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Services handling recurring payments need to compulsorily have a cancel button. Here's my story with nytimes today. There's no cancellation button in the app o
by jeswin 5y ago
Services handling recurring payments need to compulsorily have a cancel button.
Here's my story with nytimes today. There's no cancellation button in the app or the website. There's a "chat with agent"option, but it doesn't work. So they ask you to call an agent, on the phone.
After ten minutes of being "next in line", I get to speak to someone. He doesn't let me cancel, but takes down my details and transfers to "Management".
I was seventh in line. But after 10 mins, I was eighth in line. After 12 mins, I was ninth in line. I was finally able to get hold of someone and cancel it, after holding for 25 minutes.
This should be illegal.
- ilamont 5y agoBoston Globe and telecom providers in the states do the same thing - force you to talk with someone (I think the term is "retention specialist"). Naturally after having introductory rates expire and prices jacked up 50% or more you're angry and want to get out, but they have all kinds of new promotions or rates you can sign onto.
- jdofaz 5y agoI've never been willing to try a subscription with them due to stories like this. It actually taught me to do a quick search on how to cancel something before I subscribe. If I have to talk to someone I'm probably not ever going to subscribe.
- munk-a 5y agoIn particular - services should never be asymetrical in barriers to subscribe vs. unsubscribe - that's clearly a predatory tactic that exists to trap a portion of users as unwilling subscribers. I will never support a company that operates in that manner - no matter how little or much I appreciate their services.
- ozzythecat 5y agoThis reminds me of my story with LA fitness. They closed down their only location that’s in a sane driving distance to me and said I could use my membership at the next closest location without paying extra, as if they were doing me a favor. After calling them to cancel, they refused to cancel on the phone and insisted I go into a physical location… well, it’s 30 miles away, and I didn’t have a car and I’m on crutches. Getting around was very difficult for me. In the meantime, they refused to even accept my phone call as a request to cancel. I was charged for three extra months, until I finally paid $100+ round trip to Uber to their location and cancel in person. LA Fitness is a soulless leech, and the fact that company is allowed to stay in business is testament to a corrupt government system.
- blitzar 5y agoSounds like an episode of Friends from the 90's
- jccooper 5y agoSounds like a credit card chargeback to me.
- tombert 5y agoI've never been to LA Fitness, but I know Planet Fitness requires you to provide a voided check, and they directly withdraw from your bank account.
- KorematsuFredt 5y agoPlanet Fitness requires you to visit one of their branches to cancel or write a letter to the branch where you enrolled. I cancelled my membership last week.
- hangonhn 5y agoThat's what I did with 24 Hour Fitness. I had to cancel in person, which is ridiculous, but the guy told me that because of the way their system works, they will charge me for the next month too. When the charges showed up a month later, I use chargeback to refund the money and that was the end of it. Their system supposedly being slow to process isn't a reason for me to be charged another month; one shouldn't be rewarded for incompetence. I was ready to fight them on it because nowhere in the agreement did they mention charging me another month after cancelation but they let the chargeback stay -- probably because they know it's baseless and was hoping people won't bother fighting them.
- quickthrowman 5y agoThis is why I subscribe to NYT crosswords via Apple iOS, cancelling is very easy!
- dmart 5y agoThis has downvotes currently for some reason, but it's true and I do the same thing for subscriptions whenever possible. There's one-click unsubscribe for any service purchased through Apple, it's really nice.
- llukas 5y agoDevelopers need their freedom to try retention techniques on you. /s
- naravara 5y agoI gave up after 10 minutes, called the credit card company I had the subscription on, and asked them to refuse all charges from NYT. I had to do the same thing with the Economist.
- tomjen3 5y agoI got the Economist to end the subscription over email, by using the word charge back. They apologized that they had already charged for that month, but canceled immediately and would refund my money in a few days. Too bad, because I would absolutely have resubed if they hadn't be so nasty about it.
- MisterBastahrd 5y agoThis is why I use a third party payment service. I don't have to cancel the subscription, I just cut them off.
- munk-a 5y agoCredit card companies have no excuse for not being this third party payment service.
- tantony 5y agoSome credit card companies offer virtual cards linked to your actual credit card that can be blocked selectively.
