7 ms·

Pa. House passes 'click-to-cancel' subscription bills

270 points by bikenaga 1y ago

noobermin 1y ago
Time for trump to declare click to cancel woke and communist so they can pass a federal law banning it like they are passing other similar laws.
grndn 1y ago
Personal anecdote: I had a subscription to the Philly Inquirer. They made it very easy to sign up online, but there was no way to cancel online. The website only said "call the sales team to cancel". I changed my home address to California, and shortly after, a new "Cancel Subscription" button appeared on the PI website, which worked great.
- aspenmayer 1y ago
  Instructions unclear? Do I move to California before or after I cancel my subscription(s)?
  - larkost 1y ago
    I think in this case you just need to change your mailing address with them. There is a California law (and from other comments it looks like 4 other states) that requires them to allow easy cancelations to CA residents. And since it is probably too much work for them to prove you are a CA resident, they just have the logic check if your address is in CA to enable the online cancelation (since they have online signup)
sometimes_all 1y ago
Somewhere in the mid-2010s, The Economist lost my trust when I noticed that they did not have a way to cancel their subscription directly, you had to call a number (I was not intending to cancel, but someone pointed that out to me). I called that number on the very same day and cancelled. Any company which makes entry easy and exit difficult will not have my money. The more difficult the exit, the harder I will try to escape, even if I like their product/service.
toomuchtodo 1y ago
With the recent federal block of click to cancel, states implementing this will be the way to go. > Both bills passed the House with broad bipartisan support. If the legislation is agreed to by the state Senate and signed by Gov Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania would join several other states that have moved to create such laws over the past year since the FTC began working on its now-defunct rule. > New York, California, Minnesota, Tennessee, and Virginia have all enacted state-level policies that include provisions similar to Ciresi and Borowski’s bills. If you live in a state that has not passed such legislation, I would encourage you to hound your reps until they do. 45 states to go.
- swesour 1y ago
  > Tennessee Rare red state w.
  - ProllyInfamous 1y ago
    I live here. We actually have fairly decent consumer protections... at least against product misrepresenation. For example, our state constitution prohibits products being sold in containers which misrepresent the amount of their contents (albeit, it still happens). Conversely, we also founded the pay-day-loan industry, which is just disgraceful (about a dozen states have banned entirely). Only passed because Allan Jones ("father of payday loans") donated $30,000 to PACs in the mid-90s. I'm currently looking for greener pastures, up-to-and-including expatriation. This state overall has politicians' heads so far up their own...
    - toomuchtodo 1y ago
      > I'm currently looking for greener pastures, up-to-and-including expatriation. https://hiring.cafe/ https://hiring.cafe/ might be of help, no affiliation, just want to help everyone who wants out get out. Same with https://old.reddit.com/r/AmerExit/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AmerExit/ on the expat front.
- amendegree 1y ago
  Just to be clear the block was due to a procedural issue and I wouldn’t at all be surprised to see this sorta thing have bipartisan support at the federal level, seeing as it enjoys bipartisan support at the state level in every jurisdiction it is attempted. The main hurdle at the federal level would be getting it out of committee.
ChrisArchitect 1y ago
Related background: US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44504699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44504699
xyst 1y ago
As a software engineer, this means job security, lol. If a few more states pass similar legislation, the default would be to make it as easy as possible to unsubscribe/cancel.
- 15155 1y ago
  > As a software engineer, this means job security, lol. My bro Claude would like a word with you.
breadwinner 1y ago
One of the ways to prevent unauthorized charges is to use a virtual credit card. Many credit cards provide a way to create virtual credit card based on your real credit card, for example, Citibank [1] and Capital One [2]. Then if the merchant makes it hard for you to cancel, just delete your virtual credit card. You can specify any expiration date for the virtual card (with at least 1 month validity). You can also set per-transaction limits on this credit card, which ensures the merchant can't charge more than the agreed amount. [1] https://www.cardbenefits.citi.com/Products/Virtual-Account-Numbers https://www.cardbenefits.citi.com/Products/Virtual-Account-N... [2] https://www.capitalone.com/learn-grow/money-management/what-are-virtual-card-numbers/ https://www.capitalone.com/learn-grow/money-management/what-...
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > One of the ways to prevent unauthorized charges is to use a virtual credit card This prevents payments, not charges. I’ve met two totally separate funds that buy up these claims and litigate them because killing your card doesn’t void the purchase contract. (And your liability keeps actuating so long as it’s not cancelled.)
  - breadwinner 1y ago
    That's true. In addition to preventing payments, you also have to make a reasonable attempt to cancel service. Recently in the case of Dish Network, I tried to call to cancel service, and the wait time is 45 minutes. There's no way I am doing that. (They don't let you cancel online or via chat, calling is the only option). Instead I contacted state attorney general's office and they made Dish cancel service. If you can prove that you made reasonable attempt to cancel service then you're off the hook. In my case Dish sent my account to collections (for the 1 month it took to cancel service) and I wrote them back that I am not paying and why. Never heard back from them after that.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      Sending a letter to the company pretty much always works and provides proof of the attempt to boot.
fuckinpuppers 1y ago
