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Ask HN: Why do I have to call for cancellation?
- JohnFen 4y agoThis is a standard, and terrible, practice with many large companies. They want you to call them so a "customer retention" specialist can try to talk you into not cancelling. They'll usually offer you a great deal to stay.
- Caboose8685 4y agoOn the flip side, this process can be abused by people who don't actually intend on leaving to get better rates/prices. I've done it a few times over the years to deal with rising costs of an ISP when I don't have any good competitor to actually switch to.
- snehk 4y agoGermany recently passed a law because of this. Providers who offer contracts over the internet now have to also show a "Cancel"-Button that cannot be hidden behind sub-menus. It's really great.
- prakashn27 4y ago" Why you need to contact us We need to speak with you directly in order to process your cancellation request and ensure you are informed of any details relating to your account changes." this is BS.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- coderintherye 4y agoIf you signed up online and are located in California, then they must let you cancel online[1]. Reminding them of this fact (with a link to just about any article about the law) is useful. [1] https://www.consumerprotectionreview.com/2021/11/california-passes-updated-automatic-renewal-law/ https://www.consumerprotectionreview.com/2021/11/california-...
- jfim 4y agoRogers is a Canadian telephone company.
- didgetmaster 4y agoMaybe that is their way of confirming that you are a real person who actually wants to cancel and not some bot programmed to wreak havoc on some company by canceling many of their customers' service.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- sbaiddn 4y agoUnlikely. Rogers is such a terrible internet company I was glad when I moved back to the US got to use American cable companies (as terrible as they are).
- sp332 4y agoDid you have to call them to set up service?
- 8note 4y agoThe obvious answer is that it's been tested to result in fewer cancellations. The optimization is for short term profit, not for customer experience. If you care about customer experience, talk to the government, not businesses
- SN76477 4y agoThis is the correct answer. In the book I am going through now, which is by one of those high performing sales centric CEO's who makes a fuck load of money, says new customers are the goal. Not retention, not customer service, not the customer experience. Then he proceeds to order them by priority. It is backwards, I do not think this way. Yet, the modern successful business does.
- version_five 4y agoRoger's isnt really a business, it's part of an oligopoly and more like a government utility. They do focus on churning customers from their identical "competitors", but a big part of their model is making it as hard as possible to cancel. Normal business rules don't apply, it's basically government rent seeking and doing as little for customers as possible while charging them as much as possible. The Canadian telecom industry bears no resemblance to "business".
- walrus01 4y agoa fascinating thing to learn in canada, as someone who works in the telecom industry, is that the vast majority of non-industry consumers have absolutely no idea who really owns the various MVNO/flanker brands like chatr, fido, koodoo, public mobile etc which all run on the networks of Bell, Telus, Rogers. the ordinary consumer really does believe these are separate networks.
- wodenokoto 4y agoIn Denmark MVNO use the name of their network provider heavily in their marketing effort. “The same great coverage as TDC because we use their network, but you only pay xx DKK” kind of thing is quite common.
- calvinmorrison 4y agoI have a question, maybe it is unethical, maybe I am really that close to the spectrum I need it, but here it goes. Has anyone used TTY functions/ Services for the deaf/disabled to communicate with customer service to enable you to not actually talk to people on the phone?
- progrus 4y agoWhen I cancelled my cable internet, I had to call and decline three increasingly appealing “final offers” (spaced out by some pleasant-but-awkward small talk). As soon as I said no to the third, the rep said they would disconnect the account, and that was it. Super weird, especially to think that that is literally someone’s job, all day long, every day. Hopefully they get to rotate in and out of that desk.
- walrus01 4y agopro tip: Tell comcast, RCN, spectrum (charter), altice or other customer service that you're going to prison. It bypasses all their script for retention offers.
- koolba 4y agoDid they ask when you’re getting out so they know when to call back?
- justusthane 4y ago“I’m afraid it’s a life sentence.”
- KennyBlanken 4y agoThis sounds great but is a bit worrisome given companies monetize everything, including any information they learn about you to sell to other parties. Imagine the damage if a company like Comcast passed this info on to Palantir or one of its ilk. Given employers have used private screening companies for ages and landlords increasingly use them, it could seriously fuck up your life, and you'd never even know...
- walrus01 4y agoI wonder what happens if you mess with the data mining by telling comcast you're going to prison, click on every ad and join groups on social media for new moms/baby related items, join every social media group you can find for some absolutely absurd and non-rational political opinion, buy a hundred two dollar dildos on alibaba with a prepaid visa gift card, etc. What does the data set look like after you screw with your profile...
- walrus01 4y agoRogers is an abysmally bad company in terms of market near-monpolization and customer service, BUT, from the point of view of someone in telecom: There is a non zero risk of unauthorized 3rd parties making service changes or cancellations to somebody's account, so it's standard procedure to have a customer service rep ask some basic security questions of the account holder before proceeding with a port, change or cancellation. You don't want just any random person who stole your login/password to the rogers portal to be able to port your cellphone number away, right? There's a valid reason why a few barriers should be introduced to cancelling someone's service or making significant service changes, before the company can be totally satisfied that it really is the authorized account holder making the change. You get security problems like people trying to port away someone's number to receive SMS for "SMS 2FA" (which is not really 2FA at all, that's a whole other shitshow) to hijack cryptocurrency trading accounts or similar. Or any other service that can have its credentials reset by sending an SMS to the "authorized" phone number. In addition to the risk of fraud for things like porting numbers away, there's things like disgruntled ex-girlfriends/ex-boyfriends trying to cancel peoples' services. All of that said, it is also a sad fact that C-level execs at big consumer-abusive canadian telecoms consider it totally fine to introduce whatever arbitrary barriers they can to reduce the level of customer churn. There is the factor that a great many Rogers customers have been tricked at the start of their service into signing up for 12, 24 or 36 month term contracts, so arbitrarily cancelling service can have financial implications for the customer if they didn't look in detail at what they signed up for when they started the service. Even with BYOD device plans, the 3rd party Rogers resellers in Canada such as Glentel get a buttload more commission from locking people into 24 month contract terms, so they do that as the default now unless you look carefully at what you're signing.