- bubblethink 5y agoWhich one ? I'm not aware of any current ones. BoA used to have one, but they killed it when flash was deprecated.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
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- tantony 5y agoCapitalOne
- bubblethink 5y agoThat's not the same though, AFAIK. You can't set limits such that auto billing vendors will not be able to bill you.
- tschwimmer 5y agoIn California it is[0] [0]https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/companies-must-let-customers-cancel-subscriptions-online-california-law-says/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/companies-mu...
- tsycho 5y agoThis is a great law that I had never heard of. Given that NYT and others don't actually follow this though, how can California residents enforce this?
- pkaye 5y agoFrom what I've read, NYT and others do follow it but only for those with a California address in their system.
- interestica 5y agoApparently the trick is to change your address and then attempt to cancel.
- a1369209993 5y agoIn the other direction, I'd be quite laudable if some Californian would put in a non-California address, attempt to cancel, then sue them when they refuse.
- svachalek 5y agoIt really should be possible from the credit card website too. Just click on a payment to say I retract permission to charge this in the future. Done.
- pstrateman 5y agoYou can send them an email. After that chargeback until they get the point.
- thunkshift1 5y agoSimilar story with wsj. They dont have a cancel online button and make you call a number. The agent then had me recite my (very long) name and email id multiple times because he ‘could not understand my accent’. There is definitely a dark pattern here and for all their shitting on the big tech, nyt and wsj certainly dont shy from using their more lucrative but shady tactics.
- Corence 5y agoMy chat with agent button was kind enough to work when I was canceling my crossword subscription. When they asked why I said that I suspected their unsubscribing process to be illegal under California law and their next message was that they had unsubscribed me.
- euc2077 5y agoI use Revolut with a disposable virtual card for sites I don't trust. So I can immediately delete the card.
- artificialLimbs 5y agoGot interested. Went to Revolut website. Uncloseable (without choosing an option) cookie banner advising me they will deliver 'relevant' ads. Have to click through to turn off the default-on ad tracking. Closed tab.
- tibiapejagala 5y agoYeah, using revolut for that is ironic, fighting scummy companies with another scummy company. It is the only way to get disposable cards or sane conversion rates in many markets unfortunately.
- BayAreaEscapee 5y agoThere is a service called privacy.com that does something similar. You can open and close new cards easily. I use it all the time for sketchy web sites. http://privacy.com http://privacy.com
- zburatorul 5y agoThis should be the top comment in this thread imo. This service solves a lot of the issues mentioned. No need to call anyone and beg for a cancellation, just close the card. A caveat is that one should be aware of how binding one's agreement with a business is, and whether a simple card cancellation will make the problem go away or become worse (collections).
- woobar 5y agoUS credit card issuers went through the phase of offering disposable credit card numbers 15-20 years ago. And about 10 years ago they started to discontinue this option. I think major selling point was preventing fraud, and it was a hassle for a consumer. I.e. consumer have to proactively generate virtual CC every time they pay over the Internet. Which is a pain point especially on mobile. Zero liability solved the problem for the majority of users with less friction. With regards to subscriptions virtual credit cards are not always a solution. If you have signed a contract and then your card "expired" it doesn't magically make your contract void. I know that gyms will keep billing you and eventually will sell you to collectors.
- cbsks 5y agoThe "chat with agent" option worked for me when I unsubscribed from nytimes a few months ago. They kept asking me questions and I kept responding "unsubscribe please" over and over again until they did it. It took maybe 5 minutes. Not a good experience.
- rootusrootus 5y agoI had a similar experience. I was able to do it via chat, but the guy asked multiple questions. He LOL'd at me when I refused what must have been some kind of exception offer (I don't remember, but it was probably six months or a year for free). Right then I decided I'd never be a NYT customer again under any circumstances.
- iso1210 5y ago> Services handling recurring payments need to compulsorily have a cancel button. Provided on the card provider end.
- throwawayswede 5y ago> This should be illegal. It should. But what sort of payment processor does NYT use? Isn't it possible to block/cancel/prevent their charge from your bank's end?