This sucks that it’s not federal. All these separate state regulations just create more burden on the company side to keep up, and we almost had it federally. :( I am happy to see states still pushing forward. But it’s just so disappointing how much is being taken away for everyone.
- scosman 1y ago
  The company only has burden if they want to maintain maximally sketchy but legal business practices in every possible locale. Doing the right thing is easy to implement.
- bee_rider 1y ago
  The companies have lots of money. If they are having trouble following the laws, they can just direct the lobbying they were going to do at passing a universal consumer protection law.
- floatrock 1y ago
  Creating more burden on the company side to keep up is the point -- feature, not a bug. Who do you think lobbies against a federal-level pro-consumer bill? Hint: it's not the consumers. The risk of a huge patchwork of not-completely-overlapping state level bills is one of the few checks consumers have against federal-level regulatory capture: if it's between a single set of federal-level rules vs. a patchwork of state-by-state rules, the profitable move becomes "okay, lets just let them have the federal-level rules." The failure modes, of course, are: - a completely-defanged federal rule which is worse than no rule (right-to-repair has continued to suffer this) - further consolidation: if it's expensive to do business in multiple states, only the companies with the deepest pockets can continue to grow Personally, though, my money is still on a growing patchwork of state laws will eventually necessitate a good-enough federal law.
ruralfam 1y ago
I have a good many subs or monthly plans. Only one sends me an email notifying me that I will be soon be billed and the amount billed. All the others never provide any notification whatsoever. Can PA also consider a bill that requires notification of billing via email?? I'd bet this rule combined with easy-to-cancel would be of great, great, benefit to the good citizens of PA.
account7213 1y ago
The article says this doesn't apply to entities regulated by the state utility commission, the FCC or specifically gym memberships. That would seem to exclude a lot of the worst offenders.
pclowes 1y ago
I wonder how hard it would be to generate synthetic credit card numbers for each subscription service and then just cancel that "card". I feel there is a whole cadre of consumer tech that is defensive against corporate taxes/tolls on our time. Eg: auto phone tree navigator, only allowing calls from double opted in contacts etc.
- Buttons840 1y ago
  Sometimes the company will continue to seek payment and put the missed payments on your credit report. That should be illegal as well. If people stop paying for a continual service, like a streaming service or a magazine, then the service should just stop; companies shouldn't be able to accrue credit and continue seeking payment, just cancel the service and be done. If something like a magazine wants a year payment upfront, then let them charge for a full year before the first magazine is delivered.
- 57473m3n7Fur7h3 1y ago
  There are many banks that offer virtual cards. Meaning you can generate unique numbers and individually disable those card numbers. A related thing is, with Revolut you have disposable cards that are only possible to charge a single time. Unfortunately I have had a bad time trying to use disposable cards. One time I tried it the merchant did a single reversible charge for like a dollar to verify the card and then they couldn’t charge the actual amount so the purchase failed. Another time for a subscription service (I wanted to try their free 30 day trial without forgetting to cancel in time) they apparently got metadata telling them the card was disposable and they refused it so I had to use the non-disposable card number after all.
  - DaSHacka 1y ago
    Can you not instead set the cap at a certain amount? You can do that on privacy, and can also set it to reset the cap after a certain amount of time (for subscriptions)
- dewey 1y ago
  There’s many services providing virtual credit cards for exactly that purpose: https://www.privacy.com/ https://www.privacy.com/
brianbest101 1y ago
[dead]
ge96 1y ago
Interesting I thought it didn't pass (maybe was a different one for the entire country) Yeah the gym cancellation thing where you have to drive to the location and sign a paper was annoying me/had to do it Hope they do something similar with cookies where there has to be an option to say no/reject all
- 3836293648 1y ago
  The FTC had a rule against it, but courts struck it down, so now states are doing it individually
apparent 1y ago
> The bills would also not cover gyms – notorious for arduous membership cancellation policies – which are controlled by the state Health Club Act. This could be amended into the legislation, which Ciresi said he was open to. What possible good faith reason could there be for exempting gyms?
- adamm255 1y ago
  Good faith LOL
- metalman 1y ago
  fat people epidemic, and the idea that obesity is deadly, so make it harderfor people to give up on there resolutions
- ironmagma 1y ago
  We need some kind of antitrust gym laws. There are far too few gyms for the amount of demand they see.
  - justonceokay 1y ago
    Creating a gym has relatively low barrier to entry. Buy heavy stuff and put it in an ugly warehouse: now you have a gym! The proliferation of CrossFit is pretty much exactly this
brikym 1y ago
I should be able to cancel from my bank. Use the Visa/MC monopoly for good.
- DaSHacka 1y ago
  I'd much rather just break up the monopoly
- filoeleven 1y ago
  Yeah, this is the way. The charges ultimately get drawn from that account, so that should be the place where I can stop that from happening.
nektro 1y ago
yay! if only the FTC had implemented this nationally and not had it rolled back by this admin!
tritipsocial 1y ago
What are the most notorious offenders for hard to cancel services? I heard lots of horror stories in the early 2000s (AOL!) but I have not ran into this recently.
- apparent 1y ago
  Home security companies and newspapers.
- Macha 1y ago
  Gyms and newspapers
- FlamingMoe 1y ago
  I buy a lot of plugins for WordPress sites, and there are definitely some companies in that ecosystem known to utilize dark patterns and have difficult cancellation processes.

