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>> Get unlimited access to Le Monde in English €2.49/month, cancel anytime >> A Customer who wishes to terminate their contract must print out (or copy on plai

>> Get unlimited access to Le Monde in English €2.49/month, cancel anytime >> A Customer who wishes to terminate their contract must print out (or copy on plain paper) ... So, cancel anytime by conveniently printing out and filling in a form then sending it by snail mail to their customer service dept. I think I'll pass. Too bad. https://moncompte.lemonde.fr/cgv-en https://moncompte.lemonde.fr/cgv-en

r2222 5y ago
Oh wow. Reminds me of Wall Street Journal where you’d have to change your address to somewhere in California to gain the ability to cancel online. Otherwise you have to call, because only California has laws against such behavior.
- ulfw 5y ago
  I think you mean the New York Times, where one indeed has to play that game.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    >> Oh wow. Reminds me of Wall Street Journal where you’d have to change your address to somewhere in California to gain the ability to cancel online. Otherwise you have to call, because only California has laws against such behavior. > I think you mean the New York Times, where one indeed has to play that game. All kinds subscription of businesses do this exact same thing or worse, so the answer is probably "both." IIRC, the (large, chain) gym nearby required cancellation either in person or by registered mail. When I complained, their sales guy unbelievably justified it because "they've had problems with people canceling other's memberships." That said, I actually did cancel the New York Times a few years ago, and I don't remember the process being too onerous. Though I'm not allergic to speaking to someone on the phone.
    - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
      I cancelled the NYT through chat, but I'm in the EU so that might have made a difference.
    - chrisfinazzo 5y ago
      After being a regular reader for years and finally getting fed up with the increasing restrictions on their paywall, I bought a digital subscription in late 2019. I could have done it through their app on iOS and - eventually - gained the ability to cancel right there if I wanted to as it's now in the App Store TOS for Reader apps, but the web offer was too good to pass up. ~$1 per week for a year, IIRC. I think the process may be improved enough at this point that there is a web cancellation procedure available. ("Subscription Overview" when you are signed in to your account has a link to do this part.) As for this change, I'm pleasantly surprised that they are following the "good" convention for foreign language sites that also publish in English: E.g, https://example https://example.{{ Insert country-specific TLD}}/en/ That said, URL's to articles are still a bit of a mess, as the this one shows... https://www.lemonde.fr/en/2022-presidential-election/article/2022/04/07/despite-her-softened-image-marine-le-pen-is-still-decidedly-far-right_5979901_16.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/2022-presidential-election/article... Click through for the whole thing and you see `/article` is redundant and it's not just in English, the French articles follow the same weird convention. Not sure why they've done that.
- cmrdporcupine 5y ago
  Yep, or Sirius radio in Canada. Want to cancel? US customer? Click a link. Canadian? Have to phone, so they can force you to wait through a retention sales game. (Where they will offensively offer you a way lower rate than you were already paying, making you feel like a fool for not hassling them in the first place. And then after 6 months it goes back up again because you forgot to call back and threaten cancellation again. Awful dark pattern.)
Invictus0 5y ago
Just subscribe with a card from Privacy.com, and cancel the card when you want to cancel the subscription.
mttjj 5y ago
That’s different than what’s posted in their FAQ for canceling. The FAQ suggests that it’s a simple button in the account settings. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/faq/?question=i-want-to-cancel-my-subscription https://www.lemonde.fr/en/faq/?question=i-want-to-cancel-my-...
- adolph 5y ago
  Said button is no doubt “in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.‘“ because we are all Arthur Dent in this Internet. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/40705-but-the-plans-were-on-display-on-display-i-eventually https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/40705-but-the-plans-were-on...
- tgv 5y ago
  I think EU regulations require that cancellation must be accessible in the same way as the subscription. So online subscriptions must have an online cancellation.
fbn79 5y ago
better than "phone a call center" like Barrons, Morningstar or other I have checked. Looks like editors love to keep readers tied with uneasy unsubscribe methods.
- reaperducer 5y ago
  Looks like editors love to keep readers tied with uneasy unsubscribe methods. The fact that people think editors have anything at all to do with subscriptions illustrates a lack of basic understanding of the publishing industry. Source: At various times of my life, I've worked for two of the largest newspaper companies on the planet.
Galanwe 5y ago
That's just the formalities most likely copy pasted from the physical edition. In reality it's just a "Cancel subscription" button.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
k8sToGo 5y ago
Isn't the paper one there because of legal reasons? Like that is the proper and legal way to cancel a service. According to their FAQ it seems they have a button.
- Aissen 5y ago
  No, there is nothing in any law that mandates that. It's there for artificial churn reduction. The irony, is that if you register through a platform that takes a big share (they get less money) like the App Store or Google Play, it's then easier to cancel…
  - k8sToGo 5y ago
    If I send a physical letter to them, they have to accept and respect my cancellation. That is what I meant. Is that not the case in France?
    - Aissen 5y ago
      Oh I see, sorry for the misunderstanding. To go into more details, you need to send a LRAR, which is the only one with a legal proof and costs ~6-7€; otherwise they could pretend that you never sent it. But my comment was on the fact that it was the only way to cancel. They could implement a system with single-click cancel (and it seems they did, here); it costs less than the current snail-mail system, and is more honest. But they don't because this system has a measurable impact on churn.
10729287 5y ago
Cancelling Le Monde is a well known pain in the ass for us french users. I almost passed out thinking how hard it would be for a foreigner. Please avoid.
- zouhair 5y ago
  Pas Le Monde Diplomatique though.
  - namdnay 5y ago
    Le monde diplo has no relationship to le monde afaik
    - zouhair 5y ago
      Le Monde owns 51% of it [0] [0]: https://mondediplo.com/about https://mondediplo.com/about
