6 ms·

Carta is making it too difficult to cancel subscriptions, some founders say

214 points by impish9208 2y ago

bergeralira 2y ago
[dead]
TomasMilar 2y ago
Hi, I’m the founder of Eqvista — an equity management and 409A valuation provider. Eqvista is a strong competitor to Carta, and we’ve seen a significant number of migrations from Carta for several reasons, including costs, lengthy 409A valuation timelines, difficulty accessing support, and, more recently, adverse media coverage. One common issue customers face with Carta is how challenging it is to cancel their subscription, as they try to prevent you from transferring your cap table elsewhere. At Eqvista, we do things differently: - Flexible Plans: Cancel your subscription anytime, with no lock-ins. - Cost-Effective: Up to 70% more affordable than Carta. - Fast and Reliable Support: 100% responsive and dedicated to solving your needs. - Comprehensive Services: We handle $3 billion in client asset valuations monthly, onboard 400 companies every month, and currently serve over 20,000 entities on our platform. - Cap Table Audits: We’ll ensure your cap table is audit-ready and fully compliant. If you’re interested in joining Eqvista, feel free to contact me directly at tom@eqvista.com. We can onboard you now and you pay us once your Carta contract ends so you don’t have to pay for two platforms. We will migrate you for free - in 3 days! Looking forward to helping more startups succeed! Many thanks, and best of luck! Tom - https://eqvista.com https://eqvista.com
thephyber 2y ago
Execs blaming the timing issue on a staffing change, but those same execs approved the workflow that requires the meeting before cancellation and didn’t have a redundant position in case the primary “customer success manager” was unavailable. This is the same any-consumer behavior that makes people hate companies. Gotta love that Carta’s competitors are selling that they don’t have the same cumbersome cancellation policy in the article.
- thot_experiment 2y ago
  Execs should be to blame for everything a company does. That's how leadership is supposed to work. Culturally we should not be okay with someone having power without the consequent responsibility. Hopefully we see that shift.
  - hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
    I actually think the opposite should happen. I think currently that much too much success of a company is attributed to its leadership, which is why execs are paid so insanely disproportionately compared to everyone else. When you start saying "You have to take the blame for everything that happens in a company", it actually ends up concentrating even more wealth at the top of the pyramid. As a somewhat macabre example, with CEOs now literally becoming targets after the UHC assassination, I read an article on how many top execs now deliberately take themselves out of the running for CEO. Why put a giant target on your back like that, when you'd still be paid incredibly handsomely to be SVP or whatever but be 10 times more anonymous? So what that does is shrink the potential CEO pool even further, and then these folks demand even more compensation. To emphasize, I think what we have at present is close to the worst of all possible worlds if CEOs are paid a king's ransom but then escape responsibility when shit goes bad. But I think a better answer is to more evenly distribute both the spoils of success and the responsibilities in a business.
    - thot_experiment 2y ago
      I don't think that's the opposite? Seems like you also want the responsibility to match the power, I agree that in general it should be more evenly distributed, I want a system that can correctly capture outliers. I think that flattening would be the consequence if the power-responsibility curve became more linear, our current reality is nowhere near that. It's broken at the most baseline level where an individual stealing $1k will face much harsher consequences than an employer stealing $1k of wages.
      - nickff 2y ago
lxgr 2y ago
That’s why there needs to be regulation that requires companies to have a monitored email inbox for this type of request. It’s ridiculous that having only a physical mailing address and/or phone number is still legal and acceptable in the US. Can’t be bothered to build a single-click cancellation button (which by the way is also a great regulation where it already exists)? Spend more time going through legally binding cancellations in your email and potentially retroactively refunding charges etc. It should not be my problem if a website is clunky, does not work on my browser, is inaccessible from abroad (and I want to cancel now) etc. – email always works.
- dogboat 2y ago
  There needs to be a rule that any recurring revenue service can be cancelled on the bank side. Then to cancel you contact you card provider not the company. A UK direct debit is like this I think. If this breaches contract then the service provider needs to get a lawyer. The finance system should serve people first - and then tax and law follow. Obviously KYC AML excepted. Such a system might knock 5% off the SP500 but we will live :)
  - lxgr 2y ago
    Successfully cancelling/reversing a payment does not automatically extinguish any debit incurred, though. It's a great backstop to a company ignoring a cancellation, but I don't think it should be the default. It would be great to integrate a cancellation mechanism into the payment rails though, i.e. allow sending a proactive signal "your customer wants to cancel their service and next payment will fail". But that's definitely not the case for direct debits, currently.
    - ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
      > Successfully cancelling/reversing a payment does not automatically extinguish any debit incurred, though. The company could just not apply the debit, and instead send their customer a friendly message like, "Heya! We regret to inform you that your payment method on file failed. We'll try a few more times over the next month, and then your account will be suspended, with the data retained for download/export and/or in case the account is reinstated. If you have any questions, or would like to make alternative payment arrangements, please call [phone number] during [normal office hours], and one of our billing specialists will promptly help you out. Thank you!"
