40 ms·

This shouldn't be controversial. FTC isn't banning these fees, it is only requiring merchants to disclose the fees. Why would anyone be against that? Another g

• Terretta 2y ago
  People should have ensured click-to-cancel was passed before demanding subscriptions outside Google Play and Apple's app stores. Well, depends which people, I suppose: subscribers or providers...
• protimewaster 2y ago
  [dead]
• LoganDark 2y ago
  My preferred way to cancel these types of services is to close or pause the card they're charging. If you use a virtual card service like Privacy.com, this is easy, if you don't, then maybe not so much. But using virtual cards for everything you can is typically a good idea anyway, imo.
  • breadwinner 2y ago
    But then that becomes unpaid bills and they send you to collections.
    • sudoshred 2y ago
      You can dispute debt in collections by requesting proof of the debt. The consumer protections in that area (debt collections) are quite a bit more developed than any consumer protections about intentional procedural inefficiency when cancelling service.
      • nodamage 2y ago
        If you never actually took the steps to cancel your contract won't they be able to prove your debt via the existence of a non-cancelled contract?
        • mrguyorama 2y ago
          The purpose is to take advantage of the sloppiness of the debt collection industry. They are designed around tricking financially illiterate people, harassing poor people, and lying. When they buy a debt, they rarely get comprehensive documentation.
      • naijaboiler 2y ago
        you will end up with damaged credit. The only negative on my credit report is from a verizon phone I bought from a verizon store (actually ended up not being Verizon owned store,) which i returned within the 7 days return fee, even paid re-stocking fee. But which the store credits me for having returned it later than I did, which allowed Verizon charged me 1 month service fee, which I never got a bill or email even though verizon had both, until it showed up on credit as collection. Nothing I did could get it off.
    • xenospn 2y ago
      Simple anecdote, but when I paid a medical bill and they still came after me and sent it to collections, I contested the bill and told the collection agency that this is not my debt. Never heard from them again.
    • danaris 2y ago
      You can probably avoid this—or, rather, cover your ass legally—by doing something like sending them a letter registered mail informing them that you are cancelling and will be blocking further payments. It's far from a good solution, but it should at least put you in a better position vis-a-vis the courts if it comes to that.
  • dboreham 2y ago
    Only in America
  • lern_too_spel 2y ago
    Even simpler, file a dispute with your card issuer. Dish will pay the chargeback fee and block you as a customer, but I'm sure you don't want to be their customer again, so that's not a problem.
    • lxgr 2y ago
      What dispute reason would you give? Usually card issuers will ask you if you've made any attempt to settle the situation with the merchant. If you misrepresent that you have and they are just ignoring you, you might practically get away with it, but do know that that kind of misrepresentation might get you into trouble some day. If however the merchant is actually unreachable for a bona fide cancellation request, that's totally on them.
      • lern_too_spel 2y ago
        The reason you would give is exactly the reason the OP gave, that Dish was deliberately not reachable for cancellation.
        • lxgr 2y ago
          Yeah, the solution to that is to mandate accepting cancellations via a single click (or preferably even email, since it shouldn't be my problem if I don't remember my account details when I want to cancel). Disputes should have been the backstop to incentivizing the market to making cancellations easier, but things apparently didn't pan out that way. So arguably, the free market has had its chance, and it's time for regulations.
      • 15155 2y ago
        > Usually card issuers will ask you if you've made any attempt to settle the situation with the merchant. "I attempted to reach them via phone on or about _____, ___. No remedy was achieved."
  • lxgr 2y ago
    This might practically achieve the desired outcome, but do note that just not paying does not extinguish your debt to anyone you have a valid contract with. I've seen Americans living in Europe get bitten by this quite frequently in some countries, where sending something to collections is both commonly done and the collection agency will successfully take you to court and win in almost all cases even for pennies. On the other hand, the EU has had "two-click cancellation" regulations for a while now, so there is a better alternative available for both sides (customer and company).
• drewg123 2y ago
  Dish is terrible. After my mom passed away, they were one of the few things that my Dad had trouble cancelling. Even with a copy of her death certificate, my Dad could not get the service cancelled. He just ended up throwing the bills (and their equipment) away.
  • flutas 2y ago
    Yup, same experience here 3 months trying to make them understand "he is dead". We left their crap in a room for ~6 months total at the advise of his estate lawyer. Eventually they did accept that he was dead and canceled the account as well as sent a box to send the equipment back. They got their equipment back after it had all had an unexpected encounter with a hammer. Never heard a peep about it.
