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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

#171

Post by kstrauser »

mehrdadn wrote: post #154
kstrauser wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not illegal. First, under the ADA they can't actually ask you to verify any disabilities: that's between you and your doctor. Second, you don't have to be explicitly diagnosed as having a disability to have one. I've been to too many concerts over the years, and while no doctor has diagnosed me, I can truthfully say I have a hard time understanding people over bad phone connections.

> First, under the ADA they can't actually ask you to verify any disabilities: that's between you and your doctor. Wow, that's interesting. They can't even require a doctor's certification of some sort (without any details)? How does that work for companies that give discounts (say) to the disabled? Can everybody lie to get them legally then? This doesn't sound right. (Note that it doesn't have to necessarily be the…

> They can't even require a doctor's certification of some sort (without any details)?

That's correct, generally. I mean, if you show up at an airport with an oxygen take, be prepared to demonstrate that you medically require it. It's also different for employment, where your boss may ask you to provide evidence that you need a special accommodation to do your job.

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

#172

Post by wl »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #131
hermitdev wrote: post #9

While I like the spirit of this law (rare for me with CA laws), I expect it to be ruled unconstitutional as attempting to regulate interstate commerce, whose so jurisdiction is under US Congress.

Generally, laws made by the legislature are well thought out. It's that nearly-immutable laws passed through initiative that screw up California law.

Specifically, the legislative analysts working for the legislature who draft and edit proposed laws are generally very good. The wisdom of what is trying to be accomplished may be questionable, but the text of the law usually is defensible and accomplishes what it sets out to do.

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

#173

Post by jen729w »

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?

Why would it be illegal? Unless it's written in to a law as something you can't do, it's by-default legal; and why would someone write a law saying that you couldn't pretend to be deaf?

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

#174

Post by scrollaway »

FireBeyond wrote: post #143
mistermann wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are experiencing higher than normal call volume. Every. Single. Day. I would like to give executives the option to stop this or go to prison for this never ending nonsense. I think most would choose to stop.

At some point, when it happens day in, day out, day or night, doesn't it become the new normal call volume?

I just assume that they put this in regardless to get some amount of people to think "Oh well I better send an email instead...". Emails are cheaper to deal with.

And in emails they put in "We're experiencing a higher-than-usual volume of support requests and we encourage you to look at the FAQ instead".

Every. Damn. Time.

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

#175

Post by brad_Saggy »

fishbone wrote: post #19
danso wrote: post #8

I recently had to cancel an ongoing subscription I had with Equifax, which requires you to call by phone. Unbelievably frustrating. I had to dial the service at least 10 times. Each time, the automated responder would make me go through a very slow menu selection process, only to randomly fail to acknowledge either my correct SSN or zipcode or street number, which I entered using a keypad. As a consumer, I've had to…

Please listen closely, our menu options have changed

The most irritating automated response for me is "Did you know, you can also perform all of the self-service options on our website at www..com that is b,l,a,h,b,l,a,h.com"

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

#177

Post by smolsky »

harryh wrote: post #12

For places that require a phone call I came up with a trick to cancel via email. If they reply back via email and say I have to call them, I tell them I'm deaf and can't talk on the phone. Works every time.

Nice!

However, I get messages of this kind from them bitches:

  Dear customer,

    [insert the demand for something or a notification
     of some annoying change]

  Please call us at 1-800-xxxxxx

  Please do not reply to this email. This email address is not monitored.

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

#178

Post by cozzyd »

yellowapple wrote: post #158
mistermann wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are experiencing higher than normal call volume. Every. Single. Day. I would like to give executives the option to stop this or go to prison for this never ending nonsense. I think most would choose to stop.

Relatedly, I've been flying a lot more than usual in the last couple of months. Every single flight, the boarding announcements start with something along the lines of "this plane is going to be more full than usual, so we're going to need to check some of your carry-ons". Well guess what, United? Maybe if you didn't cram passengers into the fuselage like sardines in a goddamn tin can, you'd have enough room for ever…

Even if most flights are not crowded, the distribution of people on flights is probably such that if your flight preferences are distributed in the same way that people are distributed among flights, you're more likely to be on full flights. For example, say flights either had 10 or 90 people on them, with equal probability, then 90 % of people are on flights that are "more full than usual."

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

#180

Post by bfred_it »

radicaldreamer wrote: post #36
unethical_ban wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I had subscribed via Amazon for Kindle and did it automatically. I wonder if the same thing would be true if you bought your subscription through the app.

Apple iTunes based subscriptions also have a very easy way to unsubscribe, probably to the chagrin to companies which use them.

I wouldn't call "having to open a separate, unrelated app, visiting its homepage, entering your Account area, finding the Subscriptions list" easy.

Easy would be:

    - Open app with subscription 
    - Go to settings  
    - Find subscriptions
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