mukundmohan 2y ago
Should this not go away with the final rule from the FTC on cancellation. Ït should be as easy to cancel as it is to subscribe in the first place. If that rule is law, then what are the fines that Carta faces if it does not adhere to that rule.
- duskwuff 2y ago
  The FTC "click-to-cancel" rule is only concerned with subscriptions by consumers. B2B services, like those offered by Carta, are outside its ambit.
- griomnib 2y ago
  Realistically the FTC doesn’t have the staffing or expertise to act on much at all. They can offer “rules” of questionable value post-Chevron, but even in areas like COPPA where they have clear statutory authority, and widespread lawbreaking, they do nothing. However, like all things in the United States, justice is for sale, you just need to sue.
- downWidOutaFite 2y ago
  I don't expect that rule to survive. Last time trump took office he went on a petty vendetta through all government departments to try to undo every little thing obama did.
burcs 2y ago
I don't know why anyone would willingly sign up for Carta these days. Between this and the fact they got caught sharing private cap table data, it's like they're actively being hostile to their users.
- walrus01 2y ago
  Can you provide a reference to some news articles or other details on Carta sharing private cap tables? How did this data leak?
  - burcs 2y ago
    It's actually mentioned in the article OP posted, but if you want to read more you can here: https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/07/carta-the-cap-table-management-outfit-is-accused-of-unethical-tactics-by-a-customer-after-it-tries-broker-a-deal-for-a-startups-shares-without-consent/ https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/07/carta-the-cap-table-manage...
  - mandevil 2y ago
    It leaked to other people in the company, who were looking to use that information for a secondary market product that Carta had. Since they know everyone who owns stock in company X, they know exactly who to approach about selling stock in company X on their brand-new privately held company marketplace (without the companies permission). https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/07/carta-the-cap-table-management-outfit-is-accused-of-unethical-tactics-by-a-customer-after-it-tries-broker-a-deal-for-a-startups-shares-without-consent/ https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/07/carta-the-cap-table-manage... for more. After this was discovered and widely reported they sold their private secondary market to another company, because it was impossible to regain trust. They are also involved in trading lawsuits with former exec turned whistleblower for two different people. https://medium.com/@jerrytalton/when-your-company-tries-to-cancel-you-a93a9a8e5d86 https://medium.com/@jerrytalton/when-your-company-tries-to-c... is the former CTO's take on the situation. https://levyvinick.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/COMP-for-Damages-Kramer-w.-Attachment-2020.07.20_Endorsed.pdf https://levyvinick.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/COMP-for-D... is the former VP of marketing's filed lawsuit, I can't find a blog post from her.
dogboat 2y ago
This is r/assholedesign Big shout out to Plausible Analytics. You click unsubscribe and you are taken to Paddle (I think). One more click and you are done. You get a follow up email which you can reply to or not. You are done. Anyway. Startups - use Airwallex or similar and create multiple cards. Easy to cancel anything. Then if they wanna chat in April 2025 about it then sure.
- duskwuff 2y ago
  TBF, the nature of the services Carta provides (equity management) are rather different from a web analytics company. Offboarding isn't necessarily as simple as shutting off the company's account.
  - dogboat 2y ago
    Ok then ask for that shutdown money in advance. (Or write it off if someone churns). Or make the recurring payments quarterly or annual.
    - duskwuff 2y ago
      I'm not sure you understand what I'm getting at here. Carta manages things like employee stock options. If a company has issued equity to employees or investors, they can't just shut off their Carta account and be done with it - those obligations need to be managed somewhere, and part of the offboarding process needs to be a managed handoff of that information.
      - dogboat 2y ago
        I understand what you are saying. They should still offboard of course! They should design their service (as in customer service experience) to decouple cancellation from offboarding. I cancel. I stop paying. Now do your offboarding process. If that loses them too much money then ask for that upfront as effectively a retainer. Now you go in to the relstionship eyes open. You pay 3 months upfront then you pay monthly. When you want to stop you click "unsubscribe" with a few are you sures. Then you stop paying and they offboard you when they get their shit together. After cancellation and prior to that offboard meeting you are getting some bonus free subscription time. If the offboarding dude is on paternity leave then treat it as extra free subscription as it is on the company not the customer. Fighting to unsubscribe and chasing companies up sucks.
blibble 2y ago
lol, meetings to let you cancel I'd pop a letter in the post: notice of termination in accordance with the contract then if they charged my card after the notice period they'd get a chargeback play stupid games, win stupid prizes
ibero 2y ago
it always annoys me how much will larsen is looked up to as a progressjve technical thought leader but carta is consistently just borderline antagonistic to its own user base.
kgeist 2y ago
Can't you ask your bank to blacklist transactions with a specific entity?
paultopia 2y ago
