued against them, if just a small percentage of people used charge backs to cancel these "subscriptions" it would make their processing fees skyrocket or even get them dropped by the major processors
- r00fus 5y agoOne reason to use a company like Apple to concentrate your online subscriptions I’d possible - terminate there and it’s done.
- the_snooze 5y ago> literal prison time Yup https://twitter.com/javan/status/1357800714018443270 https://twitter.com/javan/status/1357800714018443270
- darksaints 5y agoJust watched that video, and I don't know what canary is, but I can guarantee you I will never use it. Fuck that.
- dqpb 5y agoThe New York Times does this. Unforgivable.
- ls65536 5y agoAs a general rule, it ought to be no more difficult or time-consuming to cancel a service than it was to sign up for it in the first place.
- jonas21 5y agoCompanies are required to provide California residents with an easy-to-use mechanism for cancelling subscriptions, and any subscription that you sign up for online must be cancellable online [1]. This actually works quite well. I've had no trouble cancelling any subscriptions in the past few years, including the New York Times, which took maybe 3 or 4 clicks from the account screen (IIRC, there was an optional "why are you cancelling?" screen, then they offered a discount, and that was it). [1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB313 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...
- mrweasel 5y agoThat should be the default, signup and cancellations should be available via the same channel.
- rawtxapp 5y agoJust use Privacy's virtual cards to sign up for services. If a service doesn't let you cancel, just cancel the card itself. That's what I've been doing. Of course, it's a different story if you signed some kind of contract, but for the pay-montly kind of things, it's a no brainer. You also keep your real cards number private in case the service gets hacked and Privacy doesn't seem to check the name, so you can give a fake name to the service.
- fpig 5y agoThis looks like a great service! Edit: crap, looks like it's US-only :/
- egwor 5y agoRevolut supports one time cards... provided you're happy with Revolut.
- fpig 5y agoYep it does! Had no idea.
- ykat7 5y agoIf you're in the UK, EU, New Zealand, Australia, or Singapore, I found out yesterday that Wise (TransferWise) customers get 3 virtual cards free of charge [1][2]. I'd be interested to hear about any other UK/EU firms offering similar. [1] https://wise.com/gb/blog/shop-safely-virtually-anywhere https://wise.com/gb/blog/shop-safely-virtually-anywhere [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27006326 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27006326
- rovr138 5y agoEvery time you sign up for a monthly service, there’s an agreement and terms which is a contract between both parties. While this works, depending on the service and what it says, they can send your debt to collectors. And that’s why there needs to exist regulation around it.
- plorg 5y agoAudible does not allow you to cancel through the app, and cancelling via the web takes you through two extra pages of customer retention, "Continue Cancelling", or similar. I haven't used the Scribd app, but cancelling the service through the web similarly takes more than one extra page of customer retention "special offer" pages.
- elliekelly 5y agoI signed up for a one month “free” trial of Scribd. I noticed they charged my card but I (wrongly) assumed it was a pre-authorization that would fall off before it ever actually hit my account. I liked Scribd okay but I felt I hadn’t really given it a fair shake during my trial month and figured I’d pay for this month, too and then decide whether I’d keep it. Woke up yesterday and checked my card statement for the month only to find out Scribd charged me for my “free” trial. Since I didn’t notice until my free month was up they charged me for this month, too. I cancelled this morning and had to go through one “special offer” page (for “Scribd Lite” @ $4.99/month IIRC). I’m SOL on this month’s charges but you’d better believe I disputed the original charge with Amex. Scribd even sent me a “receipt” for my “free” trial showing a total of $0.00 at the exact time they charged me $9.99. It’s just bad business. I should have heeded the many warnings about Scribd’s deceptive billing and now they’ve added yet another unhappy customer who will complain about their shady business practices at every opportunity I get.
- itisit 5y agoAnd getting a new credit card used to be a reliable failsafe to stop getting billed for a hard-to-cancel service, but not so if the subscription agreement allows for automatic updating: https://twocents.lifehacker.com/heres-why-everyone-already-has-your-new-credit-card-exp-1834814950 https://twocents.lifehacker.com/heres-why-everyone-already-h...
- deepzn 5y agopo*nhub is almost criminal at this to be honest smh
- duxup 5y agoWould be nice to see some regulation / rules on cancellations of reoccurring payments / services. It's not like it would have to be super technical, most judges would have no problem interpreting it.
- internetslave 5y agoBlue apron. I can’t figure out how to cancel through the app, so I keep cancelling The deliveries
- ascotan 5y agoGood example of this is where you can only unsubscribe via phone so they can route you to a 'specialist' that attempts to talk you out of it. i.e. you can subscribe via software but but unsubscribe via phone.
- shkkmo 5y agoIf a company makes it difficult to cancel, you can always talk to your card issuer. They are required to allow you to stop all future payments to a recipient but may force you to request this in writing. However in my experience, you can usually accomplish it with a phone call and can often dispute the most recent charge as well. IMHO, chargebacks are the best way to fight back against companies that use dark patterns in their billing/cancelation process.
- walrus01 5y ago> That shit should be punishable by literal prison time. Forcible corporate dissolution, chapter 7 style.
- duckfang 5y agoI'd also play around with throwing C levels in jail for a week. Once its real skin in the game, I'd imagine they would have a real good look at their company-level actions.
- aero-glide2 5y agoWashington Post keeps sending me "Please subscribe" emails even after I opted out of their emails so many times.
- anotha1 5y agoThis is why I love privacy.com If it takes more than a couple of clicks from the accounts section, or so ambiguously states the cancellation process that it suddenly seems hazardous, then I just cancel the temporary privacy.com card.