270 points by bikenaga 1y ago

Time for trump to declare click to cancel woke and communist so they can pass a federal law banning it like they are passing other similar laws.

grndn 1y ago

Personal anecdote: I had a subscription to the Philly Inquirer. They made it very easy to sign up online, but there was no way to cancel online. The website only said "call the sales team to cancel". I changed my home address to California, and shortly after, a new "Cancel Subscription" button appeared on the PI website, which worked great.

aspenmayer 1y ago
Instructions unclear? Do I move to California before or after I cancel my subscription(s)?
- larkost 1y ago
  I think in this case you just need to change your mailing address with them. There is a California law (and from other comments it looks like 4 other states) that requires them to allow easy cancelations to CA residents. And since it is probably too much work for them to prove you are a CA resident, they just have the logic check if your address is in CA to enable the online cancelation (since they have online signup)

sometimes_all 1y ago

Somewhere in the mid-2010s, The Economist lost my trust when I noticed that they did not have a way to cancel their subscription directly, you had to call a number (I was not intending to cancel, but someone pointed that out to me). I called that number on the very same day and cancelled. Any company which makes entry easy and exit difficult will not have my money. The more difficult the exit, the harder I will try to escape, even if I like their product/service.

toomuchtodo 1y ago

With the recent federal block of click to cancel, states implementing this will be the way to go. > Both bills passed the House with broad bipartisan support. If the legislation is agreed to by the state Senate and signed by Gov Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania would join several other states that have moved to create such laws over the past year since the FTC began working on its now-defunct rule. > New York, California, Minnesota, Tennessee, and Virginia have all enacted state-level policies that include provisions similar to Ciresi and Borowski’s bills. If you live in a state that has not passed such legislation, I would encourage you to hound your reps until they do. 45 states to go.