This is the sort of thing that a decent corporate lawyer ought to be able to handle. Obviously not giving legal advice to anyone's specific situation here (and I don't have a current bar card, though I am a law professor), but generally there's an implied contract law duty of good faith.[1] Dirty tricks like writing a contract that says something like "you can cancel at the end of a term, but you have to have a meeting with us," and the contract doesn't say anything about availability of meetings... then the company only offers meeting times after an automatic renewal in order to cheat people into giving them more money... well, that smells like a really good excuse for a lawyer to argue that the duty of good faith has been breached. And even if the company is honest that they were just unable to schedule a meeting beforehand, a decent lawyer might be able to come up with enough of a theory for recovery to negotiate something fair. [1] https://www.americanbar.org/groups/business_law/resources/business-law-today/2024-february/when-can-covenant-good-faith-fair-dealing-be-invoked/ https://www.americanbar.org/groups/business_law/resources/bu...
- hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
  I really, really think folks are overthinking this. This isn't a Comcast subscription. This is an enterprise software deal that costs many multiple thousands of dollars. Anyone that thinks that Carta was ever going to go "Oh, sucks to be you, you couldn't schedule your cancellation meeting before the renewal date, well, tough cookies, you have to pay us $18k for your next contract year" simply doesn't know how enterprise software deals work. There is no need to get a lawyer involved because all you have to do is call up Carta and say "Your shit is broken, there are no cancellation meetings for weeks." To emphasize what I put in some of my other comments, sure, Carta needs to fix their shit, and I think the Techcrunch article is making it more about the fact that you have to have a cancellation meeting in the first place (which is a valid compliant), but this idea that it's some deliberate form of "dark pattern gotcha" just belies a misunderstanding of how enterprise software subscriptions work.
  - Loxicon 2y ago
    > simply doesn't know how enterprise software deals work You have highlighted an even scarier issue... enterprise software deals, if they all work like this, are scummy and the "way it works" isn't okay.
jaynate 2y ago
They need Churnkey
mackman 2y ago
GitHub pissed me off recently by giving us a one month reminder of our renewal, but having required two months notice to reduce our number of seats. As a result, we are ending up paying for twice as many seats as we currently need.
- drpossum 2y ago
  GitHub is not the only game in town.
benatkin 2y ago
Best to never subscribe. These are messing up SaaS.
habosa 2y ago
Here’s my Carta horror story, since we’re sharing. I left my last company and had 90 days to buy my options. The day after I left the company (January) I exercised. The total I had to pay was about $20k. I didn’t think a lot about it after that. 6 full months later I get an email from Carta. It says my bank account transfer was unsuccessful. They had tried to pull the $20k from my account 6 months after I authorized it with absolutely no warning, and it had overdrafted my checking account by $1k (I don’t keep a ton of cash around). Ok no big deal, I’ll move the money around and try again. Nope, Carta decided that after a single failed attempt at payment my options were PERMANENTLY canceled. Like, I no longer have the right to exercise them ever. No equity in the company for me, sorry. After going back and forth with Carta they insisted they “had” to do this even though that’s BS. There’s no reason they couldn’t have attempted a second time to draw payment, they’d already waited 6 months. To get the equity I had worked multiple years for I had to go to the CEO of my former company and beg personally. He got the board to back-date an equity offer for me of the same amount so I could exercise again. If I had left under left friendly terms I’d have been screwed. So yeah, don’t use Carta.
- gpi 2y ago
  This is concerning. Isn't this regulated? How is this allowed?
- krashidov 2y ago
  hats off to the CEO of your last company
- robocat 2y ago
  > 6 months That is one seriously fucked up delay. I hate having to closely monitor "professionals" to verify they do their job.
- Sohcahtoa82 2y ago
  > The total I had to pay was about $20k. I didn’t think a lot about it after that. You must be living in an entirely different world to me that you don't think about an upcoming $20K pull. I would have been calling up Carta after ~10 business days, if not sooner, if they were making me sit on $20K in cash. > and it had overdrafted my checking account by $1k (I don’t keep a ton of cash around). If a $20K overdrafted by $1K, then you had $19K in cash. I can't imagine what your monthly spend is like to feel the need to keep that much. I only keep $5K. First paycheck of the month comes in on the 1st, mortgage payment comes out on the 2nd, and I pay off the credit card. Anything over $5K left goes into savings. Second paycheck comes in on the 15th, pay off the credit card again, pay utility bills, car insurance, make my monthly IRA contribution, and then again throw everything over $5K into savings.
tivert 2y ago
> The issue first surfaced on X after founder Sudarshan Sridharan of Pipeline posted about his struggles trying to cancel, writing, “I’m speechless at how anti-founder @cartainc is. They make it impossible to cancel your subscription or speak to a human support agent.” Oh come on. What rock did that guy crawl out from under? That's industry best practice, especially the speak to a human part.
- reaperman 2y ago
  Just checked ... the company Sudarshan Sridharan founded ( https://withpipeline.com/ https://withpipeline.com/ ) also offers a B2B Saas (for $150/month) and the terms of service outline that users can cancel inside the application itself (no certified mail or meeting required). Users can also opt-out of arbitration via email as well, not just by mail.
noobermin 2y ago
Good thing Lina Khan is getting replaced so this can become the norm again.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
stanfordkid 2y ago
The answer is to work with your bank to block payments. Equity is a legal contract, it's not going to evaporate because Carta says so. Carta isn't going to hire a debt collector against a well funded startup and get counter-sued / risk the bad PR.

