I've actually closed bank accounts to get away from subscription services. It really is an outrage. What more should it take than telling them you don't want to pay for their service anymore?
I guess there was some truth to that Friends episode.
California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online
411–420 of 554 posts
Re: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online
#412Are you actually deaf? Or is lying to get exceptions that are meant for the disabled actually legal?
[deleted]
Re: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online
#413Are you actually deaf? Or is lying to get exceptions that are meant for the disabled actually legal?
Please don't take HN on off-topic flamewar tangents. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17466555 and marked it off-topic.
Re: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online
#414Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't let the libertarians hear you say that
Charging people who do not need the service and not letting them cancel looks like fraud, certainly not a voluntary transaction of two willing individuals. I do not see any problem from the point of libertarian for the state to protect the right of a person who does not consent to a business relationship anymore to withdraw from it - just as it is true for any other relationship. Just as libertarians would not object…
Made sense until the last paragraph and everything turned upside down.
"Fully inform" is that not simply what we in real life call "the small print"?
Taking advantage of people is never ok in my book. If you think you're allowed just because you are a little smarter than us I would question your moral and welcome any basic consumer protection.
Re: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online
#415Is there not a service in the US that does this on your behalf?
Re: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online
#416Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
Side note: If you look at the ADA language about service animals, it's all about what you as a business cannot do, without doing a good job of specifying what constitutes a service animal... So if abusing vaugely defined legislation aimed at protecting people with disabilities is your thing, $50 on Amazon and you can take your pets just about anywhere ;-)
The current ADA is actually quite clear: it must be a dog or miniature horse professionally trained to mitigate one or more specific disabilities.
Re: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online
#417Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
FYI anyone can dip into your checking account anytime they want to. AFAIK there is literally zero security, all you can do is dispute unauthorized transactions after the fact. Even with a paper check all the info on the check (including recipient and amount) is effectively just a paper trail to be referenced during a dispute.
It's crazy how our modern banking system has almost zero security systems in the way of someone draining your account.
The account numbers aren't even secret, they're written on the bottom of every check!
Re: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online
#418Earlier quoted context omitted.
As guilty as saying "I can only pay $X" or "$X is my final offer" when buying or selling a car despite knowing it's a negotiation tactic and not a real limitation.
Incidentally the price tag was invented by Quakers who considered haggling immoral. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_tag#History
After yesterdays thread on the anki system I'm tempted to get into that and this bit of trivia is just the sort of thing I'd love to remember.
Re: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online
#419Earlier quoted context omitted.
I honestly can not understand how a credit card company call center can claim to legally decide a civil matter like this. I know in the US they regularly do this just as I know of a couple of counties that absolutely don't allow it. I honestly wonder what legal theory my bank or financial service is using to justify transferring my money or incurring debt under my name to pay someone I explicitly tell them not to sim…
The "legal theory" is that you signed up for the credit card company to be a trusted middle man and to ajudicate exactly these sorts of disputes. This is part of value they provide.
It turns out you can not put anything you want in a contract. You can't contract away fundamental rights, for example you can't contract to vote a certain way.
But perhaps rather than suggesting that everything in a contract is always valid, maybe you are referring to DIRECTV, Inc. v. Imburgia. And somehow that decision can be stretched to cover this case. Even so, it is clear that the call center is not acing as remotely as an arbitration court in any definition of the term because arbitration courts do have to meet some minimal legal set criterion.
So I have a counter theory: the legal theory they're using is they can do whatever they want because the consumer could never afford the legal fees to challenge them on it. And pooling resources by class action is explicitly prohibited by the above decision. So I contend no, it's not legal but it is conveniently un-enforceable now.
Re: California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online
#420had the same problem with Scribd recently. I've cancelled my subscription in the end of April, but still got a notification from PayPal about the money transfer in the end of May. I had to contact them per email and luckily they were very friendly and accommodating, they've cancelled my subscription on the same day and I've got my money back in two days.