swesour 1y ago
> Tennessee Rare red state w.
- ProllyInfamous 1y ago
  I live here. We actually have fairly decent consumer protections... at least against product misrepresenation. For example, our state constitution prohibits products being sold in containers which misrepresent the amount of their contents (albeit, it still happens). Conversely, we also founded the pay-day-loan industry, which is just disgraceful (about a dozen states have banned entirely). Only passed because Allan Jones ("father of payday loans") donated $30,000 to PACs in the mid-90s. I'm currently looking for greener pastures, up-to-and-including expatriation. This state overall has politicians' heads so far up their own...
  - toomuchtodo 1y ago
    > I'm currently looking for greener pastures, up-to-and-including expatriation. https://hiring.cafe/ https://hiring.cafe/ might be of help, no affiliation, just want to help everyone who wants out get out. Same with https://old.reddit.com/r/AmerExit/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AmerExit/ on the expat front.
amendegree 1y ago
Just to be clear the block was due to a procedural issue and I wouldn’t at all be surprised to see this sorta thing have bipartisan support at the federal level, seeing as it enjoys bipartisan support at the state level in every jurisdiction it is attempted. The main hurdle at the federal level would be getting it out of committee.

ChrisArchitect 1y ago

Related background: US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44504699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44504699

xyst 1y ago

As a software engineer, this means job security, lol. If a few more states pass similar legislation, the default would be to make it as easy as possible to unsubscribe/cancel.

15155 1y ago
> As a software engineer, this means job security, lol. My bro Claude would like a word with you.

breadwinner 1y ago

One of the ways to prevent unauthorized charges is to use a virtual credit card. Many credit cards provide a way to create virtual credit card based on your real credit card, for example, Citibank [1] and Capital One [2]. Then if the merchant makes it hard for you to cancel, just delete your virtual credit card. You can specify any expiration date for the virtual card (with at least 1 month validity). You can also set per-transaction limits on this credit card, which ensures the merchant can't charge more than the agreed amount. [1] https://www.cardbenefits.citi.com/Products/Virtual-Account-Numbers https://www.cardbenefits.citi.com/Products/Virtual-Account-N... [2] https://www.capitalone.com/learn-grow/money-management/what-are-virtual-card-numbers/ https://www.capitalone.com/learn-grow/money-management/what-...

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> One of the ways to prevent unauthorized charges is to use a virtual credit card This prevents payments, not charges. I’ve met two totally separate funds that buy up these claims and litigate them because killing your card doesn’t void the purchase contract. (And your liability keeps actuating so long as it’s not cancelled.)
- breadwinner 1y ago
  That's true. In addition to preventing payments, you also have to make a reasonable attempt to cancel service. Recently in the case of Dish Network, I tried to call to cancel service, and the wait time is 45 minutes. There's no way I am doing that. (They don't let you cancel online or via chat, calling is the only option). Instead I contacted state attorney general's office and they made Dish cancel service. If you can prove that you made reasonable attempt to cancel service then you're off the hook. In my case Dish sent my account to collections (for the 1 month it took to cancel service) and I wrote them back that I am not paying and why. Never heard back from them after that.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    Sending a letter to the company pretty much always works and provides proof of the attempt to boot.

fuckinpuppers 1y ago

This sucks that it’s not federal. All these separate state regulations just create more burden on the company side to keep up, and we almost had it federally. :( I am happy to see states still pushing forward. But it’s just so disappointing how much is being taken away for everyone.

scosman 1y ago
The company only has burden if they want to maintain maximally sketchy but legal business practices in every possible locale. Doing the right thing is easy to implement.
bee_rider 1y ago
The companies have lots of money. If they are having trouble following the laws, they can just direct the lobbying they were going to do at passing a universal consumer protection law.
floatrock 1y ago
Creating more burden on the company side to keep up is the point -- feature, not a bug. Who do you think lobbies against a federal-level pro-consumer bill? Hint: it's not the consumers. The risk of a huge patchwork of not-completely-overlapping state level bills is one of the few checks consumers have against federal-level regulatory capture: if it's between a single set of federal-level rules vs. a patchwork of state-by-state rules, the profitable move becomes "okay, lets just let them have the federal-level rules." The failure modes, of course, are: - a completely-defanged federal rule which is worse than no rule (right-to-repair has continued to suffer this) - further consolidation: if it's expensive to do business in multiple states, only the companies with the deepest pockets can continue to grow Personally, though, my money is still on a growing patchwork of state laws will eventually necessitate a good-enough federal law.