214 points by impish9208 2y ago

[dead]

Hi, I’m the founder of Eqvista — an equity management and 409A valuation provider. Eqvista is a strong competitor to Carta, and we’ve seen a significant number of migrations from Carta for several reasons, including costs, lengthy 409A valuation timelines, difficulty accessing support, and, more recently, adverse media coverage. One common issue customers face with Carta is how challenging it is to cancel their subscription, as they try to prevent you from transferring your cap table elsewhere. At Eqvista, we do things differently: - Flexible Plans: Cancel your subscription anytime, with no lock-ins. - Cost-Effective: Up to 70% more affordable than Carta. - Fast and Reliable Support: 100% responsive and dedicated to solving your needs. - Comprehensive Services: We handle $3 billion in client asset valuations monthly, onboard 400 companies every month, and currently serve over 20,000 entities on our platform. - Cap Table Audits: We’ll ensure your cap table is audit-ready and fully compliant. If you’re interested in joining Eqvista, feel free to contact me directly at tom@eqvista.com. We can onboard you now and you pay us once your Carta contract ends so you don’t have to pay for two platforms. We will migrate you for free - in 3 days! Looking forward to helping more startups succeed! Many thanks, and best of luck! Tom - https://eqvista.com https://eqvista.com

thephyber 2y ago

Execs blaming the timing issue on a staffing change, but those same execs approved the workflow that requires the meeting before cancellation and didn’t have a redundant position in case the primary “customer success manager” was unavailable. This is the same any-consumer behavior that makes people hate companies. Gotta love that Carta’s competitors are selling that they don’t have the same cumbersome cancellation policy in the article.

