This ought to work, and I wouldn't consider it a scam in the case of a subscription service. Payment fails, cancel subscription, everyone's [moderately] happy.

This ought to work, and I wouldn't consider it a scam in the case of a subscription service. Payment fails, cancel subscription, everyone's [moderately] happy. If you're using it to get out of services-already-rendered, that's scammy, I suppose, but if it's a service you didn't want and weren't using and would have cancelled if they didn't make it impossible, then screw them. I pay monthly for a Digital Ocean VPS. I get charged at the end of the month, based on my usage, for services already provided. Trying to weasel out of that would be unethical. But the Economist charges me in advance, for an annual subscription, that I would have cancelled if they didn't make it impossible. I have no problem with changing that payment method to a dead card so that the next renewal attempt fails. I don't think that's unethical at all, and because they're doing evil things, I wouldn't feel bad even if they did suffer in some way.