7 ms·

Kudos for adopting a user friendly billing policy. I would love to see the FTC mandate a policy that prohibits automatic renewal billing if the service hasn’t

by efitz 2y ago

Kudos for adopting a user friendly billing policy. I would love to see the FTC mandate a policy that prohibits automatic renewal billing if the service hasn’t been used for some time.

ranger_danger 2y ago
how would that be enforced?
- moooo99 2y ago
  Fines
- scott_w 2y ago
  European countries like the UK have consumer protection laws and they get enforced all the time. There’s a few ways: - Act on customer complaints (or consumer protection organisation complaints) - Proactively investigate and check - Require businesses to submit proof that they follow the regulations e.g. test results I’m sure there’s other ways and you can do one or more of these things to ensure compliance. It’s really context dependent on which methods one would use.
  - larusso 2y ago
    Also helps to scare with huge fines set up for the likes of Google and Facebook which any normal company can‘t pay in their wildest dreams.
    - scott_w 2y ago
      Yes, however fines don’t mean anything without enforcement. An interesting example is, on the subject about DEI at the FAA on the front page today, where the FAA was messing around with FOIA responses because they knew an individual couldn’t afford to sue over every single one. However a good regulatory body with teeth absolutely could do this.
    - weird-eye-issue 2y ago
      Common sense should tell you that the amount a company like Google or Meta are fined is a lot higher than a "normal company"
      - Propelloni 2y ago
        It's built in. EU laws usually have a fining mechanism that says X % of {global/EU/regional} sales or a fixed sum, whichever is higher. For example the GDPR says in Art. 83(5) [1]: > Infringements of the following provisions shall, in accordance with paragraph 2, be subject to administrative fines up to 20 000 000 EUR, or in the case of an undertaking, up to 4 % of the total worldwide annual turnover of the preceding financial year, whichever is higher [...] (An "undertaking" in EU law speak refers to any entity that is engaged in economic activity, regardless of its legal status or the way in which it is financed.) EDIT: formatting
        weird-eye-issue 2y ago
        Yes, exactly. So those "huge fines" won't really scare a normal company since it would not apply to them
        Propelloni 2y ago
        Can you explain what you mean? I get the sense of sarcasm, but I'm not sure. 4 % of annual turnover [1] or 20 Mio, whatever is higher, appears substantial to me. If Alphabet would have been fined once in 2024 it would have to pay 4 % of its annual turnover of the year 2023, 307 billion US$, which amounts to ca. 12.3 billion US$. Or do you think 4 % is not enough? Recital 37 [2] of the GDPR gives a definition of what an undertaking means in the context of the GDPR. [1] https://www.munich-business-school.de/en/l/business-studies-dictionary/financial-knowledge/turnover https://www.munich-business-school.de/en/l/business-studies-... [2] https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-37/ https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-37/
        tuhriel 2y ago
        not the one who asked the questions, but I actually think 4% are not enough. If Google or Meta makes 10% of their earnings with that shit and they have to pay max 4% they still have a 6% margin over - not doing it. IMHO there should be a 4% fine additionally to paying back all the illegally generated earnings. Also, more executives should go to jail for it - And that's the C-Level Executives, because it's them which are accountable. Problem with those things: usually it still hits the little ones harder than the big players...
- yellowapple 2y ago
  I'm thinking of the time I had a membership with Anytime Fitness. Entry into the gym entailed scanning a key fob, so it was readily possible to have a record of when I entered, and (relevantly) when I didn't. This was an exact point I raised when they attempted to charge an expired card twice and then sent my bill to collections. The gym staff admitted to remembering that I attempted to cancel because I was moving to a place with no Anytime Fitness locations; they refused to let me cancel my contract early without me showing them my new lease, which I didn't have yet and wouldn't have until after I had already left my old city. They also surely had electronic records confirming that I had not set foot in an Anytime Fitness since that time - or else, no ability to prove that I had set foot in one since that time. That they had the nerve to not only keep charging my card but send the progeny of their multiple degrees of utter failure to collections is exactly why they never got a dime out of me. If anything they owed me money, not the other way around. That hundred or so dollars has since rolled off my credit report, but until then I wore that delinquency as a badge of honor. That shithole of a company can shove it. ...anyway, that'd be the way to enforce it: by checking access logs to see if the customer actually used the service. Don't have access logs? Well then, you know the saying: customer's always right.
