Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online

niemanlab.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 554 posts

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

#331

Post by flyGuyOnTheSly »

Thank god for that.

I made the mistake of joining a Goodlife gym in Canada many moons ago...

The place was disgusting. Always crowded. Mould growing in the bathrooms. Stunk very badly, etc...

So I stopped going regularly... and one day I was in the area I decided to stop in and cancel my membership.

"Oh sorry, you'll need to make an appointment with management in order to cancel."

"OK, is a manager in right now?"

"Yes, the manager is in but I was told not to disturb her right now."

"OK, well can you tell her a customer is waiting paitiently to cancel his account?"

"No, sorry, I am not allowed to disturb her. You're going to need to make an appointment and come back."

So I did that...

And about 3 weeks later I went in at the agreed upon time to cancel my subscription and I was just sitting... waiting... for over 1 hour...

Right beside a poor old lady that was trying to cancel her subscription as well!!!

She was overly polite and was dealing with this overagressive meathead trying to keep her locked into the service...

"I hate coming here... I never come... I never should have signed up... I just want to cancel..."

"But do you have any friends that might want to take on your subscription? It's at a discounted rate and you might be able to help them out by transferring it over to them."

"No, I do know know anyone who wants to come here."

"Ok, let me go talk to my manager about this."

And he left for like 20 minutes and came back and gave her the gears again.

When my turn came... I just said "I'm moving to england and I don't know a single person here who might want to absorb my contract".

It was a total lie... but it was the only answer that would get me out of there in under 10 minutes.

Companies abusing politeness really are terrible to society.

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

#332

Post by tarellel »

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…

Comcast and SiriusXM are by far the worst I've ever come across. They demand explanations, try to cut you deals, claim they have to transfer you to their manager who attempts to up sale you. I seriously had to get one of my debit cards reissued in order to get charges to stop and to get my XM radio account closed out.

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

#333

Post by sjwright »

mehrdadn wrote: post #59
rspeer wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like that at all, because it encourages more services for people with disabilities, instead of taking them away. Every site should be more prepared to accommodate people who can't or don't want to talk on the phone.

> It's not like that at all, because it encourages more services for people with disabilities, instead of taking them away. I mean you could argue the same for parking right? If everyone parked in the disabled section then you'd encourage having more such parking. And this also requires paying a representative more hours to deal with emails etc. It's not like there's zero cost.

That is a poor analogy, because the service of car parking is already available to everyone.

A better analogy might be sidewalk ramps, which probably get used ten times more often for prams (strollers) than for wheelchairs. If they were absent or faulty, complaints by owners of prams can help grease the wheels of local government.

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

#334

Post by ethbro »

criddell wrote: post #191
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.

If they ask me questions, I usually just reply "for personal reasons".

Seconded on this.

It's my favorite answer, because it normally creates enough awkwardness on the call to make the other party want it over as quickly as possible.

And getting them on your side is always step 1.

Bonus points if they ask "I hope it's nothing we did" and you respond with an extra long pause and "I think it's best for everyone involved if we get this cancelled as quickly as possible."

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

#335

Post by matt-attack »

curun1r wrote: post #310
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.

This used to to be the trick to use with the 10 CDs for a penny offers to get out of buying the remaining required full price CDs. After you got the promo-priced CDs, you could send in a change of address form with an address where shipping costs made it unprofitable for them to send the remaining purchases. They'd send a letter back where they regretfully informed you that you membership was being canceled because t…

Great tip!! (which I knew it 25 years ago, but still...)

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

#336

Post by visarga »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #297
mltony wrote: 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.

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

But does that also mean "You may record this call"? Because it doesn't say by who it is monitored.

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

#337

Post by mehrdadn »

sjwright wrote: post #333
mehrdadn wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not like that at all, because it encourages more services for people with disabilities, instead of taking them away. I mean you could argue the same for parking right? If everyone parked in the disabled section then you'd encourage having more such parking. And this also requires paying a representative more hours to deal with emails etc. It's not like there's zero cost.

That is a poor analogy, because the service of car parking is already available to everyone. A better analogy might be sidewalk ramps, which probably get used ten times more often for prams (strollers) than for wheelchairs. If they were absent or faulty, complaints by owners of prams can help grease the wheels of local government.

Sure, the service of cancellation is already available to everyone too. I also don't see how a sidewalk ramp is a better analogy since it's pretty obvious when someone needs to use it at the same time so that you can know you're not getting in their way. Over here you have no idea.

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

#338

Post by jakobegger »

quest88 wrote: post #295
aphextron wrote: post #279

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.

You can send the company a written cancellation letter before you file the chargeback, and get a confirmation from the post office (is that called a registered letter?) Then you can prove that you cancelled the contract.

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

#339

Post by iamdave »

ethbro wrote: post #334
criddell wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they ask me questions, I usually just reply "for personal reasons".

Seconded on this. It's my favorite answer, because it normally creates enough awkwardness on the call to make the other party want it over as quickly as possible. And getting them on your side is always step 1. Bonus points if they ask "I hope it's nothing we did" and you respond with an extra long pause and "I think it's best for everyone involved if we get this cancelled as quickly as possible."

I like having a bit of fun with cancellations once I catch on that they're not gonna make it easy.

"Please cancel my service"

"We'd like to retain your business is there anything we can do?"

"Is my service cancelled yet?"

"Why are you cancelling your service?"

"My service is still working, can you cancel it? Is this the cancellation department? Who will be cancelling my service?"

Just pretend like I didn't hear anything they said or asked and keep asking variations of that in an increasingly childlike wondrous tone. Sometimes you can hear the person on the other end getting audibly frustrated until they give in and cancel it just to get you off the phone-and when they finally go "Your service will be cancelled on this date, is there anything else I Can help you with?"

"NOPE THANKS!" and hang up.

Never fails to make me giggle madly. Is it patronizing? Sure. Do I care? No not really-I've asked nicely that I want my service cancelled. That really ought to be the start and end of it. Meeting retention rates is their problem, not mine.

Same thing with upselling at retail establishments. No I'm not a rewards member. No thanks I don't want to sign up. Yep I'm sure. Oh I'm quite aware that I can save 10% over $2500 spent. Hey can I just buy this pair of headphones and gtfo?

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

#340

Post by realusername »

cookiecaper wrote: post #193
jen729w wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Generally speaking, it's unlawful to make false representations in the course of doing business. There doesn't necessarily need to be a specific law that says "you can't pretend to be deaf", because if you misrepresent such facts, you are very likely exposing a lot of legal attack surface. IANAL.

> Generally speaking, it's unlawful to make false representations in the course of doing business

You basically described the whole field of advertising, if you make misrepresenting facts illegals, there's not a lot of businesses that would not be fined.

Post reply on HN