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  Even trying to talk to a french person as a foreigner is a pain... Almost as bad as with italians, but in italy you can atleast wave with your hands, the french ignore that too, and doing it over the phone is totally impossible. (source: live an hour drive from italy, buy cheese and pasta there, and often go to france on business).
  - 10729287 5y ago
    I must admit you're right and I feel the pain for you. Sorry.
- fransje26 5y ago
  I got the perfect automatic cancellation: my credit-card expired. Worked a charm.
stefanve 5y ago
*Offer with no commitment required, valid for orders placed from outside the US, Canada and France area, for all new subscriptions to the promotional offer Le Monde in English of Le Monde. After the end of the first year, the amount debited will be adjusted each year to reflect the applicable price. An email informing you of the adjusted price will be sent 2 months before the new price goes into effect. The client may cancel their subscription to Le Monde from their account.
- reaperducer 5y ago
  This sort of thing, and the whole "cancel by mail" thing noted above, are why consumers see such value in buying subscriptions through Apple's evil puppy-kicking "walled garden." Tech types don't see the value in it. But regular people do. I subscribe to the dead tree editions of four newspapers, and several magazines. But if it's available from Apple News, I'll go there first, because I know I'm insulated from the dark side of the subscription model.
  - BostonEnginerd 5y ago
    I'm completely with you here. I subscribed to the NYT for some time through Apple subscriptions. No funny business when I wanted to unsubscribe, just two clicks and my subscription stopped when the expiration date came.
ekianjo 5y ago
> So, cancel anytime by conveniently printing out and filling in a form then sending it by snail mail to their customer service dept. I think I'll pass. Too bad. you are not missing anything, LeMonde is one of the worst papers ever out there.
GuB-42 5y ago
For the international offer, cancellation is possible "with one click from the subscriber’s online account" (it is in the special conditions). The part with the registered letter (not just simple mail!) is for the regular (French) subscription. But to be fair, the best way to cancel these kinds of subscriptions where they make it hard for you is to just block the payment at your bank. In theory, you can get sued, but in practice, they will simply cancel your subscription. There are strong consumer protection laws regarding recurring subscriptions (because there is a lot abuse) and if the company wants to take it to court, they need a rock solid case otherwise it will backfire, so usually, they don't bother.
- netsharc 5y ago
  I wonder if it'd be more convenient for a French subscriber to use a VPN. Or change their address to somewhere out of France before cancelling.
  - Krssst 5y ago
    Subscribing through Google Play should allow easy cancelation.
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  Well yeah, but it's still a very shitty practice, and just that is enough for me to not give them any money.
  - cycomanic 5y ago
    I think the reason is that France is much less online in these things (at least this is my experience with seeing my in-laws). They expect to subscribe and cancel via a letter, much more than online.
- dave84 5y ago
  I've had debt collectors sent after me for not updating my card details on a subscription service, granted it's the exception but it happens and I'd imagine blocking the payment would incur a similar wrath.
ChuckNorris89 5y ago
>>> A Customer who wishes to terminate their contract must print out (or copy on plain paper) I thought only Germany had this BS.
- dx034 5y ago
  I actually found German newspapers to be comparably nice. Any country without laws prohibiting it have these behaviors.
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    Not papers, but everything else in Germany like gyms, telcos, etc.
    - gbear605 5y ago
      Gyms and telcos in the US certainly do this type of thing, though usually not with paper forms specifically. At gyms, they often won’t let you get out of the contract no matter what you say, or they’ll say you’re free and then keep on charging you for years if you don’t notice on your credit cars bill. For telcos, they’ll make you wait on the phone through hours of waiting “for the next available representative”.
    - fransje26 5y ago
      Ah yes. Don't forget to fax the paper you printed. No fax? No luck..
eunos 5y ago
What's with Europe and their love of non-digital way to cancel service?
amelius 5y ago
Unsubscribing should be as simple as telling your bank to stop payments. Why is this still a thing?
- bee_rider 5y ago
  That would be neat. A hacky way to do it, I guess, would be for banks to make is really easy to spin up debit accounts. You drop exactly the right amount of money into the account, then when you want to unsubscribe just stop putting money there. I guess, though, some organizations would keep providing service and then consider you to owe them money, and eventually send it to collections... but if this was the conventional configuration for paying for accounts, I guess that sort of behavior on the part of the people looking for payments wouldn't be scalable, and so they'd have adjusted to just accepting the signal of non-payment=unsubscribe.
  - jhugo 5y ago
    Lots of banks already provide this service (spin up as many unique debit cards through an app as you want), at least in Europe and Asia where I've used it. It's often marketed as being specifically for this purpose, along with extra features like locking a card to the specific merchant you plan to use it for, to guard against theft of the card number.
    - bee_rider 5y ago
      Are there often legal issues around not paying for services with annoying contracts? In the US it is not super uncommon to pay after consuming (this is how electricity typically works for example) or for services to offer some grace period where they'll keep providing service with the expectation that you'll pay back later. Hypothetically these companies could I guess sue you if you don't pay back later (I'm not sure actually -- more likely I guess they'd send it to collections). But if the default way to cancel a service was to just stop paying for it, then I guess companies would change how they billed (fundamentally I think paying beforehand would be more convenient for most consumers).
metatranca 5y ago
Not a solution but a way to deal with this practice: some credit card providers allow you to create virtual cards that you can cancel any time. I do this all the time with Capital One. https://www.capitalone.com/digital/eno/virtual-card-numbers/ https://www.capitalone.com/digital/eno/virtual-card-numbers/
tonyedgecombe 5y ago
I've got to the point where I won't subscribe to any of these publications now which makes me wonder if these tactics really work.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

