7 ms·

It's just as bad in Europe! Signed up to O2 Deutschland - had to send a fax or send a physical letter to cancel.

by nivenkos 5y ago

texasbigdata 5y ago
Which is ironic from what I understand to be a mobile phone operator. Clearly they don’t trust their own network
- shp0ngle 5y ago
  No, they just want it to be as hard as possible. Although I was surprised how relatively big faxes are in Germany. I never had sent a fax before I was in Germany.
  - nivenkos 5y ago
    From nuclear power, to card payments, to online shopping - Germany is extremely conservative with regards to modern technology.
  - ahartmetz 5y ago
    Faxes aren't that big either. I never liked them, never owned one, and I remember sending two faxes in my life. Maybe a few I don't remember. The last one was... to cancel a mobile phone contract.
Aardwolf 5y ago
Still better than waiting hours on a "support" phone line
- nivenkos 5y ago
  It's not, because there's no real receipt confirmation. They ended up chasing me for 3 years over 20 euros when I moved to the UK. At least here in Sweden, credit checks aren't really a thing thankfully.
  - Aardwolf 5y ago
    You can send a signed letter and that should be legal proof
  - low_tech_love 5y ago
    Yeah, but try to cancel an internet subscription here in Sweden…
    - nivenkos 5y ago
      I've always had it included in the BRF or rental agreement. Only 28 Mb/s mind...
raverbashing 5y ago
This is not all of Europe, though Germany is known for this shenanigans (but on the other hand this gives you a confirmation of when you cancelled it if you send it Advice of Receipt)
nasir 5y ago
You can instruct your bank to stop the direct debit payments and they'll cancel your subscription.
- hnarn 5y ago
  You shouldn't say this to people like it's some obvious truth. There are many cases in which this action will land you in trouble due to it not being a legally valid termination of the contract (which of course may be different by country -- it's very common that cancelling requires an actual message to the other party). One specific example is if your contract has a termination period, which is pretty common, at least in my part of Europe. If you simply stop paying, you are denying the other party N months of revenue (your cancellation period) that you are contractually obliged to pay. You are now defaulting on your payments and will likely pay additional fees.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    This makes sense if the contract indeed has a minimum commitment that hasn't been reached. But if the contract has no minimum term (or it has since passed) and you've made a reasonable effort to attempt to cancel with no success, it'll now be on them to recover the money through legal means which would require them to explain to the court why your cancellation attempt was ignored, demonstrating their bad faith in the process. That's not something they want to do.
    - hnarn 5y ago
      The point of my comment was "this is not good general advice". The point of your comment seems to be "it can be good advice in some cases", which makes no sense to me. Obviously it can be good advice in that exact case where it makes sense, but it's not good general advice.
      - Nextgrid 5y ago
        I'd argue it's good enough general advice and would apply to most online subscriptions as they typically have no minimum commitment. The ones with a minimum commitment would be the outliers and would require special treatment.
hnarn 5y ago
This isn't "Europe", it's Germany. Germany is still well known for using fax for government and corporate communication, and there was heavy criticism for how the Covid pandemic was initially handled because faxing records was so common which meant they could not be easily digitized, collected and searched. In Sweden, sending a fax or physical letter to a government instance or private companies rather than an e-mail is more or less unheard of, unless they for some reason need a physical paper with your signature on it (I've heard this happen with customs, for example), but in almost all areas of society this has now also been replaced with Bank-ID, which is digital.[1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BankID https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BankID
- revax 5y ago
  You have to call or send a letter to cancel your subscription of the French newspaper LeMonde. It's not just Germany.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - _Wintermute 5y ago
    I had this same issue with a number of French companies. Couldn't figure out why they weren't cancelling my contract despite repeated letters until someone told me you have to send the letter with proof of receipt otherwise they just ignore it.
- nivenkos 5y ago
  Yeah, I live in Sweden now too. I think Sweden is the exception here really though (and the other Scandinavian countries, and possibly the UK).
  - hnarn 5y ago
    To me, that’s enough exceptions to not generalize about “Europe”.
tchalla 5y ago
There are 3 ways to cancel an O2 contract - (1) Online intimation + phone call, (2) Letter or (3) Fax [0]. Most routers (like Fritzbox) come with a fax function which you send an online fax [1]. O2 charges a maximum of 0.14 cents per fax page or free based on your DSL plan. Alternatively, you can also send a physical letter online (0.70 cents) [2]. Your comment below says that there is no receipt for confirmation. O2 provides a default PDF form on their website which to fill for termination. The letter explicitly states that "o2 should send you a written confirmation of cancellation". It is illegal for O2 to be in receipt of a letter and not send a confirmation. I am sorry if that happened to you! Don't get me wrong - the auto-renewal of contract practices in Germany are predatory for the consumers. Recently, there has been a change in law that forces providers to extend contracts by 1 month instead of 1 or 2 years. [0] https://www.o2online.de/service/kuendigung/ https://www.o2online.de/service/kuendigung/ [1] https://en.avm.de/service/knowledge-base/dok/FRITZ-Box-7490/193_Configuring-the-integrated-fax-function-in-the-FRITZ-Box/ https://en.avm.de/service/knowledge-base/dok/FRITZ-Box-7490/... [2] https://www.deutschepost.de/de/e/epost.html https://www.deutschepost.de/de/e/epost.html [3] https://static2.o9.de/resource/blob/498264/12cd6ca6ee17a02b9e4045de0c3d9dd1/o2-faxvorlage-kuendigung-mobilfunkvertrag-pdf-download-data.pdf https://static2.o9.de/resource/blob/498264/12cd6ca6ee17a02b9...
- nivenkos 5y ago
  This was 10 years ago, it definitely wasn't possible by phone call back then. Hopefully it'll get better. I also had a terrible experience with Vodafone in the UK, charging the higher rates for data usage with no warning.
t0mas88 5y ago
That's illegal in Europe. You have to be able to cancel via the same means as you signed up. So if you can signup online then you must be able to cancel online.
- Reason077 5y ago
  > "That's illegal in Europe. You have to be able to cancel via the same means as you signed up." Unfortunately I don't think that's true. I'm looking at you, beer52.com! [1] (And yes, they were doing this long before the UK left the EU, and are still at it today) [1] https://ibb.co/r4LfK5F https://ibb.co/r4LfK5F
  - misnome 5y ago
    Yes, beer52.com is atrocious for this also. I tried over a couple of weeks in lunch breaks and never got through. Eventually I sent an email to some random customer support email I found complaining and they actually did it.
- hnarn 5y ago
  Source?
  - ahartmetz 5y ago
    IIRC it's a law that is just a few months old.
    - revax 5y ago
      That's not really a source.
      - ahartmetz 5y ago
        It's a possible explanation for older anecdotes about having to cancel by fax.
  - 5y ago
huhtenberg 5y ago
Probably no less than 90 days in advance too.