  • gosub100 2y ago
    I think they went bankrupt, so hope that's some consolation. I heard that an attempt to buy them by DTV got rejected on antitrust. But in the article it said they went bust
    • FateOfNations 2y ago
      Surprisingly, neither Dish nor DirectTV has gone bankrupt. Satellites are pretty capital-intensive. They both faced challenges over the years but have managed to skate by. AT&T kept DirectTV afloat for quite a while. The proposed DirectTV + Dish merger fell apart for multiple reasons. While the government didn't explicitly reject it, there was a lot of uncertainty about whether they would bless it. The deal also required Dish's bondholders to voluntarily write off a chunk of their debt, which they ultimately got cold feet about.
• onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago
  Of course it's controversial. They do this to increase profits. A certain portion of the population is pro-profit at virtually any cost. It might seem like Dish employees wake up every day and say, "What can we do today to screw our customers even more?" But usually they're just trying to find ways to make more money.
  • Centigonal 2y ago
    Dish knows their satellite TV business is on the way out. Their strategy is to maximize the present value of that business by retaining and squeezing as many of those customers as much as possible, slowing the decline and pulling as much money out of that vertical for as long as they still have it, so that they can reinvest that cash into new verticals with more promise.
    • xp84 2y ago
      Re: failing business To be fair, satellite TV has always been one of these even when it was a healthy business. High cost of acquisition, high commission for sales, high barrier to cancel.
    • Aloha 2y ago
      The ironic part of all of this, I would have pay linear TV services if it was cheaper - 50 bucks a month for the whole house, and I suspect they could have 30%+ more customers.
      • thanksgiving 2y ago
        It doesn't solve the problem that "the line must constantly go up". A steady revenue and constant returns isn't good enough, apparently and in the case of dish, it will be declining revenue over time no matter what they do.
      • gosub100 2y ago
        Dish profit doesn't scale that way. They have to pay the channels for broadcast rights. More TVs per household means in theory more royalties paid to the networks.
• insane_dreamer 2y ago
  > banning it should not be controversial for many people, any kind of regulation that restricts companies abilities to make money, regardless of the consequences for average citizen, is "wasteful and discourages innovation". Elon would like to get rid of the FTC altogether for that reason, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was set up to help protect users from scammy behavior like this. so yeah, don't hold your breath for the next 4 years (or longer if Elon manages to buy the next election too)
  • mikrl 2y ago
    I revisited Henry Hazlitt’s economics in one lesson and in the chapter on labour unions, he actually is fairly moderate provided that unions stick to non-price distorting policies. Making wage information more accessible to workers being a policy he- an Austrian School economist- supports. This government ruling falls under that class of policies IMO. It makes prices much more available to consumers and does not on first inspection threaten to distort supply and demand.
• __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
  I'm told you can just write the account number to cancel on a brick and throw it through their window. Might be worth a try.
• jfengel 2y ago
  There is a move afoot to eliminate all regulations unless they've been specifically passed by Congress. Which is basically incapable of passing anything. Ironically, that inherent dysfunction is the main reason to suspect that won't happen. But politically, every regulation as automatically partisan, even when it has overwhelming support.
  • throw10920 2y ago
    > There is a move afoot Who is behind this move? What individuals, and what politicians? By what legal means is this happening? I've literally never heard of anything like this before - without further details, this is just political flame-baiting.
    • Der_Einzige 2y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13771 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13771
    • adgjlsfhk1 2y ago
      > Who is behind this move? What individuals, and what politicians? By what legal means is this happening? The supreme court. The removal of Chevron Deference this year means that the courts have given themselves huge amounts of power over any administrative decision that isn't specifically regulated by congress (rather than the prior stance which was to presume that agency decisions were reasonable interpretations of the legislation unless there was clear evidence to the contrary).
      • thehappypm 2y ago
        Federal agencies now have oversight from the judicial branch. That's a big check on their power.
        • someothherguyy 2y ago
          > now They always have?
• impossiblefork 2y ago
  It's really basic contract law stuff. Here in Sweden, if the amount isn't clearly presented, there's no agreement to pay the specified amount, so there's no contract and no obligation to pay-- an agreement becomes binding because of the reasonable expectation of a party on the counterparty. I don't understand American contract law, since I even see ideas like changing agreements, which are completely contrary to the very notion of a contracts as I understand it, so it's nice that something is done about these strange practices. I don't understand how it's come to this point though. That courts have been willing to tolerate things that aren't in the contract (i.e. changes to contracts), provisions that aren't clear, etc., and complex and strange provisions even in contracts of adhesion and things presented to consumers.
  • LorenPechtel 2y ago
    Mostly it comes down to the fees being presented at the end rather than at the beginning. You have to follow the process through to the end to figure out what it would cost which makes price comparisons much harder. Occasionally this is unavoidable--shipping charges. If they simply pass through what UPS charges, fine. Otherwise, they should be listed up front.