  - troupo 2y ago
    > they refused to let me cancel my contract early without me showing them my new lease They problem is the cancellation process, not "they shouldn't charge me if I'm not using it".
    - yellowapple 2y ago
      Yes, but that problem would've been moot if they were prohibited from charging me for months I didn't use it (i.e. every month after the one wherein I attempted to cancel).
      - troupo 2y ago
        > that problem would've been moot if they were prohibited from charging me for months I didn't use it No, the problem would be moot if the cancellation process was as easy as the sign up process. And I think the US finally got that law
- TheSpiceIsLife 2y ago
  My prepaid mobile service is configured to auto-renew. The service provider messages me two times prior to renewal, something like three days before and the day before. The SMS contain details of how to change my payment settings, which is also the same place you remove your payment card / bank account details. We also have legislation that provides warranty on electronic devices and household appliances, everything really, except things like cars and boats etc etc, for the reasonable lifetime of the product. So a cheap washing machine, three to five years would be reasonable, an expensive unit? I want that to last six to eight years. An expensive fridge, at least ten.
- prawn 2y ago
  Especially if there was an expectation that someone might forget to use a service and then expect all their data to have remained in storage for them to use when they returned?
fastball 2y ago
[flagged]
- jychang 2y ago
  Who cares anymore in 2025? Maybe in 1999, but now in about 1 year we'll have agents that can manage subscriptions automatically. Actually, I'm pretty sure OpenAI Operator can already do that, but I don't pay $200 for Pro so I can't confirm.
  - callc 2y ago
    In about 1 year can agents automatically bring back the pre-LLM / pre-AI internet? Thanks :) - my agent
- grayhatter 2y ago
  What a needlessly toxic take. > People who can't wake up without an alarm, should be late for things. > People who are busy, clearly need to be punished! > Punishment is the best way to change behavior, it's why I always hit my dog! > Humans are better at remembering and scheduling things than computers are, obviously we should require humans do these types of things even when it would be trivial to do so programmatically. > I can punish someone, so I should be allowed to! Or... you could not be a dick, and go, huh, that would be a very nice thing to do to help out your fellow human! I'm glad someone else is willing to help someone else out just because it's the nice thing to do! > Giving people a free pass for not paying attention to their own finances is exactly how you end up with people that are even worse at managing their finances than before. [citation needed]... because I'm pretty sure you just made that up, and it's not true at all.
  - nicce 2y ago
    > > Giving people a free pass for not paying attention to their own finances is exactly how you end up with people that are even worse at managing their finances than before. [citation needed]... because I'm pretty sure you just made that up, and it's not true at all. I am not sure what to think about this topic in a whole, but that argument isn’t much different than why we teach responsibility for kids. There might be some truth in it.
camhart 2y ago
You're assuming there is no cost to the business when the service isn't actively being used. Thats not always the case.
- mcintyre1994 2y ago
  Could you just give the option for them to delete the account if they want to at the same time? I assume most wouldn’t want to, but if it costs them money to keep inactive accounts then they can choose to. Out of interest what sort of services were you thinking of there?
- globular-toast 2y ago
  Well they specifically said "renewal" so the business just wouldn't renew them and therefore not cost them any more money. Obviously some services like insurance or storage don't work like this, though. I don't want to use them, but I want them to be there if I do need them.
Maken 2y ago
That seems unlikely, since soon there will be no FTC policies at all.