thot_experiment 2y ago
Execs should be to blame for everything a company does. That's how leadership is supposed to work. Culturally we should not be okay with someone having power without the consequent responsibility. Hopefully we see that shift.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
  I actually think the opposite should happen. I think currently that much too much success of a company is attributed to its leadership, which is why execs are paid so insanely disproportionately compared to everyone else. When you start saying "You have to take the blame for everything that happens in a company", it actually ends up concentrating even more wealth at the top of the pyramid. As a somewhat macabre example, with CEOs now literally becoming targets after the UHC assassination, I read an article on how many top execs now deliberately take themselves out of the running for CEO. Why put a giant target on your back like that, when you'd still be paid incredibly handsomely to be SVP or whatever but be 10 times more anonymous? So what that does is shrink the potential CEO pool even further, and then these folks demand even more compensation. To emphasize, I think what we have at present is close to the worst of all possible worlds if CEOs are paid a king's ransom but then escape responsibility when shit goes bad. But I think a better answer is to more evenly distribute both the spoils of success and the responsibilities in a business.
  - thot_experiment 2y ago
    I don't think that's the opposite? Seems like you also want the responsibility to match the power, I agree that in general it should be more evenly distributed, I want a system that can correctly capture outliers. I think that flattening would be the consequence if the power-responsibility curve became more linear, our current reality is nowhere near that. It's broken at the most baseline level where an individual stealing $1k will face much harsher consequences than an employer stealing $1k of wages.
    - nickff 2y ago

lxgr 2y ago

That’s why there needs to be regulation that requires companies to have a monitored email inbox for this type of request. It’s ridiculous that having only a physical mailing address and/or phone number is still legal and acceptable in the US. Can’t be bothered to build a single-click cancellation button (which by the way is also a great regulation where it already exists)? Spend more time going through legally binding cancellations in your email and potentially retroactively refunding charges etc. It should not be my problem if a website is clunky, does not work on my browser, is inaccessible from abroad (and I want to cancel now) etc. – email always works.

dogboat 2y ago
There needs to be a rule that any recurring revenue service can be cancelled on the bank side. Then to cancel you contact you card provider not the company. A UK direct debit is like this I think. If this breaches contract then the service provider needs to get a lawyer. The finance system should serve people first - and then tax and law follow. Obviously KYC AML excepted. Such a system might knock 5% off the SP500 but we will live :)
- lxgr 2y ago
  Successfully cancelling/reversing a payment does not automatically extinguish any debit incurred, though. It's a great backstop to a company ignoring a cancellation, but I don't think it should be the default. It would be great to integrate a cancellation mechanism into the payment rails though, i.e. allow sending a proactive signal "your customer wants to cancel their service and next payment will fail". But that's definitely not the case for direct debits, currently.
  - ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
    > Successfully cancelling/reversing a payment does not automatically extinguish any debit incurred, though. The company could just not apply the debit, and instead send their customer a friendly message like, "Heya! We regret to inform you that your payment method on file failed. We'll try a few more times over the next month, and then your account will be suspended, with the data retained for download/export and/or in case the account is reinstated. If you have any questions, or would like to make alternative payment arrangements, please call [phone number] during [normal office hours], and one of our billing specialists will promptly help you out. Thank you!"

mukundmohan 2y ago

Should this not go away with the final rule from the FTC on cancellation. Ït should be as easy to cancel as it is to subscribe in the first place. If that rule is law, then what are the fines that Carta faces if it does not adhere to that rule.

duskwuff 2y ago
The FTC "click-to-cancel" rule is only concerned with subscriptions by consumers. B2B services, like those offered by Carta, are outside its ambit.
griomnib 2y ago
Realistically the FTC doesn’t have the staffing or expertise to act on much at all. They can offer “rules” of questionable value post-Chevron, but even in areas like COPPA where they have clear statutory authority, and widespread lawbreaking, they do nothing. However, like all things in the United States, justice is for sale, you just need to sue.
downWidOutaFite 2y ago
I don't expect that rule to survive. Last time trump took office he went on a petty vendetta through all government departments to try to undo every little thing obama did.

burcs 2y ago

I don't know why anyone would willingly sign up for Carta these days. Between this and the fact they got caught sharing private cap table data, it's like they're actively being hostile to their users.

