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The website for X1 advertises "End free trials automatically with auto-expiring virtual cards" [0] - if that takes off, would services just start blocking folks

The website for X1 advertises "End free trials automatically with auto-expiring virtual cards" [0] - if that takes off, would services just start blocking folks from signing up for free trials with X1 cards? Is that a feasible thing to do, to say "yeah, we accept Visa, but not Visa cards issued by X1"? I feel like I've heard something slightly similar recently about Google Ad services blocking payments from virtual cards or other "weird" cards. 0: https://x1creditcard.com https://x1creditcard.com

schroeding 4y ago
Don't you just... commit fraud instead of "ending the trial"? Just because they can't charge your credit card doesn't mean you don't still own the company money, right? Genuine question, I don't know how it works with credit cards. But you can't "cancel a contract" by voiding a direct debit authorization (where you allow a company to charge your bank account directly) and expect everything to be fine, so I would assume that also applies to credit cards?
- wyldfire 4y ago
  It doesn't sound like fraud if an opt-out service renewal stops being opt-out (or if you effectively opt-out using an agent).
- Rebelgecko 4y ago
  If the payment doesn't go through, the company should just stop providing the service. eg the gym cancels your membership
  - tcoff91 4y ago
    I've definitely heard of times where gyms continue to attempt to charge you, claim that you owe them that money, and then send you to collections after months of failed payments.
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      This is definitely the case in Germany and Austria. You can't just stop paying your subscription and consider this a successful cancellation thinking everything goes away and sorts itself out naturally. They'll send the collection agency after you for the missed payments till the end of the contractual agreement, which for most gyms is 3 to 12 months! Gym chains here are absolutely predatory. The same goes for any other kind of subscription too like, telcos, etc.
    - wccrawford 4y ago
      Microsoft used to do it for XBox subscriptions as well. I don't know if they still do, but I definitely got caught on it. They ended up forgiving that bit and letting me use my account again without paying for service I never used, but they initially told me I had to pay it before I could use my account again.
  - eli 4y ago
    Gyms are terrible and often do sneaky things to take your money. But if you agree to a one year contract then you shouldn't be able to get out of it by just not paying.
    - buildbot 4y ago
      This gets really close to a straight up loan in my book, which has other implications that the gyms are not thinking of. With a physical good it is quite clear you get the thing and possibly have some contract to pay it back over time, which is a loan. If a gym is selling you a physical one year membership, billed monthly, how is that not a loan? Are they registered lending companies?
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  No this is a lose for the auto-renewing model since you pay ahead for the term typically instead of in-arrears. Which is good in my book. Being forced into auto-renewing subscriptions is nonsense and takes advantage of consumers.
- humanistbot 4y ago
  It depends on how the contract is written, and nobody reads the T&Cs, so they are probably written to the benefit of the merchant. If you sign a contract that says you will pay $X for service Y each month until canceled, then you are still legally liable to pay that until you cancel as stated in the contract.
  - matkoniecz 4y ago
    unless this part of contract is void due to violation of consumer rights (for example unreasonable way to cancel contract is or should be legally void)
- matkoniecz 4y ago
  In this case I would - cancel subscription using the same method I used to sign up (if it is broken - that is not my problem) - cease providing them money I would consider it as preventing fraud by scammers that make harder to cancel subscription than it was to create it.
  - schroeding 4y ago
    Agreed, but you have "cancel subscription" as the first action. The card provider does not, they just say "end free trials automatically with auto-expiring virtual cards" and "cancel subscription payments in one click", without having to cancel the actual subscription. Doing both is fine (and I do the same), but only removing the payment method does not invalidate the subscription contract, right?
    - matkoniecz 4y ago
      Not sure. There is "constructive dismissal" in the employment law ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_dismissal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_dismissal ) I would not assume it to be invalid form of terminating subscription, I would also not assume that it is valid if someone has not even tried official unsubscription method.
- LeifCarrotson 4y ago
  The premise is you've signed up for a service that advertises zero-risk cancellation after a trial period. On attempting to cancel - by stopping use of the service, by trying to cancel on the website, by emailing them, by calling them during your work hours and sitting on hold for an hour of my time that's worth more than the entire value I got out of the service, and recording the 2 minute interaction with the 'customer service' agent, by calling again the next month after they still didn't cancel, by escalating to a supervisor and recording that interaction, and getting billed again - it often turns out that it's impossible for mere mortals to cancel. In that case, cancelling by changing your credit card number is reasonable. Yes, there's a small chance they'll chase you to collections and attempt to harm your credit score if you do actually owe something (if they shipped you something physical, for example), but often they just drop it.
  - shuntress 4y ago