It's just as bad in Europe! Signed up to O2 Deutschland - had to send a fax or send a physical letter to cancel.

texasbigdata 5y ago

Which is ironic from what I understand to be a mobile phone operator. Clearly they don’t trust their own network

shp0ngle 5y ago
No, they just want it to be as hard as possible. Although I was surprised how relatively big faxes are in Germany. I never had sent a fax before I was in Germany.
- nivenkos 5y ago
  From nuclear power, to card payments, to online shopping - Germany is extremely conservative with regards to modern technology.
- ahartmetz 5y ago
  Faxes aren't that big either. I never liked them, never owned one, and I remember sending two faxes in my life. Maybe a few I don't remember. The last one was... to cancel a mobile phone contract.

Aardwolf 5y ago

Still better than waiting hours on a "support" phone line

nivenkos 5y ago
It's not, because there's no real receipt confirmation. They ended up chasing me for 3 years over 20 euros when I moved to the UK. At least here in Sweden, credit checks aren't really a thing thankfully.
- Aardwolf 5y ago
  You can send a signed letter and that should be legal proof
- low_tech_love 5y ago
  Yeah, but try to cancel an internet subscription here in Sweden…
  - nivenkos 5y ago
    I've always had it included in the BRF or rental agreement. Only 28 Mb/s mind...

raverbashing 5y ago

This is not all of Europe, though Germany is known for this shenanigans (but on the other hand this gives you a confirmation of when you cancelled it if you send it Advice of Receipt)

nasir 5y ago

You can instruct your bank to stop the direct debit payments and they'll cancel your subscription.

hnarn 5y ago
You shouldn't say this to people like it's some obvious truth. There are many cases in which this action will land you in trouble due to it not being a legally valid termination of the contract (which of course may be different by country -- it's very common that cancelling requires an actual message to the other party). One specific example is if your contract has a termination period, which is pretty common, at least in my part of Europe. If you simply stop paying, you are denying the other party N months of revenue (your cancellation period) that you are contractually obliged to pay. You are now defaulting on your payments and will likely pay additional fees.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  This makes sense if the contract indeed has a minimum commitment that hasn't been reached. But if the contract has no minimum term (or it has since passed) and you've made a reasonable effort to attempt to cancel with no success, it'll now be on them to recover the money through legal means which would require them to explain to the court why your cancellation attempt was ignored, demonstrating their bad faith in the process. That's not something they want to do.
  - hnarn 5y ago
    The point of my comment was "this is not good general advice". The point of your comment seems to be "it can be good advice in some cases", which makes no sense to me. Obviously it can be good advice in that exact case where it makes sense, but it's not good general advice.
    - Nextgrid 5y ago
      I'd argue it's good enough general advice and would apply to most online subscriptions as they typically have no minimum commitment. The ones with a minimum commitment would be the outliers and would require special treatment.