walrus01 2y ago
Can you provide a reference to some news articles or other details on Carta sharing private cap tables? How did this data leak?
- burcs 2y ago
  It's actually mentioned in the article OP posted, but if you want to read more you can here: https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/07/carta-the-cap-table-management-outfit-is-accused-of-unethical-tactics-by-a-customer-after-it-tries-broker-a-deal-for-a-startups-shares-without-consent/ https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/07/carta-the-cap-table-manage...
- mandevil 2y ago
  It leaked to other people in the company, who were looking to use that information for a secondary market product that Carta had. Since they know everyone who owns stock in company X, they know exactly who to approach about selling stock in company X on their brand-new privately held company marketplace (without the companies permission). https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/07/carta-the-cap-table-management-outfit-is-accused-of-unethical-tactics-by-a-customer-after-it-tries-broker-a-deal-for-a-startups-shares-without-consent/ https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/07/carta-the-cap-table-manage... for more. After this was discovered and widely reported they sold their private secondary market to another company, because it was impossible to regain trust. They are also involved in trading lawsuits with former exec turned whistleblower for two different people. https://medium.com/@jerrytalton/when-your-company-tries-to-cancel-you-a93a9a8e5d86 https://medium.com/@jerrytalton/when-your-company-tries-to-c... is the former CTO's take on the situation. https://levyvinick.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/COMP-for-Damages-Kramer-w.-Attachment-2020.07.20_Endorsed.pdf https://levyvinick.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/COMP-for-D... is the former VP of marketing's filed lawsuit, I can't find a blog post from her.

dogboat 2y ago

This is r/assholedesign Big shout out to Plausible Analytics. You click unsubscribe and you are taken to Paddle (I think). One more click and you are done. You get a follow up email which you can reply to or not. You are done. Anyway. Startups - use Airwallex or similar and create multiple cards. Easy to cancel anything. Then if they wanna chat in April 2025 about it then sure.

duskwuff 2y ago
TBF, the nature of the services Carta provides (equity management) are rather different from a web analytics company. Offboarding isn't necessarily as simple as shutting off the company's account.
- dogboat 2y ago
  Ok then ask for that shutdown money in advance. (Or write it off if someone churns). Or make the recurring payments quarterly or annual.
  - duskwuff 2y ago
    I'm not sure you understand what I'm getting at here. Carta manages things like employee stock options. If a company has issued equity to employees or investors, they can't just shut off their Carta account and be done with it - those obligations need to be managed somewhere, and part of the offboarding process needs to be a managed handoff of that information.
    - dogboat 2y ago
      I understand what you are saying. They should still offboard of course! They should design their service (as in customer service experience) to decouple cancellation from offboarding. I cancel. I stop paying. Now do your offboarding process. If that loses them too much money then ask for that upfront as effectively a retainer. Now you go in to the relstionship eyes open. You pay 3 months upfront then you pay monthly. When you want to stop you click "unsubscribe" with a few are you sures. Then you stop paying and they offboard you when they get their shit together. After cancellation and prior to that offboard meeting you are getting some bonus free subscription time. If the offboarding dude is on paternity leave then treat it as extra free subscription as it is on the company not the customer. Fighting to unsubscribe and chasing companies up sucks.

blibble 2y ago

lol, meetings to let you cancel I'd pop a letter in the post: notice of termination in accordance with the contract then if they charged my card after the notice period they'd get a chargeback play stupid games, win stupid prizes

ibero 2y ago

it always annoys me how much will larsen is looked up to as a progressjve technical thought leader but carta is consistently just borderline antagonistic to its own user base.

kgeist 2y ago

Can't you ask your bank to blacklist transactions with a specific entity?

paultopia 2y ago

This is the sort of thing that a decent corporate lawyer ought to be able to handle. Obviously not giving legal advice to anyone's specific situation here (and I don't have a current bar card, though I am a law professor), but generally there's an implied contract law duty of good faith.[1] Dirty tricks like writing a contract that says something like "you can cancel at the end of a term, but you have to have a meeting with us," and the contract doesn't say anything about availability of meetings... then the company only offers meeting times after an automatic renewal in order to cheat people into giving them more money... well, that smells like a really good excuse for a lawyer to argue that the duty of good faith has been breached. And even if the company is honest that they were just unable to schedule a meeting beforehand, a decent lawyer might be able to come up with enough of a theory for recovery to negotiate something fair. [1] https://www.americanbar.org/groups/business_law/resources/business-law-today/2024-february/when-can-covenant-good-faith-fair-dealing-be-invoked/ https://www.americanbar.org/groups/business_law/resources/bu...