    What you are describing is the reason that "reasonable judgement" is a part of basically every law. Also the reason judges and the judiciary branch are so important.
vorpalhex 4y ago
No, a merchant can't discriminate by sub-cards within a network - that's a great way to get kicked out of the network and never be able to charge a visa again. The network may disallow the behavior but networks are slow to regulate and in theory are consumer focused.
- burnished 4y ago
  Could you link to something backing up what you are saying? I'm curious about the facts of the matter, and also why a comment like yours (factually correct or incorrect it is pretty innocuous) appears downvoted.
  - kersplody 4y ago
    https://usa.visa.com/content/dam/VCOM/download/about-visa/visa-rules-public.pdf https://usa.visa.com/content/dam/VCOM/download/about-visa/vi... Section 1.7.4.1
    - buildbot 4y ago
      Interesting, there does not appear to be an exception for HSA cards and I know many sites don't let you use an HSA card.
    - burnished 4y ago
      Much obliged! I can see what the original person was referring to, but that segment (and thank you for such a lovely and specific reference) includes enough caveats in limited space that I'm not confident my reading is correct.
- 0x457 4y ago
  That's true, however whoever provided you with the card is responsible for ensuring you are not misusing it. I once had a trial with a company and added my Privacy.com card that would expire in a day. I've canceled that trial and forgot about it. Then some time later I had to use the same company, but I've totally forgotten that I had an account with them (I've also changed the email I use). Anyways, privacy.com suspended my account because using their cards to get trials over and over again is against their ToS.
kergonath 4y ago
> The website for X1 advertises "End free trials automatically with auto-expiring virtual cards" [0] - if that takes off, would services just start blocking folks from signing up for free trials with X1 cards? I use a Revolut card exactly that way, and it made my life so much easier. No need to phone someone between 8:30 and 9:45 on the first Saturday of the month to cancel subscriptions. No risk of paying for a month extra or lose access for a week after in-subscribing (all of this happened to me). So there are real benefits to this approach. Now, I use Revolut because I like my online purchase to be completely isolated from my main bank accounts, but both my French and my British (traditional and old-fashioned) banks offer the same single-use virtual cards for a modest fee. So filtering by issuing bank would not be really effective. I don’t know if these cards have numbers that can be used to recognise them, though, but I never had any trouble using them.
- datavirtue 4y ago
  Sounds like our monstrous government consumer protection industry has dropped the ball. The main use of this feature is to bat down scammers that are masquerading as legitimate businesses.
  - kergonath 4y ago
    Indeed. To be fair, though, even without the subscription thing, it’s a useful element of defence in depth when buying stuff online: how secure a random e-commerce website is becomes much less relevant if they haven’t a working card number in the first place.
cr3ative 4y ago
Seems like a good way to accidentally get your account sent to collections; disconnecting your payments doesn't necessarily excuse you from any contract you signed.
- buildbot 4y ago
  Hard disagree, considering how predatory some subscription services are.
  - cr3ative 4y ago
    What are you disagreeing with - that predatory subscription services will send you to collections?
    - buildbot 4y ago
      That non-payment does not exclude you from the rest of the contract. I disagree with this. Why would I, an equal signer in a contract, not be able to void it by ceasing to use it? Wouldn't a contract that locked you into paying a certain amount per month for a set time essentially be a loan? Are those reported as liabilities on the companies balance sheet? Seems like they are trying to have it both ways.
  - vineyardmike 4y ago
    Except you can’t disagree that you’re responsible for contracts you agreed to? How is that questionable. Predatory services should be avoided. It seems more likely that predatory services would be aggressive about collecting.
  - malfist 4y ago
    You can disagree. Doesn't change your legal obligation though. Nor keep them from reporting you to collections.
    - buildbot 4y ago
      Then I go after them for fraudulent reports to collections. This has worked. If I stop paying for a service, and the service is no longer offered to me, but you keep billing me, that's fraud.
shmatt 4y ago
I worked for a retailer dealing with a very big reseller/bot problem. And yes, its pretty easy to programmatically block these privacy.com-style cards Another thing I've noticed is some apps (for example Allset) are blocking virtual phone numbers, for the same trial-abuse issues
- datavirtue 4y ago
  Please tell us how you block these...other than examining the BIN and kicking them if they belong to a certain block. I wouldn't rely on this feature unless the virtual card had the same BIN as the non-virtual card.
NavinF 4y ago
Many banks have been providing auto-expiring virtual card numbers. This is a 10 year old feature. They also let you set a small credit limit for each number.
- mritchie712 4y ago
  MBNA (acquired by bank of america) was doing this in 2001 [0] 0 - https://www.banktech.com/core-systems/mbna-offers-single-use-credit-card-numbers-/d/d-id/1288285.html https://www.banktech.com/core-systems/mbna-offers-single-use...
- bityard 4y ago
  20 year old feature. Discover used to have a flash app on their website for generating unique card numbers linked to your account on their site. It saved me from more than a few shady websites and breaches. They discontinued it with the rationale that they didn't need it anymore because their fraud prevention worked well enough by itself or something.
- asdff 4y ago
  Like most 10 year or 20 year old features that one would think are commonsense, you won't find them in all banks.