- saxonww 4y agoDo you believe that's what this requirement is for? This has not been my experience, although I have never dealt with Rogers. Whenever I have canceled service from a similar vendor in this market, they want me to talk to a representative to try and encourage me to stay, not to make sure I am who I say I am. I am not sure how they would determine authenticity over the phone any better than they could electronically, although I know there are 'voice print' authentication services now that maybe they use. Overall, when I see this I believe it's to introduce enough friction that some people will give up without trying.
- mistermann 4y agoDemocracy being highly illusory may have something to do with it - I suspect such policies (this is just one among many) being legal is not The Will of The People.
- lucasyvas 4y agoFor wireless you don't actually have to call. You can just ask your new provider to port the phone number and your subscription on your old provider will be deactivated. But yes, it's bullshit and it's worse for those other services. I've recently got a preloaded Visa that doesn't effect credit that I'll be using for shit companies that I have to deal with so I can just cut off the funding instead. Problem should take care of itself. It's shocking to me that you can't simply stop paying when you don't want to use a service anymore - you have to ask them to stop taking your money. When you actually think about it, it's ridiculous and unacceptable.
- koolba 4y ago> I've recently got a preloaded Visa that doesn't effect credit that I'll be using for shit companies that I have to deal with so I can just cut off the funding instead. Problem should take care of itself. Not being able to charge your card doesn’t mean you’re not liable for the charges. If it’s worth it, they’ll sell your accounts receivable to a collection agency. That method of skipping out on cancellation only works if they don’t actually have a name / address / etc to identify you.
- lucasyvas 4y agoI'd be willing to put this to the test - the card can't affect your credit score so I can just throw all that mail in the trash and block the number. It's meant to be a method of last resort.
- ttymck 4y agoYou can still owe someone (some business) money, even if a credit card is never involved. If a bill goes unpaid, it can go to collections.
- MonkeyClub 4y ago> It's shocking to me that you can't simply stop paying when you don't want to use a service anymore - you have to ask them to stop taking your money. When you actually think about it, it's ridiculous and unacceptable. It's because there's a contract behind the service, and contracts have agreements which bind one or both parties, so the other party needs to be informed w.r.t. the change. Cutting off service when there's no payment would also be "ridiculous and unacceptable" in some cases - e.g. think if the lights just go off when you forget to preload your Visa, instead of just getting a nudge. But of course I concede to your between-the-lines point, namely that it would be best if the companies knew exactly what we want done (which they sort of do), and did it without a hassle (which they sort of don't), instead of being pricks about it all.
- ohazi 4y agoBecause you're not in California, and the Canadian government hasn't forced an end to this bullshit practice.
- undeIays 4y agoThe real solution here is for techies to push (actually show up and push, as in pressure city councils and representatives at meetings) for similar laws in their communities.
- dhdhhdd 4y agoSiriusXM is the notorious offender. Easy sign up, but to cancel you need to call or chat within business hours.
- brewdad 4y agoThey are also notorious for charging loyal customers 4-5x as much after the initial "get you hooked offer". Calling and threatening to cancel magically reinstates the price that simply isn't possible except for new customers. It's exactly the reason I didn't continue with them after my car's free trial. If they made it easy, like Netflix, they would have gotten a chunk of money from me over the past 4 years. Instead they got nothing.
- ksherlock 4y agoCount yourself lucky. I once had a phone company that needed a FAX to cancel. And even then they didn't.
- coffee_beqn 4y agoI had that a few years ago on those scummy up sell warranty plans they trick you into buying at car dealerships. I had to fax a signed cancellation form. Thankfully there are Web services that allow you to send pdfs but it was obnoxious.
- yololol 4y agoSounds like you live in Germany;)
- drexlspivey 4y agowhat happens if you just cancel the recurring payments from your card?
- walrus01 4y agoIn Canada? If you're on a month-to-month service term with Rogers, nothing, if you signed a 12/24/36 month service agreement and you break it before the term is up, they send it to collections and it ends up on your credit report.
- yazzku 4y agoUse Paypal or whatever as a proxy and cancel them there, or ask your bank to not honor the debits. Then they can call you if they are interested. But indeed, this shit should be illegal practice.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- spoils19 4y agoIn conservative towns, a call is usually a sign of mutual respect between the two parties involved. Making everything digital destroys the community between buyer and seller and is a reason why there is service fatigue and exhaustion in left-leaning communities today.
- ajkjk 4y agoIn... conservative.. towns? That's just kinda true everywhere.
- kevinventullo 4y agoThere’s nothing like going down to the ol’ country mart to pick up a month of internet service from your neighbor who runs the shop
- MisterSandman 4y agoAh yes, because people in conservative towns don't use Amazon.