r2222 5y ago

Oh wow. Reminds me of Wall Street Journal where you’d have to change your address to somewhere in California to gain the ability to cancel online. Otherwise you have to call, because only California has laws against such behavior.

ulfw 5y ago
I think you mean the New York Times, where one indeed has to play that game.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  >> Oh wow. Reminds me of Wall Street Journal where you’d have to change your address to somewhere in California to gain the ability to cancel online. Otherwise you have to call, because only California has laws against such behavior. > I think you mean the New York Times, where one indeed has to play that game. All kinds subscription of businesses do this exact same thing or worse, so the answer is probably "both." IIRC, the (large, chain) gym nearby required cancellation either in person or by registered mail. When I complained, their sales guy unbelievably justified it because "they've had problems with people canceling other's memberships." That said, I actually did cancel the New York Times a few years ago, and I don't remember the process being too onerous. Though I'm not allergic to speaking to someone on the phone.
  - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
    I cancelled the NYT through chat, but I'm in the EU so that might have made a difference.
  - chrisfinazzo 5y ago
    After being a regular reader for years and finally getting fed up with the increasing restrictions on their paywall, I bought a digital subscription in late 2019. I could have done it through their app on iOS and - eventually - gained the ability to cancel right there if I wanted to as it's now in the App Store TOS for Reader apps, but the web offer was too good to pass up. ~$1 per week for a year, IIRC. I think the process may be improved enough at this point that there is a web cancellation procedure available. ("Subscription Overview" when you are signed in to your account has a link to do this part.) As for this change, I'm pleasantly surprised that they are following the "good" convention for foreign language sites that also publish in English: E.g, https://example https://example.{{ Insert country-specific TLD}}/en/ That said, URL's to articles are still a bit of a mess, as the this one shows... https://www.lemonde.fr/en/2022-presidential-election/article/2022/04/07/despite-her-softened-image-marine-le-pen-is-still-decidedly-far-right_5979901_16.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/2022-presidential-election/article... Click through for the whole thing and you see `/article` is redundant and it's not just in English, the French articles follow the same weird convention. Not sure why they've done that.
cmrdporcupine 5y ago
Yep, or Sirius radio in Canada. Want to cancel? US customer? Click a link. Canadian? Have to phone, so they can force you to wait through a retention sales game. (Where they will offensively offer you a way lower rate than you were already paying, making you feel like a fool for not hassling them in the first place. And then after 6 months it goes back up again because you forgot to call back and threaten cancellation again. Awful dark pattern.)