schroeding 4y ago

Don't you just... commit fraud instead of "ending the trial"? Just because they can't charge your credit card doesn't mean you don't still own the company money, right? Genuine question, I don't know how it works with credit cards. But you can't "cancel a contract" by voiding a direct debit authorization (where you allow a company to charge your bank account directly) and expect everything to be fine, so I would assume that also applies to credit cards?

wyldfire 4y ago
It doesn't sound like fraud if an opt-out service renewal stops being opt-out (or if you effectively opt-out using an agent).
Rebelgecko 4y ago
If the payment doesn't go through, the company should just stop providing the service. eg the gym cancels your membership
- tcoff91 4y ago
  I've definitely heard of times where gyms continue to attempt to charge you, claim that you owe them that money, and then send you to collections after months of failed payments.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    This is definitely the case in Germany and Austria. You can't just stop paying your subscription and consider this a successful cancellation thinking everything goes away and sorts itself out naturally. They'll send the collection agency after you for the missed payments till the end of the contractual agreement, which for most gyms is 3 to 12 months! Gym chains here are absolutely predatory. The same goes for any other kind of subscription too like, telcos, etc.
  - wccrawford 4y ago
    Microsoft used to do it for XBox subscriptions as well. I don't know if they still do, but I definitely got caught on it. They ended up forgiving that bit and letting me use my account again without paying for service I never used, but they initially told me I had to pay it before I could use my account again.
- eli 4y ago
  Gyms are terrible and often do sneaky things to take your money. But if you agree to a one year contract then you shouldn't be able to get out of it by just not paying.
  - buildbot 4y ago
    This gets really close to a straight up loan in my book, which has other implications that the gyms are not thinking of. With a physical good it is quite clear you get the thing and possibly have some contract to pay it back over time, which is a loan. If a gym is selling you a physical one year membership, billed monthly, how is that not a loan? Are they registered lending companies?
vorpalhex 4y ago
No this is a lose for the auto-renewing model since you pay ahead for the term typically instead of in-arrears. Which is good in my book. Being forced into auto-renewing subscriptions is nonsense and takes advantage of consumers.
humanistbot 4y ago
It depends on how the contract is written, and nobody reads the T&Cs, so they are probably written to the benefit of the merchant. If you sign a contract that says you will pay $X for service Y each month until canceled, then you are still legally liable to pay that until you cancel as stated in the contract.
- matkoniecz 4y ago
  unless this part of contract is void due to violation of consumer rights (for example unreasonable way to cancel contract is or should be legally void)
matkoniecz 4y ago
In this case I would - cancel subscription using the same method I used to sign up (if it is broken - that is not my problem) - cease providing them money I would consider it as preventing fraud by scammers that make harder to cancel subscription than it was to create it.
- schroeding 4y ago
  Agreed, but you have "cancel subscription" as the first action. The card provider does not, they just say "end free trials automatically with auto-expiring virtual cards" and "cancel subscription payments in one click", without having to cancel the actual subscription. Doing both is fine (and I do the same), but only removing the payment method does not invalidate the subscription contract, right?
  - matkoniecz 4y ago
    Not sure. There is "constructive dismissal" in the employment law ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_dismissal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_dismissal ) I would not assume it to be invalid form of terminating subscription, I would also not assume that it is valid if someone has not even tried official unsubscription method.
LeifCarrotson 4y ago
The premise is you've signed up for a service that advertises zero-risk cancellation after a trial period. On attempting to cancel - by stopping use of the service, by trying to cancel on the website, by emailing them, by calling them during your work hours and sitting on hold for an hour of my time that's worth more than the entire value I got out of the service, and recording the 2 minute interaction with the 'customer service' agent, by calling again the next month after they still didn't cancel, by escalating to a supervisor and recording that interaction, and getting billed again - it often turns out that it's impossible for mere mortals to cancel. In that case, cancelling by changing your credit card number is reasonable. Yes, there's a small chance they'll chase you to collections and attempt to harm your credit score if you do actually owe something (if they shipped you something physical, for example), but often they just drop it.
- shuntress 4y ago
  What you are describing is the reason that "reasonable judgement" is a part of basically every law. Also the reason judges and the judiciary branch are so important.

vorpalhex 4y ago

No, a merchant can't discriminate by sub-cards within a network - that's a great way to get kicked out of the network and never be able to charge a visa again. The network may disallow the behavior but networks are slow to regulate and in theory are consumer focused.