hnarn 5y ago

This isn't "Europe", it's Germany. Germany is still well known for using fax for government and corporate communication, and there was heavy criticism for how the Covid pandemic was initially handled because faxing records was so common which meant they could not be easily digitized, collected and searched. In Sweden, sending a fax or physical letter to a government instance or private companies rather than an e-mail is more or less unheard of, unless they for some reason need a physical paper with your signature on it (I've heard this happen with customs, for example), but in almost all areas of society this has now also been replaced with Bank-ID, which is digital.[1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BankID https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BankID

revax 5y ago
You have to call or send a letter to cancel your subscription of the French newspaper LeMonde. It's not just Germany.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- _Wintermute 5y ago
  I had this same issue with a number of French companies. Couldn't figure out why they weren't cancelling my contract despite repeated letters until someone told me you have to send the letter with proof of receipt otherwise they just ignore it.
nivenkos 5y ago
Yeah, I live in Sweden now too. I think Sweden is the exception here really though (and the other Scandinavian countries, and possibly the UK).
- hnarn 5y ago
  To me, that’s enough exceptions to not generalize about “Europe”.

tchalla 5y ago

There are 3 ways to cancel an O2 contract - (1) Online intimation + phone call, (2) Letter or (3) Fax [0]. Most routers (like Fritzbox) come with a fax function which you send an online fax [1]. O2 charges a maximum of 0.14 cents per fax page or free based on your DSL plan. Alternatively, you can also send a physical letter online (0.70 cents) [2]. Your comment below says that there is no receipt for confirmation. O2 provides a default PDF form on their website which to fill for termination. The letter explicitly states that "o2 should send you a written confirmation of cancellation". It is illegal for O2 to be in receipt of a letter and not send a confirmation. I am sorry if that happened to you! Don't get me wrong - the auto-renewal of contract practices in Germany are predatory for the consumers. Recently, there has been a change in law that forces providers to extend contracts by 1 month instead of 1 or 2 years. [0] https://www.o2online.de/service/kuendigung/ https://www.o2online.de/service/kuendigung/ [1] https://en.avm.de/service/knowledge-base/dok/FRITZ-Box-7490/193_Configuring-the-integrated-fax-function-in-the-FRITZ-Box/ https://en.avm.de/service/knowledge-base/dok/FRITZ-Box-7490/... [2] https://www.deutschepost.de/de/e/epost.html https://www.deutschepost.de/de/e/epost.html [3] https://static2.o9.de/resource/blob/498264/12cd6ca6ee17a02b9e4045de0c3d9dd1/o2-faxvorlage-kuendigung-mobilfunkvertrag-pdf-download-data.pdf https://static2.o9.de/resource/blob/498264/12cd6ca6ee17a02b9...

nivenkos 5y ago
This was 10 years ago, it definitely wasn't possible by phone call back then. Hopefully it'll get better. I also had a terrible experience with Vodafone in the UK, charging the higher rates for data usage with no warning.

t0mas88 5y ago

That's illegal in Europe. You have to be able to cancel via the same means as you signed up. So if you can signup online then you must be able to cancel online.

Reason077 5y ago
> "That's illegal in Europe. You have to be able to cancel via the same means as you signed up." Unfortunately I don't think that's true. I'm looking at you, beer52.com! [1] (And yes, they were doing this long before the UK left the EU, and are still at it today) [1] https://ibb.co/r4LfK5F https://ibb.co/r4LfK5F
- misnome 5y ago
  Yes, beer52.com is atrocious for this also. I tried over a couple of weeks in lunch breaks and never got through. Eventually I sent an email to some random customer support email I found complaining and they actually did it.
hnarn 5y ago
Source?
- ahartmetz 5y ago
  IIRC it's a law that is just a few months old.
  - revax 5y ago
    That's not really a source.
    - ahartmetz 5y ago
      It's a possible explanation for older anecdotes about having to cancel by fax.
- 5y ago

huhtenberg 5y ago

Probably no less than 90 days in advance too.