Invictus0 5y ago

Just subscribe with a card from Privacy.com, and cancel the card when you want to cancel the subscription.

mttjj 5y ago

That’s different than what’s posted in their FAQ for canceling. The FAQ suggests that it’s a simple button in the account settings. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/faq/?question=i-want-to-cancel-my-subscription https://www.lemonde.fr/en/faq/?question=i-want-to-cancel-my-...

adolph 5y ago
Said button is no doubt “in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.‘“ because we are all Arthur Dent in this Internet. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/40705-but-the-plans-were-on-display-on-display-i-eventually https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/40705-but-the-plans-were-on...
tgv 5y ago
I think EU regulations require that cancellation must be accessible in the same way as the subscription. So online subscriptions must have an online cancellation.

fbn79 5y ago

better than "phone a call center" like Barrons, Morningstar or other I have checked. Looks like editors love to keep readers tied with uneasy unsubscribe methods.

reaperducer 5y ago
Looks like editors love to keep readers tied with uneasy unsubscribe methods. The fact that people think editors have anything at all to do with subscriptions illustrates a lack of basic understanding of the publishing industry. Source: At various times of my life, I've worked for two of the largest newspaper companies on the planet.

Galanwe 5y ago

That's just the formalities most likely copy pasted from the physical edition. In reality it's just a "Cancel subscription" button.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

k8sToGo 5y ago

Isn't the paper one there because of legal reasons? Like that is the proper and legal way to cancel a service. According to their FAQ it seems they have a button.

Aissen 5y ago
No, there is nothing in any law that mandates that. It's there for artificial churn reduction. The irony, is that if you register through a platform that takes a big share (they get less money) like the App Store or Google Play, it's then easier to cancel…
- k8sToGo 5y ago
  If I send a physical letter to them, they have to accept and respect my cancellation. That is what I meant. Is that not the case in France?
  - Aissen 5y ago
    Oh I see, sorry for the misunderstanding. To go into more details, you need to send a LRAR, which is the only one with a legal proof and costs ~6-7€; otherwise they could pretend that you never sent it. But my comment was on the fact that it was the only way to cancel. They could implement a system with single-click cancel (and it seems they did, here); it costs less than the current snail-mail system, and is more honest. But they don't because this system has a measurable impact on churn.

10729287 5y ago

Cancelling Le Monde is a well known pain in the ass for us french users. I almost passed out thinking how hard it would be for a foreigner. Please avoid.

zouhair 5y ago
Pas Le Monde Diplomatique though.
- namdnay 5y ago
  Le monde diplo has no relationship to le monde afaik
  - zouhair 5y ago
    Le Monde owns 51% of it [0] [0]: https://mondediplo.com/about https://mondediplo.com/about
ajsnigrutin 5y ago
Even trying to talk to a french person as a foreigner is a pain... Almost as bad as with italians, but in italy you can atleast wave with your hands, the french ignore that too, and doing it over the phone is totally impossible. (source: live an hour drive from italy, buy cheese and pasta there, and often go to france on business).
- 10729287 5y ago
  I must admit you're right and I feel the pain for you. Sorry.
fransje26 5y ago
I got the perfect automatic cancellation: my credit-card expired. Worked a charm.

stefanve 5y ago

*Offer with no commitment required, valid for orders placed from outside the US, Canada and France area, for all new subscriptions to the promotional offer Le Monde in English of Le Monde. After the end of the first year, the amount debited will be adjusted each year to reflect the applicable price. An email informing you of the adjusted price will be sent 2 months before the new price goes into effect. The client may cancel their subscription to Le Monde from their account.

reaperducer 5y ago
This sort of thing, and the whole "cancel by mail" thing noted above, are why consumers see such value in buying subscriptions through Apple's evil puppy-kicking "walled garden." Tech types don't see the value in it. But regular people do. I subscribe to the dead tree editions of four newspapers, and several magazines. But if it's available from Apple News, I'll go there first, because I know I'm insulated from the dark side of the subscription model.
- BostonEnginerd 5y ago
  I'm completely with you here. I subscribed to the NYT for some time through Apple subscriptions. No funny business when I wanted to unsubscribe, just two clicks and my subscription stopped when the expiration date came.

ekianjo 5y ago

> So, cancel anytime by conveniently printing out and filling in a form then sending it by snail mail to their customer service dept. I think I'll pass. Too bad. you are not missing anything, LeMonde is one of the worst papers ever out there.

