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The problem is that with credit cards, recurring bills aren't "special" compared to normal purchases. This is different from digital-native payment systems lik

The problem is that with credit cards, recurring bills aren't "special" compared to normal purchases. This is different from digital-native payment systems like PayPal which do have (albeit also riddled with dark patterns) a way for you to de-authorize recurring bills from a vendor, at which point they need to wait for you to initiate a payment instead.

PaulHoule 4y ago
They should change the system so it is. They introduced chip cards to improve the system and they can introduce this change too.
- jabbany 4y ago
  They should, but it's the businesses that pay the fees to the payment processors and not the consumers, so...
unethical_ban 4y ago
I'm not sure I agree. I can't recall specifics but back in the day a trick to get out of these was to report a card lost or stolen so you'd get a new number. But some banks now allow recurring charges to continue on the new number for "convenience" reasons. Therefore you need to use a throwaway or cancel the card. I got a card from X1 and am using it solely for my recurring services, since you can create unlimited virtual numbers and put price caps/age limits on them.
- jabbany 4y ago
  That's the issue. Cards generally don't let you control billing "by-vendor" or "by-billing-series". As for the "allow recurring charges to continue on the new number", none of my banks allow this (I know because I had my internet bill lapse once after an old card expired and subsequently got declined. The number didn't even change, only the expiration and CVV). I don't know how it works, but if I had to guess, banks get to decide whether a charge goes through and they could probably let you pick by vendor but probably aren't incentivized to do this.
  - PaulHoule 4y ago
    (1) the government could make them or (2) it’s a feature which could help attract and retain customers. Credit cards a a highly competitive business. Larger picture, we could really use a reformed payment system (government demands it) that address many inefficiencies of the system so that banks would have less wriggle room to claim the high fees they do. If there was less fraud and fewer chargebacks the banks could charge lower fees, as it is they con’t have a lot of motive to crack down because they can make us all pay for it.
hakfoo 4y ago
They are "special" but they also aren't. There are numerous flags you can put on a transaction to hint things like "This is a recurring charge." "This is a merchant initiated charge." "This was placed with a card that the merchant recorded as part of transaction 123456789". Much of this is used from a fraud-management perspective (for example, a recurring transaction usually won't have a CVV or 3-D Secure information because the customer is not involved in the transaction flow), not to control recurring behaviour. However, it's not a singular entity-- each individual payment is still a free-standing operation and could usually succeed without any of those flags. Some countries have stronger requirements. India seems forward looking, where there are specific regulations to tie installments to an explicit confirmation on a per-installment basis.

PaulHoule 4y ago

They should change the system so it is. They introduced chip cards to improve the system and they can introduce this change too.

jabbany 4y ago
They should, but it's the businesses that pay the fees to the payment processors and not the consumers, so...

unethical_ban 4y ago

I'm not sure I agree. I can't recall specifics but back in the day a trick to get out of these was to report a card lost or stolen so you'd get a new number. But some banks now allow recurring charges to continue on the new number for "convenience" reasons. Therefore you need to use a throwaway or cancel the card. I got a card from X1 and am using it solely for my recurring services, since you can create unlimited virtual numbers and put price caps/age limits on them.

jabbany 4y ago
That's the issue. Cards generally don't let you control billing "by-vendor" or "by-billing-series". As for the "allow recurring charges to continue on the new number", none of my banks allow this (I know because I had my internet bill lapse once after an old card expired and subsequently got declined. The number didn't even change, only the expiration and CVV). I don't know how it works, but if I had to guess, banks get to decide whether a charge goes through and they could probably let you pick by vendor but probably aren't incentivized to do this.
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  (1) the government could make them or (2) it’s a feature which could help attract and retain customers. Credit cards a a highly competitive business. Larger picture, we could really use a reformed payment system (government demands it) that address many inefficiencies of the system so that banks would have less wriggle room to claim the high fees they do. If there was less fraud and fewer chargebacks the banks could charge lower fees, as it is they con’t have a lot of motive to crack down because they can make us all pay for it.

hakfoo 4y ago

They are "special" but they also aren't. There are numerous flags you can put on a transaction to hint things like "This is a recurring charge." "This is a merchant initiated charge." "This was placed with a card that the merchant recorded as part of transaction 123456789". Much of this is used from a fraud-management perspective (for example, a recurring transaction usually won't have a CVV or 3-D Secure information because the customer is not involved in the transaction flow), not to control recurring behaviour. However, it's not a singular entity-- each individual payment is still a free-standing operation and could usually succeed without any of those flags. Some countries have stronger requirements. India seems forward looking, where there are specific regulations to tie installments to an explicit confirmation on a per-installment basis.