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
I really, really think folks are overthinking this. This isn't a Comcast subscription. This is an enterprise software deal that costs many multiple thousands of dollars. Anyone that thinks that Carta was ever going to go "Oh, sucks to be you, you couldn't schedule your cancellation meeting before the renewal date, well, tough cookies, you have to pay us $18k for your next contract year" simply doesn't know how enterprise software deals work. There is no need to get a lawyer involved because all you have to do is call up Carta and say "Your shit is broken, there are no cancellation meetings for weeks." To emphasize what I put in some of my other comments, sure, Carta needs to fix their shit, and I think the Techcrunch article is making it more about the fact that you have to have a cancellation meeting in the first place (which is a valid compliant), but this idea that it's some deliberate form of "dark pattern gotcha" just belies a misunderstanding of how enterprise software subscriptions work.
- Loxicon 2y ago
  > simply doesn't know how enterprise software deals work You have highlighted an even scarier issue... enterprise software deals, if they all work like this, are scummy and the "way it works" isn't okay.

jaynate 2y ago

They need Churnkey

mackman 2y ago

GitHub pissed me off recently by giving us a one month reminder of our renewal, but having required two months notice to reduce our number of seats. As a result, we are ending up paying for twice as many seats as we currently need.

drpossum 2y ago
GitHub is not the only game in town.

benatkin 2y ago

Best to never subscribe. These are messing up SaaS.

habosa 2y ago

Here’s my Carta horror story, since we’re sharing. I left my last company and had 90 days to buy my options. The day after I left the company (January) I exercised. The total I had to pay was about $20k. I didn’t think a lot about it after that. 6 full months later I get an email from Carta. It says my bank account transfer was unsuccessful. They had tried to pull the $20k from my account 6 months after I authorized it with absolutely no warning, and it had overdrafted my checking account by $1k (I don’t keep a ton of cash around). Ok no big deal, I’ll move the money around and try again. Nope, Carta decided that after a single failed attempt at payment my options were PERMANENTLY canceled. Like, I no longer have the right to exercise them ever. No equity in the company for me, sorry. After going back and forth with Carta they insisted they “had” to do this even though that’s BS. There’s no reason they couldn’t have attempted a second time to draw payment, they’d already waited 6 months. To get the equity I had worked multiple years for I had to go to the CEO of my former company and beg personally. He got the board to back-date an equity offer for me of the same amount so I could exercise again. If I had left under left friendly terms I’d have been screwed. So yeah, don’t use Carta.

gpi 2y ago
This is concerning. Isn't this regulated? How is this allowed?
krashidov 2y ago
hats off to the CEO of your last company
robocat 2y ago
> 6 months That is one seriously fucked up delay. I hate having to closely monitor "professionals" to verify they do their job.
Sohcahtoa82 2y ago
> The total I had to pay was about $20k. I didn’t think a lot about it after that. You must be living in an entirely different world to me that you don't think about an upcoming $20K pull. I would have been calling up Carta after ~10 business days, if not sooner, if they were making me sit on $20K in cash. > and it had overdrafted my checking account by $1k (I don’t keep a ton of cash around). If a $20K overdrafted by $1K, then you had $19K in cash. I can't imagine what your monthly spend is like to feel the need to keep that much. I only keep $5K. First paycheck of the month comes in on the 1st, mortgage payment comes out on the 2nd, and I pay off the credit card. Anything over $5K left goes into savings. Second paycheck comes in on the 15th, pay off the credit card again, pay utility bills, car insurance, make my monthly IRA contribution, and then again throw everything over $5K into savings.

tivert 2y ago

> The issue first surfaced on X after founder Sudarshan Sridharan of Pipeline posted about his struggles trying to cancel, writing, “I’m speechless at how anti-founder @cartainc is. They make it impossible to cancel your subscription or speak to a human support agent.” Oh come on. What rock did that guy crawl out from under? That's industry best practice, especially the speak to a human part.

reaperman 2y ago
Just checked ... the company Sudarshan Sridharan founded ( https://withpipeline.com/ https://withpipeline.com/ ) also offers a B2B Saas (for $150/month) and the terms of service outline that users can cancel inside the application itself (no certified mail or meeting required). Users can also opt-out of arbitration via email as well, not just by mail.

noobermin 2y ago

Good thing Lina Khan is getting replaced so this can become the norm again.

deleted 2y ago

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stanfordkid 2y ago

The answer is to work with your bank to block payments. Equity is a legal contract, it's not going to evaporate because Carta says so. Carta isn't going to hire a debt collector against a well funded startup and get counter-sued / risk the bad PR.