GuB-42 5y ago

For the international offer, cancellation is possible "with one click from the subscriber’s online account" (it is in the special conditions). The part with the registered letter (not just simple mail!) is for the regular (French) subscription. But to be fair, the best way to cancel these kinds of subscriptions where they make it hard for you is to just block the payment at your bank. In theory, you can get sued, but in practice, they will simply cancel your subscription. There are strong consumer protection laws regarding recurring subscriptions (because there is a lot abuse) and if the company wants to take it to court, they need a rock solid case otherwise it will backfire, so usually, they don't bother.

netsharc 5y ago
I wonder if it'd be more convenient for a French subscriber to use a VPN. Or change their address to somewhere out of France before cancelling.
- Krssst 5y ago
  Subscribing through Google Play should allow easy cancelation.
ajsnigrutin 5y ago
Well yeah, but it's still a very shitty practice, and just that is enough for me to not give them any money.
- cycomanic 5y ago
  I think the reason is that France is much less online in these things (at least this is my experience with seeing my in-laws). They expect to subscribe and cancel via a letter, much more than online.
dave84 5y ago
I've had debt collectors sent after me for not updating my card details on a subscription service, granted it's the exception but it happens and I'd imagine blocking the payment would incur a similar wrath.

ChuckNorris89 5y ago

>>> A Customer who wishes to terminate their contract must print out (or copy on plain paper) I thought only Germany had this BS.

dx034 5y ago
I actually found German newspapers to be comparably nice. Any country without laws prohibiting it have these behaviors.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  Not papers, but everything else in Germany like gyms, telcos, etc.
  - gbear605 5y ago
    Gyms and telcos in the US certainly do this type of thing, though usually not with paper forms specifically. At gyms, they often won’t let you get out of the contract no matter what you say, or they’ll say you’re free and then keep on charging you for years if you don’t notice on your credit cars bill. For telcos, they’ll make you wait on the phone through hours of waiting “for the next available representative”.
  - fransje26 5y ago
    Ah yes. Don't forget to fax the paper you printed. No fax? No luck..

eunos 5y ago

What's with Europe and their love of non-digital way to cancel service?

amelius 5y ago

Unsubscribing should be as simple as telling your bank to stop payments. Why is this still a thing?

bee_rider 5y ago
That would be neat. A hacky way to do it, I guess, would be for banks to make is really easy to spin up debit accounts. You drop exactly the right amount of money into the account, then when you want to unsubscribe just stop putting money there. I guess, though, some organizations would keep providing service and then consider you to owe them money, and eventually send it to collections... but if this was the conventional configuration for paying for accounts, I guess that sort of behavior on the part of the people looking for payments wouldn't be scalable, and so they'd have adjusted to just accepting the signal of non-payment=unsubscribe.
- jhugo 5y ago
  Lots of banks already provide this service (spin up as many unique debit cards through an app as you want), at least in Europe and Asia where I've used it. It's often marketed as being specifically for this purpose, along with extra features like locking a card to the specific merchant you plan to use it for, to guard against theft of the card number.
  - bee_rider 5y ago
    Are there often legal issues around not paying for services with annoying contracts? In the US it is not super uncommon to pay after consuming (this is how electricity typically works for example) or for services to offer some grace period where they'll keep providing service with the expectation that you'll pay back later. Hypothetically these companies could I guess sue you if you don't pay back later (I'm not sure actually -- more likely I guess they'd send it to collections). But if the default way to cancel a service was to just stop paying for it, then I guess companies would change how they billed (fundamentally I think paying beforehand would be more convenient for most consumers).

metatranca 5y ago

Not a solution but a way to deal with this practice: some credit card providers allow you to create virtual cards that you can cancel any time. I do this all the time with Capital One. https://www.capitalone.com/digital/eno/virtual-card-numbers/ https://www.capitalone.com/digital/eno/virtual-card-numbers/

tonyedgecombe 5y ago

I've got to the point where I won't subscribe to any of these publications now which makes me wonder if these tactics really work.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]