California law requires businesses to let you cancel your subscription online • Hacker News Board

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

#511

Post by coryfklein » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 5:20 PM UTC

qaq wrote: post #276

slededit wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your vindictive this is a great way to increase their card processing costs.

You seriously believe this will increase processing costs to say Verizon or Comcast?

Of course it does. With a provider as large as that they surely engage in negotiations with credit card providers, and you can bet that the fraudulent charge rate is a huge part of that discussion.

Verizon/Comcast's handling of recurring cancellations is directly tied to Visa's cost of doing business with them.

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

#512

Post by coryfklein » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 5:25 PM UTC

Matheus28 wrote: post #311

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…

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.

The disparity between fraudsters and the average person with respect to chargebacks is probably pretty large. You'd need to be cancelling multiple subscriptions per month to start showing up on the fraud radar.

And If you are cancelling multiple subscriptions per month with regularity, then you may want to reflect and consider if you actually are committing fraud.

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

#513

Post by CodeWriter23 » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 5:29 PM UTC

ghayes wrote: post #261

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.

Isn't it legal in every state so long as you disclose that the call is being recorded?

No. Many states require “two party consent” to record a phone conversation. Notice is not equivalent to consent. Companies do this all the time because none have their eyes sued out for it. Yet. In my experience if you protest the recording they will stop and have two people do the call with you.

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

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Post by coryfklein » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

flyGuyOnTheSly wrote: post #366

fragsworth wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best thing to do is issue a chargeback. You tell the credit card company that you 1) tried to cancel, and they wouldn't do it; and 2) you did not get any service from them since you tried to cancel. They have to pay you back AND THEY GET CHARGED an additional $20-$30 that your credit card company takes from them as punishment. Please don't abuse chargebacks unless the merchant deserves it, though.

>The best thing to do is issue a chargeback. They had me sign over my direct withdrawal banking details the day I signed up. I regret doing that.

My credit union has a charge dispute process that is pretty straight forward and has worked well for me over the years. Consider moving your services to another bank/credit union if they don't provide services like that.

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

#515

Post by toomanyrichies » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 5:41 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #291

craftyguy wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Apparently not. This Daily Dot article quotes the EFF as saying that, even when a company informs you that your call is being recorded, you don't necessarily have the right to record it yourself:

"Dave Maass of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) argues that what Davis did is likely illegal. 'Just because Comcast told the customer that the call was being recorded, that doesn’t mean it’s legal for him to record the call without notification,' Maass tells the Daily Dot. 'To stay on the right side of the law, everyone has to let everyone else know if they’re recording a conversation.'"

Source- https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/comcast-customer-service-rec...

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

#516

Post by silpheed5 » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 5:44 PM UTC

adrr wrote: post #133

This was already required in the Visa Merchant agreement. If you signed up online. The merchant must provide an online way to cancel which could be email, webpage or chat. If they don't just call up your card issuer and file a "canceled recurring" dispute as the merchant doesn't provide a visa acceptable way to cancel the subscription. https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/about-visa/15-April-2... Section: 5.9.8.2

Would this work for Comcast/Xfinity?

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

#517

Post by thatthatis » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 5:45 PM UTC

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.

Our policy is that it is easier to cancel than sign up. It should take fewer clicks, or be just a simple email.

People who cancel frequently come back, unless you make canceling hard and you burn the relationship.

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

#518

Post by siruncledrew » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 5:55 PM UTC

dheera wrote: post #505

FidelCashflow wrote: post #462

I pay for recurring stuff with a CC for this very reason. I had an insurance company refuse to cancel my insurance unless I physically came into their office all the way across town (would have been about two hours of my time when it was all said and done) to show them proof that I had insurance through another agency. I declined that request and explained that they simply weren't getting paid any more. I called the…

Yeah Comcast refused to cancel online about 5 times in a row despite me repeatedly citing their ToS which explicitly says you can cancel by e-mail in section 9b. The parrots on the other end kept repeating that they needed to verify my identity (Ehm, stopping payments should be sufficient verification, thanks.) I've long deprecated phone calls as a method for businesses to reach me. I don't know why businesses don't…

Comcast is terrible. They called me 3 hours after I had just returned their modem and cables back to the store and they said "we never got it" and tried to charge me $300 for non-return of equipment. Had I not specifically asked the store rep. for a receipt and taken a video of myself returning it to the store, then it would have been their word against mine over the phone. I'm convinced this is a con they play on purpose to milk customers for extra money when they cancel their service (plus Comcast also had an ISP monopoly over the area, so they just didn't give a shit about their customer service).

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

#519

Post by ttsda » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 6:05 PM UTC

bruxis wrote: post #467

FidelCashflow wrote: post #462

I pay for recurring stuff with a CC for this very reason. I had an insurance company refuse to cancel my insurance unless I physically came into their office all the way across town (would have been about two hours of my time when it was all said and done) to show them proof that I had insurance through another agency. I declined that request and explained that they simply weren't getting paid any more. I called the…

I don't have enough exposure to the product (not available in my region) but I really liked the _idea_ of privacy.com where you can create a credit card proxy for every subscription you have. This seems extremely valuable for managing subscriptions, tracking your funds, and of course, some modicum of privacy where your original credit card is only shared with one party. edit: Seems like privacy.com is a direct-to-ban…

In Portugal every debit card can be used through the MBWay service, with one-use cards that look like the credit counterpart to the physical one (Maestro -> Mastercard, Visa Electron -> Visa), but can be single use (with a per-card limit) or multi-use (with a limite and an expiration date), locked to the first purchase's merchant.

It also allows instant wire transfers between accounts in different banks using a phone number, and to withdraw cash at virtually any national ATM.

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

#520

Post by paulddraper » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 6:13 PM UTC

codedokode wrote: post #459

Recurring payments are implemented in the worst way possible. You cannot see a list of your subscriptions online, cannot see how much you have spent, cannot stop or cancel them. And even if you don't use some service anymore, they still can charge you. That is because systems like Visa earn money only when you spend and have no motivation to make cancelling easier.

That's why you need a virtual credit card solution.