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> What I don’t understand is why some people can’t just reach out and request it — instead of going straight to a chargeback. Customers don't want to "reach ou
by ilamont 1y ago
> What I don’t understand is why some people can’t just reach out and request it — instead of going straight to a chargeback.
Customers don't want to "reach out" if it means hunting deep in their account settings to find the cancel button, or calling a number which may or may not lead them through an endless phone tree to waste 5 minutes talking with someone on the retention team reading from a script.
People don't remember they signed up.
They can't remember how to log in from a different device to cancel.
It's easier to use their credit card app to dispute the charge.
The company name is different than the product name - even a slight difference may indicate a scam, like all of these highway toll scams using a slightly different domain name.
A worker or family member signed up using someone else's card, and that person has no idea what the charge is for.
People expected one thing from your SaaS product, and got something else that they are not willing to pay for.
They rarely check or read their email.
Your account reminders are going straight to spam.
The communications around the product, pricing, or requirements was lacking.
- amelius 1y agoWhat I don't understand is why my banking app does not show a "cancel subscription" button with the payment. When I click that button, the recurring payment is automatically canceled, and the SaaS company can check that and know that I unsubscribed. Or something along these lines. There is already a power-asymmetry between consumers and companies. This should not extend to unsubscribing. Here, the consumer should have all the power.
- sambroner 1y agoHow would this be tooled? A chargeback, a deep link to the cancel page, an API connection between bank and subscription? Chargeback is easy because it's under the card co's control. Deep link would require knowing the cancel page of every sub, plus handling auth factors. API connection would two way integration, with scoped auth between every bank and every service. Hopefully managed by an SI or aggregator, but the business model sounds hard (the bank doesn't mind the chargeback, the SaaS doesn't want the cancelation, so who pays?)
- amelius 1y agoThis is another instance where we clearly need a regulator to make things work better for the consumer.
- pjc50 1y agoIntegrations are usually one-way (merchant calls bank API), but it's not beyond the bounds of practicality to keep a handle on whatever UID was assigned to the recurring payment in the first place, then send the merchant "by the way this subscription UID requested user cancellation".
- shkkmo 1y ago> How would this be tooled? A chargeback, a deep link to the cancel page, an API connection between bank and subscription? I'd be happy to just have the ability to easily ask the credit card company block further payments with no actual notification to the business besides that the monthly charges stop going through. If you want to be fancy about it, creat a custom industry standard declination reason for that use case.
- madeofpalk 1y ago> an API connection between bank and subscription? This already exists. Mastercard (and Visa?) has an API that lets banks notify subscriptions when your card changes to update the card number https://developer.mastercard.com/product/automatic-billing-updater-abu/ https://developer.mastercard.com/product/automatic-billing-u...
- therealpygon 1y agoConsidering they are placing the charges in the first place, it would seem like it would just need to be a response code, not a convoluted network of extensive new development like you suggest.
- darthShadow 1y agoVisa/MasterCard/Amex already support such a facility in India due to RBI requirements. Doesn't seem too difficult to adapt similar functionality for other countries too, if the regulations are updated to require it. * https://www.visa.co.in/about-visa/newsroom/press-releases/visa-to-partner-with-billdesk-for-rollout-of-si-hub-solution-for-recurring-payments.html https://www.visa.co.in/about-visa/newsroom/press-releases/vi... * https://pgi.billdesk.com/web/sihub https://pgi.billdesk.com/web/sihub
- evermike 1y agoNeobanks definitely have this feature. For example Revolut. There’s a “Block future payments” button, and once you click it, no more charges from that merchant will go through.
- amelius 1y agoYes, but this is not a correct way to unsubscribe. They might for instance still send a bailiff to collect their money. What I'm talking about is an official way to unsubscribe. One that the user fully controls, and is free of dark patterns.
- robertlagrant 1y agoWhat if you want to change your subscription level, rather than unsubscribe?
- lixtra 1y agoThe requested feature is more like list-unsubscribe headers for mailing lists[1]. Instead of categorizing the mail as spam (blocking) you send a clean unsubscribe back to the sender. [1] https://www.twilio.com/en-us/blog/insights/list-unsubscribe https://www.twilio.com/en-us/blog/insights/list-unsubscribe
- vasusen 1y agoThe reason isn't technical. This isn't implemented because the entire card-processing ecosystem is hooked on the chargeback fees (min $15 to $100). It starts becoming a lucrative revenue stream for Visa/Mastercard/Stripe/Adyen/WorldPay/Fiserv and the entire ecosystem. Merchant's end up getting the short end of the stick in most cases.
- bwb 1y agoI love love love this comment. Banks are barely running on a modern stack, let alone doing anything userful within banking, and you want them to build an api to cancel an outside service? :)? Love this so much, most HN comment ever :)
- ghoul2 1y agoThats how it works in India. All authorized repeating charges ("mandates") are listed on a portal maintained by the card issuer. you can go in anytime and simply cancel the mandate from there. This is mandatory under banking regulations. Credit cards are also required to be "tokenized" when stored at a merchant or payment aggregator - the user authorizes the bank to allow the merchant or the aggregator to "store" the card details for use later, and the bank then issues a card token, tied to the specific merchant/aggregator. They are not allowed to store the original card info at all - just this token. This makes the token not worth stealing, as it can be only used by that merchant, and is trivial to de-auth if needed, with or without merchant cooperation.
- re-thc 1y ago> Customers don't want to {blah blah blah} If this is the way it works and the result are chargebacks it just means things cost more in general (cost of business will be factored in). It's not a good thing.
- infecto 1y agoIf chargebacks are a significant issue for your business then you are doing something wrong.
- evermike 1y agoAs I mentioned in the article, this is extremely rare for us, but it has happened a couple of times. And that’s where I start having questions and frustration about the process itself. I’ve shared examples in the article.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> this is extremely rare for us, but it has happened a couple of times Put punitive terms into your SLA. (Though check with a lawyer about adhering to your merchant agreement.) Charging back doesn’t cancel a contract. If you want to be vindictive, you could sell the debt to a collector.
- singleshot_ 1y agoRestatement (Second) Contracts sec. 356 would seem directed squarely at this bad idea.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 1y agoIt constrains liquidated damages to a reasonable figure. But it doesn’t prevent them. As for selling a debt to a collector, that seems perfectly reasonable, particularly if the customer made no effort to cancel.