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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

#221

Post by paulddraper »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #212
Waterluvian wrote: post #67

My trick to avoid the long retentions go around is to tell them I'm leaving their service area. Why are you looking to cancel your phone plan? Leaving the country. They know they can't win me over and so they don't even try.

"Well, I don't mean to overshare, but if you must know, I've been convicted of aggravated manslaughter and am scheduled for booking tomorrow afternoon. I won't be needing cable TV service for ten to fifteen years."

*Aggravated manslaughter of a particularly persistent customer service rep

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

#222

Post by varenc »

tothrowaway wrote: post #147

Another way to get out of subscriptions is to change your billing credit card to one generated by a service like Privacy.com. Then just close the card out. Some sites/services are getting more savvy about pre-paid cards though (DigitalOcean won't accept one). I tried to use a burner card on a snail mail advertisement offering a $50 gift card to sign up for a trial of a magazine subscription. Didn't work.

I've found these work great for free trials as well. Just use a burner card and enjoy the trial without any worry you might be charged from forgetting to cancel.

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

#223

Post by chime »

jedberg wrote: post #194

One of the philosophies at Netflix was that it should be as easy to cancel as it is to sign up, because you should respect your customers enough not to annoy them into keeping your service. Honestly, it always seemed to me that it was actually easier to cancel than the sign up.

And good services also make it possible to put a subscription on hold for 6-12mo or even indefinitely. I did that with Hulu for a while before upgrading to their no-ad service. If they didn't have hold, I would have cancelled and probably not signed up again.

Of course with Netflix, I've never thought that.

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

#224

Post by cm2187 »

brandonbloom wrote: post #188
Waterluvian wrote: post #67

My trick to avoid the long retentions go around is to tell them I'm leaving their service area. Why are you looking to cancel your phone plan? Leaving the country. They know they can't win me over and so they don't even try.

I've done this several times with Comcast, but it failed with Time Warner when I moved out of NYC. They demand to know why you are canceling and have some sort of way to extract money out of you for every scenario, including moving out of their service area. In that case, they transfer you to another phone system that helps you find a provider at your new address and, presumably, nets them a referral fee of some kind…

Has anyone tried "none of your business" as an answer to why your are leaving?

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

#225

Post by JackCh »

gordon_freeman wrote: post #118
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.

but would not that make you feel a little guilty as you are lying to the person just to cancel a subscription?

Despite what we teach small children, lying is not immoral. Lying is amoral. The circumstance and motivation of a lie determine whether that particular lie is moral or immoral.

There are times when it's moral to lie, other times when it's immoral to lie, and still other times when morality hardly has anything to do with it at all (such as the above scenario.) We tell small children that it's immoral to lie because we don't trust their moral judgement and would prefer they always tell us the truth.

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

#226

Post by zakki »

amalcon wrote: post #204
gutnor wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally speaking people working in call centre, or that deal with client all day long, like the NATO alphabet, especially people that have to deal with random code, or need to get names spelled right. People that I know worked in call centre love it, and carry on using it decades after they left that job. It seems a bit more tedious, but the slower pace with reduced ambiguity means you almost never have to repeat y…

My name has an unusual spelling, so I always have to spell it on the phone. I've had issues every time I try to use the NATO alphabet for this, because several of the phonetics are names. E.g. someone named Matt might say: "Matt, spelled Mike-Alpha-Tango-Tango" And get the response: "Ok Mike, now I need..."

I am not familiar with NATO standards until I read this post. And I’m not an English native speaker. But what I get from NATO idea is take the first character from the word said in conversation. So when speaking with someone on the phone, sometimes I say “I” as Italy instead of India. And luckily they understand it. You may try “Monaco” instead of “Mike”.

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

#227

Post by paulie_a »

I've found simply emailing them and asking for a call back to be surprisingly effective, or I in a few cases i stop paying them by changing the billing to a card that is about to expire. And if necessary the phrase "I will be contacting my state attorney general's office, consumer fraud division, what was your name again?" is the atomic bomb in getting things resolved.

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

#228

Post by paulie_a »

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.

I've found a different method. Email them and tell them they need to call me or they won't be paid anymore. I've actually used the phrase "give me a holler". Got a call the next morning.

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

#229

Post by mygo »

jopsen wrote: post #91
mygo wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually have a speech impairment (a stutter) and you’d think people would be willing to accommodate. I can speak just fine when I have complete agency over the words I choose to say, but it’s the absolute worst when I have to read out some long specific access code or account number and say it 100% correct. Stutter even once and they think I meant 2 P’s when I just wanted to say a single P. And then it becomes thi…

When I lived in the US I would follow the phone menu for 30s or so, but at some point I would always a get annoyed enough and just hit random keys until the robot says: I don't understand let me connect you... Often hitting # repeatedly did the trick. But lot always.

this also happens when I’m speaking to actual humans. Sadly.

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

#230

Post by drb91 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #217
hoveringcto wrote: post #179

Simply telling the merchant I will do a chargeback has worked every time for me (provided it's a credit card charge).

Some merchants have it in their contract (for subscriptions) that any chargebacks will go to a collection agency, which dings your credit.

Do you have a link for this? I’d like to read more.
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