- tzs 5y agoCounter anecdote. I called. I said I want to cancel. The agent asked why. I said I didn't have time to read the news. He processed the cancellation. While he was doing that I told him to make sure he just cancelled the newspaper, not my separate subscription to the crossword puzzle. I told him I realized I was getting a 50% discount on the puzzle because of my newspaper subscription and understood I'd lose that. He informed me that no, I would not lose the discount. The deal is a discount when you purchase a puzzle subscription if you also have a newspaper subscription. As long as my auto-renew on the puzzle subscription keeps working, it keeps renewing at that rate. And indeed it has kept doing so. Bonus: I also cancelled DirecTV several years ago, with no problem, when they had a reputation of being very hard to cancel. I called, said I needed to cancel, and they asked why. I explained that I loved their service, but my Sprint DSL really sucked. Comcast had just expanded to my neighborhood and so I was dropping Sprint DSL for Comcast internet. I can get a much better deal with Comcast if I get a bundle, so I was going for the Comcast Triple Play (internet, phone, TV). Hence, no more need for DirecTV (but if a decent non-Comcast internet service came to my neighborhood I'd probably switch to that and come back to DirecTV). They cancelled me then with no hassle.
- illumanaughty 5y agoSounds like a lot of hassle to me. I'd rather click a button.
- snambi 5y agoWasting an hour to cancel a service that I no longer need is just not right. Besides there are many services that require me to write a letter for cancellation. This is fundamentally wrong. We need this kind of rule in USA too, so, companies cannot exploit their customers.
- seesaw 5y agoI had signed up for Disney+ when they launched. I decided to cancel after few months. They had no option to cancel online. I had to spend an hour on hold before I could talk to someone and cancel. I decided I will never subscribe to Disney+ again. I don’t know if the cancellation still requires calling them.
- rootusrootus 5y agoI didn't just have this experience with NYT, but also ACLU. Easy to give them your credit card, but far more difficult to get them to stop the recurring charge. This stings a lot more than NYT, because philosophically I had better opinions of ACLU. To this day, ACLU people text me every week or so to ask me to do participate somehow. No matter how many times I've asked them to stop. And since the texts come from someone different each time, blocking isn't a viable option. Guess who won't be getting any more of my money?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- lamontcg 5y agoThis is why I don't donate to good causes anymore (including a somewhat similar experience with the ACLU). I'd like to donate to charity but I don't want to have to setup an untrackable shell company in the Cayman Islands in order to do it without being harassed.
- bobince 5y agoIn the UK we have cafonline.org which works nicely for this purpose. Nothing similar in the US?
- handoflixue 5y agoI just recently emailed the ACLU to cancel my donation, and a week later got an email back confirming the cancellation no problem. It wasn't exactly transparent, since the only place mentioning who to email was the "welcome" email I got when I signed up ages ago. But I was able to cancel by a single email to the address they'd provided.
- r00fus 5y agoI never had this problem with the ACLU. Sorry it sucks for you.
- brianbreslin 5y agoI heard anecdotally that you can use a VPN, switch location to california, log back in to nytimes and suddenly a cancel button appears on your manage your billing page.
- sinecure 5y agonytimes is the worst, next to predatory gym memberships. It took me 45 minutes in a chat with the agent screen to cancel my membership, and they refused to send me any confirmation or email. He told me to screenshot our chat. The NYTimes is nothing more than a government propaganda machine these days, anyways.
- jakub_g 5y agoThis is infuriating, but in the meantime you should find a bank that offers virtual and ideally virtual disposable cards. When I sign up for something new / untrusted and I'm not sure if I can unsub easily, I always use the virtual disposable CC so that they can only charge me once. 2nd charge will simply not work because the card is single-use. (Downside is, they can ban you forever if the charge doesn't go through, but for services that do those shady things, I wouldn't like to be their customer anyway). Re: the difficulty of unsubbing: GDPR specifies that disallowing consent should be as easy as allowing it. There should be similar law about online subs.
- DeWilde 5y agoSounds like a very complex Roach Motel.
- akeck 5y agoUse a certified letter to their legal dept.