by efitz 2y ago

Kudos for adopting a user friendly billing policy. I would love to see the FTC mandate a policy that prohibits automatic renewal billing if the service hasn’t been used for some time.

ranger_danger 2y ago

how would that be enforced?

moooo99 2y ago
Fines
scott_w 2y ago
European countries like the UK have consumer protection laws and they get enforced all the time. There’s a few ways: - Act on customer complaints (or consumer protection organisation complaints) - Proactively investigate and check - Require businesses to submit proof that they follow the regulations e.g. test results I’m sure there’s other ways and you can do one or more of these things to ensure compliance. It’s really context dependent on which methods one would use.
- larusso 2y ago
  Also helps to scare with huge fines set up for the likes of Google and Facebook which any normal company can‘t pay in their wildest dreams.
  - scott_w 2y ago
    Yes, however fines don’t mean anything without enforcement. An interesting example is, on the subject about DEI at the FAA on the front page today, where the FAA was messing around with FOIA responses because they knew an individual couldn’t afford to sue over every single one. However a good regulatory body with teeth absolutely could do this.
  - weird-eye-issue 2y ago
    Common sense should tell you that the amount a company like Google or Meta are fined is a lot higher than a "normal company"
    - Propelloni 2y ago
      It's built in. EU laws usually have a fining mechanism that says X % of {global/EU/regional} sales or a fixed sum, whichever is higher. For example the GDPR says in Art. 83(5) [1]: > Infringements of the following provisions shall, in accordance with paragraph 2, be subject to administrative fines up to 20 000 000 EUR, or in the case of an undertaking, up to 4 % of the total worldwide annual turnover of the preceding financial year, whichever is higher [...] (An "undertaking" in EU law speak refers to any entity that is engaged in economic activity, regardless of its legal status or the way in which it is financed.) EDIT: formatting
      - weird-eye-issue 2y ago
        Yes, exactly. So those "huge fines" won't really scare a normal company since it would not apply to them
        Propelloni 2y ago
        Can you explain what you mean? I get the sense of sarcasm, but I'm not sure. 4 % of annual turnover [1] or 20 Mio, whatever is higher, appears substantial to me. If Alphabet would have been fined once in 2024 it would have to pay 4 % of its annual turnover of the year 2023, 307 billion US$, which amounts to ca. 12.3 billion US$. Or do you think 4 % is not enough? Recital 37 [2] of the GDPR gives a definition of what an undertaking means in the context of the GDPR. [1] https://www.munich-business-school.de/en/l/business-studies-dictionary/financial-knowledge/turnover https://www.munich-business-school.de/en/l/business-studies-... [2] https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-37/ https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-37/
        tuhriel 2y ago
        not the one who asked the questions, but I actually think 4% are not enough. If Google or Meta makes 10% of their earnings with that shit and they have to pay max 4% they still have a 6% margin over - not doing it. IMHO there should be a 4% fine additionally to paying back all the illegally generated earnings. Also, more executives should go to jail for it - And that's the C-Level Executives, because it's them which are accountable. Problem with those things: usually it still hits the little ones harder than the big players...
yellowapple 2y ago
I'm thinking of the time I had a membership with Anytime Fitness. Entry into the gym entailed scanning a key fob, so it was readily possible to have a record of when I entered, and (relevantly) when I didn't. This was an exact point I raised when they attempted to charge an expired card twice and then sent my bill to collections. The gym staff admitted to remembering that I attempted to cancel because I was moving to a place with no Anytime Fitness locations; they refused to let me cancel my contract early without me showing them my new lease, which I didn't have yet and wouldn't have until after I had already left my old city. They also surely had electronic records confirming that I had not set foot in an Anytime Fitness since that time - or else, no ability to prove that I had set foot in one since that time. That they had the nerve to not only keep charging my card but send the progeny of their multiple degrees of utter failure to collections is exactly why they never got a dime out of me. If anything they owed me money, not the other way around. That hundred or so dollars has since rolled off my credit report, but until then I wore that delinquency as a badge of honor. That shithole of a company can shove it. ...anyway, that'd be the way to enforce it: by checking access logs to see if the customer actually used the service. Don't have access logs? Well then, you know the saying: customer's always right.
- troupo 2y ago
  > they refused to let me cancel my contract early without me showing them my new lease They problem is the cancellation process, not "they shouldn't charge me if I'm not using it".
  - yellowapple 2y ago
    Yes, but that problem would've been moot if they were prohibited from charging me for months I didn't use it (i.e. every month after the one wherein I attempted to cancel).
    - troupo 2y ago
      > that problem would've been moot if they were prohibited from charging me for months I didn't use it No, the problem would be moot if the cancellation process was as easy as the sign up process. And I think the US finally got that law
TheSpiceIsLife 2y ago
My prepaid mobile service is configured to auto-renew. The service provider messages me two times prior to renewal, something like three days before and the day before. The SMS contain details of how to change my payment settings, which is also the same place you remove your payment card / bank account details. We also have legislation that provides warranty on electronic devices and household appliances, everything really, except things like cars and boats etc etc, for the reasonable lifetime of the product. So a cheap washing machine, three to five years would be reasonable, an expensive unit? I want that to last six to eight years. An expensive fridge, at least ten.
prawn 2y ago
Especially if there was an expectation that someone might forget to use a service and then expect all their data to have remained in storage for them to use when they returned?

fastball 2y ago

[flagged]

jychang 2y ago
Who cares anymore in 2025? Maybe in 1999, but now in about 1 year we'll have agents that can manage subscriptions automatically. Actually, I'm pretty sure OpenAI Operator can already do that, but I don't pay $200 for Pro so I can't confirm.
- callc 2y ago
  In about 1 year can agents automatically bring back the pre-LLM / pre-AI internet? Thanks :) - my agent
grayhatter 2y ago
What a needlessly toxic take. > People who can't wake up without an alarm, should be late for things. > People who are busy, clearly need to be punished! > Punishment is the best way to change behavior, it's why I always hit my dog! > Humans are better at remembering and scheduling things than computers are, obviously we should require humans do these types of things even when it would be trivial to do so programmatically. > I can punish someone, so I should be allowed to! Or... you could not be a dick, and go, huh, that would be a very nice thing to do to help out your fellow human! I'm glad someone else is willing to help someone else out just because it's the nice thing to do! > Giving people a free pass for not paying attention to their own finances is exactly how you end up with people that are even worse at managing their finances than before. [citation needed]... because I'm pretty sure you just made that up, and it's not true at all.
- nicce 2y ago
  > > Giving people a free pass for not paying attention to their own finances is exactly how you end up with people that are even worse at managing their finances than before. [citation needed]... because I'm pretty sure you just made that up, and it's not true at all. I am not sure what to think about this topic in a whole, but that argument isn’t much different than why we teach responsibility for kids. There might be some truth in it.

camhart 2y ago

You're assuming there is no cost to the business when the service isn't actively being used. Thats not always the case.

mcintyre1994 2y ago
Could you just give the option for them to delete the account if they want to at the same time? I assume most wouldn’t want to, but if it costs them money to keep inactive accounts then they can choose to. Out of interest what sort of services were you thinking of there?
globular-toast 2y ago
Well they specifically said "renewal" so the business just wouldn't renew them and therefore not cost them any more money. Obviously some services like insurance or storage don't work like this, though. I don't want to use them, but I want them to be there if I do need them.

Maken 2y ago

That seems unlikely, since soon there will be no FTC policies at all.