    • impossiblefork 2y ago
      Ah, I'm thinking about EULAs etc. where people claim the right to change the agreement at any time etc. With regard to shipping charges, don't you choose your shipping options and get to see the price before buying?
      • Dylan16807 2y ago
        Yes it's before buying, but the problem is that it's after almost everything else.
      • foobarchu 2y ago
        You do before purchase, but generally not as part of the storefront product listing. That necessitates the seller already knowing where you'll be shipping it to, and that's traditionally the last step before purchase (whether that's best or not I can't say). Sales tax is also usually added in at the very end, again because it depends on where the buyer is. The difference here is that the "hidden junk fees" are just extra money they charge, with no real defence. For example, Ticketmaster loves their arbitrary "convenience fee", Airbnb was long known for "cleaning fees" (though they've improved here), etc. These are things that the seller knows they're going to charge beforehand and clearly they do this purely to trick our brains into thinking things are cheaper.
• jeffwass 2y ago
  Dish is evil. Years ago when signed up with them I opted to pay the extra service for local tv channels, which required an andditional antenna to install. For some reason the installer couldn’t fit it securely on our house, and said to call Dish to remove the service since we cannot receive it. Dish refused to remove the local service! They said since we signed a contract we were stuck paying for it even though they couldn’t fit the antenna. I pointed out in a hundred different ways that the contract also required them to provide a service which they are not providing so we shouldn’t have to pay. All of my attempts to reason with them were ignored, and their call staff refused to escalate to their manager. Long story short we had to pay for twelve months for something they couldn’t provide to us. Literally the minute the contract was up we cancelled (it was easier to cancel back then). I would never ever go near this company again.
  • paulryanrogers 2y ago
    Isn't this what small claims court is for?
    • hiatus 2y ago
      So now likely hundreds (or more) of individuals have to not only wait on hold forever, but have to learn the process of and actually go through with filing a small claim? That there is recourse is beside the point when it is mired in bureaucracy (not to mention taking days off to show up to court, etc).
      • paulryanrogers 2y ago
        Class action suits may be easier, if only arbitration was opt-in-by-default or easier to opt out of.
        • mrguyorama 2y ago
          Class action is an utter joke that has done nothing more than FURTHER commodify harming consumers for a price. If a company sends you a $2 check ten years after they recognize a profit from defrauding you or lying to you or harming you, that's not a punishment, and is certainly not an incentive to not do those things.
• haliskerbas 2y ago
  The woke ideology wants to add all of this nonsense regulation and make it hard for real entrepreneurs to generate value in the wonderful system of capitalism. /s P.S. this is also a good summary of every all in podcast episode post election
• SOLAR_FIELDS 2y ago
  Agree to both. And both are incredibly easy problems to solve. For the first just have a law that says: > Any advertised price must include all mandatory taxes and fees. No exceptions. For the second just have a law that says: > An end user must be allowed to use the same method to cancel as they used to sign up for the service. No exceptions. Additionally, an end user cannot be required to perform more manual actions to cancel than was required to sign up. No exceptions. No one should be against this except greedy corporations. Easily solved, common sense rules that already have working examples in the real world. 1 is already the law in Netherlands and Australia and these countries aren’t falling over from the undue burden placed on businesses. I’ll end with: two cornerstones of a free market are price transparency and the ability/mobility to switch services when a better competing offering emerges. Not having legislation like above to protect those values is anti capitalistic
  • LorenPechtel 2y ago
    But what's a mandatory fee? Free airfare to Hawaii! Fee for paying by cash: $1000 Fee for paying by check: $1100 Fee for paying by credit card: $1050 Fee for middle seat: $200 Fee for window seat: $300 Fee for aisle seat: $250 Note that no fee on this list is mandatory because you always have other options.
    • SOLAR_FIELDS 2y ago
      To me that is totally fine. If there are electives, then elective them. Fix the mandatory ones first. Like the “resort fee” hotels charge. Or “cleaning fees”. It becomes trickier when the fee is elective, but a significant part of the advertisement. Southwest Airlines complaining about having to advertise their fares, which come with two bags included, alongside other airlines who don’t include any bags comes to mind. I think there is probably some world where elective fees are included as well though this seems more nebulous. However, let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good: Even just including everything that is compulsory in the base price itself, including taxes, would be a massive improvement to the status quo. Fixing this elective fee ambiguity would be a next step
• dotancohen 2y ago
  Why is a law needed to address this? Isn't the market supposed to adjust for companies like this?