- oceanghost 5y agoA few years back... Someone bought me a Sirius XM handheld unit for XMas. I hated it, used it for a few hours, cancelled the service, and returned the unit. 2 years later I get a several hundred dollar charge on a CC for another year or two of service of Sirius. I call up the CC company, and they say before I can file a dispute I have to call Sirius and try to straighten it out. I call up Sirius, explain, I only owned the unit for a few hours and that I had cancelled. And the customer-service agent said, "I understand. We don't care, we're billing you anyways." and hung up. I called the credit card company back, and they (probably) didn't believe me, but the agent said, "look, I'll put us on a 3-way call with Sirius, try and cancel your service again and I will listen and we will see what happens." So I went through the same process again, and again Sirius literally said, "We understand you cancelled, there's nothing you can do." After the call, the CC company agent (I think Discover) said, "These people are crazy, I will take care of this."
- slownews45 5y agoAgreed 100% - SO ANNOYING! These are the same places that write hit pieces on big tech for "abusing" users - ie, Apple's payment platform which DOES let you easily cancel ALL subscriptions that you sign up through them and reminds you to do so if you delete apps etc.
- dnautics 5y agoSame shenanigans with Netgear router customer service. They have a "you are _" in line customer service that sounds like it's glitched out to get you to quit. I stayed on the line. Estimate went from 40 minutes, randomly jumping around but also increasing to 90 minutes. After 2 hours (I just put it on speaker and kept coding) suddenly it went from 90 minutes to someone is speaking to me.
- rlpb 5y ago> He doesn't let me cancel... This is the part that baffles me. There's no "let me cancel". You are giving notice of cancellation by telephone as required. Clearly the agent understands why you are calling. Therefore you have given notice. Therefore the service is cancelled. Any further attempt to charge your card is fraud. Of course it doesn't work this way in the US, since the cost of fighting this point there is more than the cost of your subscription. Therefore this kind of abuse is permitted there.
- dqpb 5y agoAs others have mentioned, they actually do have a cancel button, for Californians. The fact that they have the feature, but disable it when they aren't legally required to provide it, is for me an unforgivable offence.
- webwielder2 5y agoRemember that Google demo of the AI voice making reservations? That was dumb, but what wouldn't be dumb is the same thing but for cancelling subscriptions.
- outside1234 5y agoAgreed. It is totally messed up when it is just easier to cancel the credit card the charge goes to instead of the actual charge.
- deeblering4 5y agoBecause of this my approach these days is to use a different virtual credit card number for every subscription. That way when I want to cancel I can cut off the card to be sure I wont get charged again “by mistake” privacy.com is a good one
- ubermonkey 5y agoThis is one thing I love about the subscription model on iOS. Apple forces vendors to go through their infrastructure, which means it's always dead easy to stop something. What NYT (and others) do is just ridiculous and unethical.
- KorematsuFredt 5y ago> Services handling recurring payments need to compulsorily have a cancel button. We don't really need a law for this nor anyone needs to implement a button. Visa, Mastercard etc. can simply run a service where all the transactions that are marked as "recurring" will have an associated button "Revoke payment authorization" in their app. Once you revoke it all future recurring payments for that authorization will fail. It should be the responsibility of merchant to ensure they have authorization before providing service. This can be sold as "Peace of Mind"^(TM) service and merchants who opt into this can can proudly show it off. Those merchants who do not have this, might have to show a warning to their customers that it is not a "Peace of Mind"^(TM) merchant. Further I am pretty sure Mastercard, Visa can easily see which merchants are problematic. I am sure SiriusXM, La Fitness etc. will be on the top of their list and they can create a threshold beyond which those problematic merchants will have to pay a higher transaction fee in order to continue or opt into "Peace of Mind"^(TM) program. The real issue here is the the regulation. All Fintech companies are super scared to try anything new as the various federal agencies will make an example out of anyone who builds something that disrupts the market. Entire history of financial regulation in this country is about protecting the interests of the existing players only and all the existing players are mostly indistinguishable from each other. Rarely someone like Robinhood tries to disrupt and you can see how much shit the media partners throw on RH. While many of these media partners tell you how dangerous RH is nearly no one explains why Fidelity, MorganStanley etc. have such shitty and outdated sites and UX.
- benrapscallion 5y agoChange your payment to PayPal and then cancel through PP.
- trizic 5y agoI am imagining a nice red button on an online credit card statement labelled "Cancel Subscription". Similar to the unsubscribe button/link in emails.