ruralfam 1y ago

I have a good many subs or monthly plans. Only one sends me an email notifying me that I will be soon be billed and the amount billed. All the others never provide any notification whatsoever. Can PA also consider a bill that requires notification of billing via email?? I'd bet this rule combined with easy-to-cancel would be of great, great, benefit to the good citizens of PA.

account7213 1y ago

The article says this doesn't apply to entities regulated by the state utility commission, the FCC or specifically gym memberships. That would seem to exclude a lot of the worst offenders.

pclowes 1y ago

I wonder how hard it would be to generate synthetic credit card numbers for each subscription service and then just cancel that "card". I feel there is a whole cadre of consumer tech that is defensive against corporate taxes/tolls on our time. Eg: auto phone tree navigator, only allowing calls from double opted in contacts etc.

Buttons840 1y ago
Sometimes the company will continue to seek payment and put the missed payments on your credit report. That should be illegal as well. If people stop paying for a continual service, like a streaming service or a magazine, then the service should just stop; companies shouldn't be able to accrue credit and continue seeking payment, just cancel the service and be done. If something like a magazine wants a year payment upfront, then let them charge for a full year before the first magazine is delivered.
57473m3n7Fur7h3 1y ago
There are many banks that offer virtual cards. Meaning you can generate unique numbers and individually disable those card numbers. A related thing is, with Revolut you have disposable cards that are only possible to charge a single time. Unfortunately I have had a bad time trying to use disposable cards. One time I tried it the merchant did a single reversible charge for like a dollar to verify the card and then they couldn’t charge the actual amount so the purchase failed. Another time for a subscription service (I wanted to try their free 30 day trial without forgetting to cancel in time) they apparently got metadata telling them the card was disposable and they refused it so I had to use the non-disposable card number after all.
- DaSHacka 1y ago
  Can you not instead set the cap at a certain amount? You can do that on privacy, and can also set it to reset the cap after a certain amount of time (for subscriptions)
dewey 1y ago
There’s many services providing virtual credit cards for exactly that purpose: https://www.privacy.com/ https://www.privacy.com/

brianbest101 1y ago

[dead]

ge96 1y ago

Interesting I thought it didn't pass (maybe was a different one for the entire country) Yeah the gym cancellation thing where you have to drive to the location and sign a paper was annoying me/had to do it Hope they do something similar with cookies where there has to be an option to say no/reject all

3836293648 1y ago
The FTC had a rule against it, but courts struck it down, so now states are doing it individually

apparent 1y ago

> The bills would also not cover gyms – notorious for arduous membership cancellation policies – which are controlled by the state Health Club Act. This could be amended into the legislation, which Ciresi said he was open to. What possible good faith reason could there be for exempting gyms?

adamm255 1y ago
Good faith LOL
metalman 1y ago
fat people epidemic, and the idea that obesity is deadly, so make it harderfor people to give up on there resolutions
ironmagma 1y ago
We need some kind of antitrust gym laws. There are far too few gyms for the amount of demand they see.
- justonceokay 1y ago
  Creating a gym has relatively low barrier to entry. Buy heavy stuff and put it in an ugly warehouse: now you have a gym! The proliferation of CrossFit is pretty much exactly this

brikym 1y ago

I should be able to cancel from my bank. Use the Visa/MC monopoly for good.

DaSHacka 1y ago
I'd much rather just break up the monopoly
filoeleven 1y ago
Yeah, this is the way. The charges ultimately get drawn from that account, so that should be the place where I can stop that from happening.

nektro 1y ago

yay! if only the FTC had implemented this nationally and not had it rolled back by this admin!

tritipsocial 1y ago

What are the most notorious offenders for hard to cancel services? I heard lots of horror stories in the early 2000s (AOL!) but I have not ran into this recently.

apparent 1y ago
Home security companies and newspapers.
Macha 1y ago
Gyms and newspapers
FlamingMoe 1y ago
I buy a lot of plugins for WordPress sites, and there are definitely some companies in that ecosystem known to utilize dark patterns and have difficult cancellation processes.