Simply telling the merchant I will do a chargeback has worked every time for me (provided it's a credit card charge).
I did this with Skype and now I can't refill credit from that card anymore.
California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online
321–330 of 554 posts
Re: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online
#322Earlier 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…
That sucks. I guess "works every time" is an overstatement. I'm currently 3 for 3 but I guess you have a lot more attempts than I do.
You could always tell them you're halfway through a bottle of Colt 45.
Re: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online
#323Honestly, 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…
I wouldn't advise telling people to do chargebacks often. They're meant to be used when venues of negotiation with the company are exhausted and you still believe they're in the wrong. If your bank suspects you're being too liberal with them, they will cut you off, as they'll suspect you're the fraudster.
Do like 5 chargebacks a decade and you’re good.
Re: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online
#324For 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?
They bank (much like sales people) on human nature making you feel bad when they’re screwing you.
It’s like the squares/grid stuff used by car salespeople to get you to get a car loan instead of buying the car with cash.
Re: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
>PayPal tried to take money from my checking account because Consumer Reports "autorenewed" my subscription -- without my knowledge or explicit authorization.
The only way this happens is you create a "billing agreement" when you first signup. Its a feature of Paypal that then lets sites bill more stuff to you without much in terms of prompting. Its useful because services like Steam use it to avoid prompting users over and over again to login but other sites use it....because they can. Problem is its not very obvious to perhaps the majority of users they are creating a billing agreement.
You can terminate these agreements any time in the paypal site. But you have to do it yourself as otherwise it'll just sit there indefinitely.
Re: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
"I'm planning on committing assisted suicide." (Not actually). You're move Time Warner.
"Go on, sign up anyway. Why would you care if you're dead?"
Re: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online
#327Earlier 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.
I think it's a legal requirement, regarding automated calling.
Re: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online
#328Wow, just the right article at the right time: today after seeing SiriusXM charges of ~ $20 monthly for subscription, to my huge surprise, I searched for online cancellation, only to find none exists. I called them to cancel and indeed ended up not canceling, rather getting a promo deal. I really love SiriusXM while driving, but that lack of online cancellation completely annoyed me.
Re: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
My bank doesn't make me sit on hold for 20 minutes and isn't staffed by min wage employees who are incentivized to retain you including lying to you or hanging up on you. I don't blame the employees, they are just trying to make rent. Also chargebacks penalize the merchants both in fines/fees but if they rack of enough, they'll pay higher processing fees.
> My bank doesn't make me sit on hold for 20 minutes and isn't staffed by min wage employees Lucky you.
Get a better bank.
Re: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online
#330Earlier 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…
What right do they have to know what your disability is?
The ADA has exemptions for when it would be unsafe or unreasonable to provide accommodation, and those are the only places where anyone can discriminate against someone for whatever their condition might be (eg the vision and prescription requirements for pilots). In fact the ADA explicitly disallows asking for any general information about disabilities - an employer can only ask yes/no questions about specific criteria.
I can’t imagine what their argument for not supporting someone cancelling their subscription would be.
Fun question: if you were to say you were cancelling for medical reasons would they be opening themselves up to a lawsuit if the call center asked what it was?