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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

#291
post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But recording phone conversations is illegal in most states, so unless you live in a state where it's legal, they might know that you are bluffing.

They almost always record your calls for 'quality purposes'. But you're not exactly right.. you can record phone conversations in the US provided you let them know before you push the 'record' button.

When they say, “this call may be recorded,” aren’t they giving you permission to record it?

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

#292

I wish this applied to banks too. I tried to pay off my mortgage this week and I had to go to a physical bank and handle them a check for seven hundred dollars. So stupid.

What bank doesn't allow ACH transfer to pay off mortgages? Even most small banks have this now.

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

#293

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.

It's too easy to cancel Netflix. Someone called in and gave my first initial + last name @ gmail email address and cancelled for me without any further verification.

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

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or walking up a sidewalk ramp, or using the headphone jack at the ATM, or using the handicapped stall in the bathroom, or taking the elevator instead of the stairs...

If you use the handicap stall in the bathroom because you like the extra space, and then handicapped person comes in who actually needs the rails, and can’t use them, isn’t that a bad thing?

Not really. Handicap bathroom stalls are never handicap exclusive. Sometimes there isn't even a second, non handicap stall.

It isn't like parking, because 99.9% of the time, it's in and out in a couple minutes, and 100% of the time you are physically present in the stall.

But if you take the only parking spot, that person pretty much has to go home. The car could be there for hours, even the whole day. Versus two minutes.

This huge moral difference is accurately reflected in the law- it is absolutely, perfectly legal to use a handicap stall without a disability.

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

#295

Honestly, the best way to handle these things is to forget even bothering with the company and file a charge-back with your bank or Visa/Mastercard. You have every right to call up your bank and deny a charge for a service you're not using, and didn't ask to renew. Plus it's guaranteed to get the charge removed immediately, and you'll be hurting the company by adding to their charge-back tally, increasing payment pro…

It is not guaranteed. The company has a chance to respond with the paperwork proving that you in fact received the item you paid for. It's then up to you to prove that you did not.

I am not a lawyer, but this is what happened to me.

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

#297
post #246

I've only used this a couple of times but I think it works: "I'd like to cancel my service. I'm going to say this really clearly for the recording, in case I have to subpoena this for evidence. I want to cancel my service, effective [date]. When I hang up this phone, I want there to be no financial relationship between myself and your company of any kind. None. I don't want any further communication from you other th…

But recording phone conversations is illegal in most states, so unless you live in a state where it's legal, they might know that you are bluffing.

Almost every single call center I've ever called has that, "This call may be monitored for quality assurance." disclaimer.

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

#298

Honestly, the best way to handle these things is to forget even bothering with the company and file a charge-back with your bank or Visa/Mastercard. You have every right to call up your bank and deny a charge for a service you're not using, and didn't ask to renew. Plus it's guaranteed to get the charge removed immediately, and you'll be hurting the company by adding to their charge-back tally, increasing payment pro…

Ultimately the solution is to let the customer manage their subscriptions via their payment service provider. PayPal does this.

PayPal tried to take money from my checking account because Consumer Reports "autorenewed" my subscription -- without my knowledge or explicit authorization. As soon as I saw this I reported this as an unauthorized transaction on PayPal. But PayPal failed to stop the payment in time, even though at the time of my flagging it was unpaid. I then called BofA and blocked PayPal and that worked. So at the moment I have a negative balance on PayPal. PayPal called me to try and collect it from me, but I told them to fsck off: I had not explicitly authorized either Consumer Reports or PayPal.

I didn't realize PayPal could dip into my checking account any time they wanted to. I thought it required my manual action. No more PayPal for me.

This is a standard procedure for many merchants these days: Offer an attractive initial price, then add fine print that states your account will autorenew at "then current" rates, and you have to make a phone call (where you have to hold for 20 to 30 minutes for the next available representative) if you want to cancel.

I am glad California is taking action. They still have a for-the-people government in California.

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

#300
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has since changed this. Google Duplex will not "fool" humans any more. They announce that they're the "Google Assistant" calling on behalf of a customer. I think unfortunately what will happen is that people will just hang up on the google assistant because it's not a real human. It'll be kind of like what happened to the "glassholes". Maybe not as mean though.

Why? If I were a business that took phone orders, why would I care what's on the other end? As long as it's reliable and intelligent enough, I don't think people will mind. I know I wouldn't.

Because you want to make it difficult for customers to cancel.
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