burnished 4y ago
Could you link to something backing up what you are saying? I'm curious about the facts of the matter, and also why a comment like yours (factually correct or incorrect it is pretty innocuous) appears downvoted.
- kersplody 4y ago
  https://usa.visa.com/content/dam/VCOM/download/about-visa/visa-rules-public.pdf https://usa.visa.com/content/dam/VCOM/download/about-visa/vi... Section 1.7.4.1
  - buildbot 4y ago
    Interesting, there does not appear to be an exception for HSA cards and I know many sites don't let you use an HSA card.
  - burnished 4y ago
    Much obliged! I can see what the original person was referring to, but that segment (and thank you for such a lovely and specific reference) includes enough caveats in limited space that I'm not confident my reading is correct.
0x457 4y ago
That's true, however whoever provided you with the card is responsible for ensuring you are not misusing it. I once had a trial with a company and added my Privacy.com card that would expire in a day. I've canceled that trial and forgot about it. Then some time later I had to use the same company, but I've totally forgotten that I had an account with them (I've also changed the email I use). Anyways, privacy.com suspended my account because using their cards to get trials over and over again is against their ToS.

kergonath 4y ago

> The website for X1 advertises "End free trials automatically with auto-expiring virtual cards" [0] - if that takes off, would services just start blocking folks from signing up for free trials with X1 cards? I use a Revolut card exactly that way, and it made my life so much easier. No need to phone someone between 8:30 and 9:45 on the first Saturday of the month to cancel subscriptions. No risk of paying for a month extra or lose access for a week after in-subscribing (all of this happened to me). So there are real benefits to this approach. Now, I use Revolut because I like my online purchase to be completely isolated from my main bank accounts, but both my French and my British (traditional and old-fashioned) banks offer the same single-use virtual cards for a modest fee. So filtering by issuing bank would not be really effective. I don’t know if these cards have numbers that can be used to recognise them, though, but I never had any trouble using them.

datavirtue 4y ago
Sounds like our monstrous government consumer protection industry has dropped the ball. The main use of this feature is to bat down scammers that are masquerading as legitimate businesses.
- kergonath 4y ago
  Indeed. To be fair, though, even without the subscription thing, it’s a useful element of defence in depth when buying stuff online: how secure a random e-commerce website is becomes much less relevant if they haven’t a working card number in the first place.

cr3ative 4y ago

Seems like a good way to accidentally get your account sent to collections; disconnecting your payments doesn't necessarily excuse you from any contract you signed.

buildbot 4y ago
Hard disagree, considering how predatory some subscription services are.
- cr3ative 4y ago
  What are you disagreeing with - that predatory subscription services will send you to collections?
  - buildbot 4y ago
    That non-payment does not exclude you from the rest of the contract. I disagree with this. Why would I, an equal signer in a contract, not be able to void it by ceasing to use it? Wouldn't a contract that locked you into paying a certain amount per month for a set time essentially be a loan? Are those reported as liabilities on the companies balance sheet? Seems like they are trying to have it both ways.
- vineyardmike 4y ago
  Except you can’t disagree that you’re responsible for contracts you agreed to? How is that questionable. Predatory services should be avoided. It seems more likely that predatory services would be aggressive about collecting.
- malfist 4y ago
  You can disagree. Doesn't change your legal obligation though. Nor keep them from reporting you to collections.
  - buildbot 4y ago
    Then I go after them for fraudulent reports to collections. This has worked. If I stop paying for a service, and the service is no longer offered to me, but you keep billing me, that's fraud.

shmatt 4y ago

I worked for a retailer dealing with a very big reseller/bot problem. And yes, its pretty easy to programmatically block these privacy.com-style cards Another thing I've noticed is some apps (for example Allset) are blocking virtual phone numbers, for the same trial-abuse issues

datavirtue 4y ago
Please tell us how you block these...other than examining the BIN and kicking them if they belong to a certain block. I wouldn't rely on this feature unless the virtual card had the same BIN as the non-virtual card.

NavinF 4y ago

Many banks have been providing auto-expiring virtual card numbers. This is a 10 year old feature. They also let you set a small credit limit for each number.

mritchie712 4y ago
MBNA (acquired by bank of america) was doing this in 2001 [0] 0 - https://www.banktech.com/core-systems/mbna-offers-single-use-credit-card-numbers-/d/d-id/1288285.html https://www.banktech.com/core-systems/mbna-offers-single-use...
bityard 4y ago
20 year old feature. Discover used to have a flash app on their website for generating unique card numbers linked to your account on their site. It saved me from more than a few shady websites and breaches. They discontinued it with the rationale that they didn't need it anymore because their fraud prevention worked well enough by itself or something.
asdff 4y ago
Like most 10 year or 20 year old features that one would think are commonsense, you won't find them in all banks.