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California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online

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Re: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online

#121

Post by 0x00000000 »

NullPrefix wrote: post #96
AznHisoka wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"exceptions that are meant for the disabled " Since when was the ability to cancel something online meant for the disabled? Either you or a loved one is disabled, and that's why you're so sensitive (if so, I cut you some slack). Otherwise, I have no clue why you're throwing such a hiss about this. Many businesses (like cable companies) are being complete assholes by making it hard for you to cancel their service. Som…

If more people do this, the scammers may stop supporting this workflow and force deaf users to get their friends to call.

Sometimes accelerationism is the only way

Re: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online

#123

Post by Glyptodon »

turc1656 wrote: post #110

This is a good law, but I'm genuinely curious...is this really such an issue? Personally, I can't remember the last time (maybe ever?) having this issue. Maybe I don't have a lot of subscriptions. Maybe I don't cancel often. Maybe I come off on the phone as not budging an inch. The last time I recall having even the slightest bit of an issue was cancelling my AOL service ~18 years ago and even that wasn't as bad as e…

At a previous employer that provides a subscription-based online digital service one task I was given was removing the ability to cancel said subscriptions via the website and replacing everything with calls to customer service. (Apparently it had a quite measurable impact on retention. To quote one of the managers, the people trying to cancel didn't actually want to cancel, what they really needed were "instructional opportunities" that customer service could do over the phone. And to be fair, I do think there was an element of "I don't know how to do thing X, I'll just cancel" in some of the cancellations. But not all.)

It was among a handful of similar reasons that caused me to leave for public sector work which isn't based on used car sales type manipulation and evil BS.

Re: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online

#124

Post by mehrdadn »

harryh wrote: post #72
mehrdadn wrote: post #42

Are you actually deaf? Or is lying to get exceptions that are meant for the disabled actually legal?

I did think about this, but I don't really think I'm taking anything away from the actually deaf. It's not like a parking space where if I park in it, then it's unavailable for a handicapped person. There's someone's job to handle these requests and they have a limitless capacity. If anything, it actually takes less company man hours to respond to an asynchronous email request than a synchronous phone request. I agre…

Finally! It's nice to see an attempt at a level-headed response, and from the person it was actually directed to (and that you had actually put thought into this). Funny enough, though, no one's actually answered the question I actually asked, which I still have... which is whether this is legal?

Re: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online

#125

Post by 0x00000000 »

goler wrote: post #29
leekyle333 wrote: post #17

The New York Times doesn't allow you to cancel your subscription online.

Same with Wall Steet Journal if you don’t live in CA. Even for CA residents, the cancellation option is buried in the interface.

Two years ago I lived in CA, tried to cancel, ended up submitting a ticket and was told I have to call for "security purposes".

If I didn't have anything better to do I would have loved to submit about 40 tickets a day asking to close my account until they finally did and banned me.

Re: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online

#126

Post by harryh »

mehrdadn wrote: post #124
harryh wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did think about this, but I don't really think I'm taking anything away from the actually deaf. It's not like a parking space where if I park in it, then it's unavailable for a handicapped person. There's someone's job to handle these requests and they have a limitless capacity. If anything, it actually takes less company man hours to respond to an asynchronous email request than a synchronous phone request. I agre…

Finally! It's nice to see an attempt at a level-headed response, and from the person it was actually directed to (and that you had actually put thought into this). Funny enough, though, no one's actually answered the question I actually asked, which I still have... which is whether this is legal?

I'm pretty sure that lying about a disability to a company you have bought a product from is not illegal. But I guess I don't know for sure.

I'm willing to take the risk.

Re: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online

#127

Post by mynameisvlad »

NullPrefix wrote: post #117
mynameisvlad wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't that actually be illegal? Deafness is a medical condition and I doubt "get a friend to do it" would be a suitable accomodation.

>Our workplace is illiterate, thus we cannot process your emails.

That excuse isn't going to fly when they get sued for not accommodating a disability. If anything, it'll cause a lawyer to pounce on the case like there's no tomorrow.

Re: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online

#128

Post by pkaye »

NullPrefix wrote: post #96
AznHisoka wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"exceptions that are meant for the disabled " Since when was the ability to cancel something online meant for the disabled? Either you or a loved one is disabled, and that's why you're so sensitive (if so, I cut you some slack). Otherwise, I have no clue why you're throwing such a hiss about this. Many businesses (like cable companies) are being complete assholes by making it hard for you to cancel their service. Som…

If more people do this, the scammers may stop supporting this workflow and force deaf users to get their friends to call.

Then we need to deal with the scammers.

Re: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online

#129

Post by colejohnson66 »

projectramo wrote: post #56
mehrdadn wrote: post #42

Are you actually deaf? Or is lying to get exceptions that are meant for the disabled actually legal?

Excellent point! People with fully functioning hearing should have to sit through 2 hours of comcast customer service trying to cancel their service. Only the lucky people who have handicaps should be able to easily cancel their subscriptions. When you sign a subscription, no one promised it would be easy to get out of it. They're lucky not to have to pay a cancellation fee.

Is this sarcasm?
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