  • Freedom2 2y ago
    Precisely. The overarching HN view, although it's not a monolith (so the viewpoint isn't shared by all), is that the free market solves for all things and regulation by the government is largely a waste of taxpayer money that could be going to other things worthwhile (roads, military, police).
    • Rygian 2y ago
      I guess you mean the taxpayer money that the taxpayers are currently paying, against their will, towards unwanted subscriptions that they haven't managed to cancel.
    • Viliam1234 2y ago
      I think the idea is that one day you too should found a startup that will provide services that are difficult to cancel.
  • TylerE 2y ago
    We have hundreds of years of examples of the blessed free market failing to do exactly that. If the free market had it's way we'd still be under the yoke of Standard Oil and Ma Bell. One key element of a free market is the "well informed consumer". How is the consumer supposed to be informed about what new cutting edge chemicals are toxic, for instance?
    • dotancohen 2y ago
      For the hundreds of years of examples, we have not had an interconnected network with information available to almost every human on the planet.
      • TylerE 2y ago
• LorenPechtel 2y ago
  The problem with click-to-cancel is that there should be confirmations built into important cancellations. But require it to be practical to do online, with no delays and no requirement about when relative to renewals.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • MathMonkeyMan 2y ago
    "Please don't go! Bad things might happen!" Better, in my opinion, is a clear and easy way to "uncancel" if you accidentally cancel. But even that can be abused: "Here's a button that looks like a confirmation, but actually it's a resubscribe button." It's just too tempting to make that "number of people who resubscribed after cancelling" number a target. You think you're reminding the customer of their mistake, but really you're just optimizing the dark pattern.
• 77pt77 2y ago
  You can always cancel any contract by certified mail.
• kevincox 2y ago
  Customers should be able to bill them for wasted time. If you are calling to cancel you can bill an hourly rate. Make it some multiple of minimum wage. Then services will pop up to have someone call and cancel for you, then bill the company for that time. Zero effort on the consumer side and suddenly wait times will drop. The problem is that there is no incentive on the company side to have easy cancellation or any other "negative" customer service. If they get billed a hundred dollars for keeping you on the line for 2 hours they will suddenly care a lot.
  • throwuxiytayq 2y ago
    I mean technically, sure. But isn’t that a bit roundabout? There is no real life reason why unsubscribing should be more than a few clicks of effort. If it takes more than 30 seconds, something has gone horribly wrong. Keep companies to that standard, instead of giving them an opportunity to calculate that precisely 9 minutes of wait time doesn’t cost them much and is sufficient for 70% of customers to give up, or something.
    • kevincox 2y ago
      The idea is that this can be extended naturally to may situations. Warranty claims, insurance claims... If you just add a fine with a threshold it is actually much harder to pick the right fine amount. This way it has some sort of degree of scaling naturally. A small delay is less costly to you than a long delay rather than being all-or-nothing. I agree that for simple things like unsubscribing a button can be mandated, but for other causes of calls to customer support it isn't that simple.
      • throwuxiytayq 2y ago
        I agree that the idea generalizes well.
• cgarvis 2y ago
  Dish outsources sales calls to a third party. This third party doesn’t have access to customer accounts so they have to send you to an actual Dish call center. Not as nefarious as you think but still frustrating.
• calmbonsai 2y ago
  Agreed. With any such service, I budget 1 hour. If I can't get cancellation within that time-frame I have a standard form letter that gets sent out. Once the letter is sent, after the current billing cycle ends any additional charges from said service are disputed (either on the card or on bank account) as fraud. On three occasions, I've been asked to provide proof of fraud. I've emailed a scan of the cancellation letter. The fraud has never been further disputed even from a gym in Chicago that (via their contract's language) demanded an in-person cancellation. Life is too short and time is far too precious.
  • barfingclouds 2y ago
    Nice I might do this method too
  • listenallyall 2y ago
    Honestly, if it works, why not send the letter first and not waste an hour on the phone?
    • zo1 2y ago
      Or even more importantly, why aren't lawyers and consumer protection organizations promoting and spreading this knowledge? The lawyer field is captured and they know they'd get taken to court by other lawyers if they "recommended" such a thing, because their industry has made them liable for things they "recommend".
      • t0mas88 2y ago
        Probably indeed a US liability thing. The FTC-like agency in my country publishes standard letters for this and a tool on their website to find the right letter or generate it based on some input. We still get the same consumer-hostile practices from companies, but usually they give up if you send them one of those letters.
        • calmbonsai 2y ago
• 15155 2y ago
  Call once, fail. Chargeback: "attempted to cancel via phone." Done.
• jtmb 2y ago
  Some people in a general sense just defend companies fleecing us for money because if it was the government who stopped it that makes it bad, which is, imo, very silly.