stamps.com does this, I got distracted and forgot to cancel my account for a year and a half and ugh.
People do this because it works, they pack their T&C full of arbitration terms and other bullshit like that.
Tell HN: Pluralsight and the dark-pattern of auto-renewals
41–50 of 126 posts
Re: Tell HN: Pluralsight and the dark-pattern of auto-renewals
#42Slightly different, but Adobe got me with an unintended annual renewal. For their annual plan billed monthly, there's no way to turn off autorenewal until the 12th month without losing access immediately and paying a penalty. They do send you reminder emails, which I missed, but it struck me as pretty abusive to require an opt-out exactly 11-12 months after signup to avoid being locked into a new one-year contract, w…
Adobe hit me with an unintended annual renewal out of a trial. I just wanted to try Adobe Premiere Pro on a school project...well, final exams happened and I forgot to cancel the subscription. Then I moved to a different country, started a new job, and continued to forget about Adobe. A month later I see the credit card bills and try to cancel. Somehow I have an annual contract that carries an early termination penalty.
Take the money you dogs; it's the last you'll get.
Re: Tell HN: Pluralsight and the dark-pattern of auto-renewals
#43Another company: Godaddy. They send an email reminder for auto-renew with a button, "Manage your renewals". Click on that button, but you can't toggle off auto-renew on that page. There are some big toggles to toggle the privacy feature (an upsell of a paid feature). If you want to toggle off auto-renew for that domain, you have to navigate to a different Godaddy page using 2-3 clicks without instruction.
Re: Tell HN: Pluralsight and the dark-pattern of auto-renewals
#44Another company: Godaddy. They send an email reminder for auto-renew with a button, "Manage your renewals". Click on that button, but you can't toggle off auto-renew on that page. There are some big toggles to toggle the privacy feature (an upsell of a paid feature). If you want to toggle off auto-renew for that domain, you have to navigate to a different Godaddy page using 2-3 clicks without instruction.
Depends on the TLD? For example, .app domains are always auto-renew I think
Re: Tell HN: Pluralsight and the dark-pattern of auto-renewals
#45Try buying ads on linkedin and setting an amount you want to spend. It auto-renewed that amount, every day for weeks, without an email or even linkedin profile notification. It's an extremely shady dark pattern. I lost well over $1000 to them before I discovered it and cancelled. Have fun getting a refund as well. In short, avoid.
I'm curious if this was obvious during the on boarding of when you bought/created the ads though? The world of spending on ads alludes me, and as I start to venture into it to promote my own stuff - these are the things that have me a bit apprehensive to pull the trigger on any significant ad spend.
I'm sure legally there was a reference, however the interface was structured to loot my credit card. I told support as much, and while I'm sure there was some indicator, again, no notification my card was being charged in my linkedin account notifications, and no emails that it was being charged. You need to watch it accumulate practically real time, because it will auto renew. Under what circumstances someone would willingly sign up to have $100 taken from them as an automatic refill is beyond me.
Further, when someone is fundamentally dissatisfied with a service, you either refund them or you have profited by misrepresentation. In spite of a messaged commitment from them to refund the money, I have not received any notification that it has been refunded.
The good news is that when a company's culture sucks that much, it is ripe for disruption.
Re: Tell HN: Pluralsight and the dark-pattern of auto-renewals
#46Another company: Godaddy. They send an email reminder for auto-renew with a button, "Manage your renewals". Click on that button, but you can't toggle off auto-renew on that page. There are some big toggles to toggle the privacy feature (an upsell of a paid feature). If you want to toggle off auto-renew for that domain, you have to navigate to a different Godaddy page using 2-3 clicks without instruction.
Depends on the TLD? For example, .app domains are always auto-renew I think
Registrars will generally auto-renew domains for their registrants regardless of any TLD-specific policies.
And that makes sense; letting a domain name lapse absent explicit instruction is generally the wrong thing to do.
Re: Tell HN: Pluralsight and the dark-pattern of auto-renewals
#47I can't think of a single subscription service that does not auto-renew. Can you? Companies consider that a "feature" because it provides uninterrupted service. Is your beef with them because they didn't email you to let you know they were going to bill you for renewal? Do what I do. Never trust a company. Whenever you sign up for a recurring service or a free trial, add an event to your personal calendar that remind…
Credit cards in the US have sane policies. There's a grace period following renewal during which, if you cancel, the annual fee is refunded. Also, if you cancel at any other point, you get your prorated annual fee back.
Re: Tell HN: Pluralsight and the dark-pattern of auto-renewals
#48If you use paypal, scrub pre-approved payments page: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_manage-paylist
I've caught two unintended renewals and cancelled a lot of pre-approved payment authorizations. Out of 20 authorizations, only Google and Valve were legit recurring payments, all other just set it up after a one-time purchase.
Re: Tell HN: Pluralsight and the dark-pattern of auto-renewals
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think I wasn't clear enough that this is an annual subscription of significant cost ($300). With that in mind I would absolutely expect them to email in advance reminding me of the charge (other similar services do). I agree that for something that is monthly, I wouldn't expect an email every month. Adding dates to the calendar and using giftcard/credit card are both good suggestions for the future.
Also, consider using a one-time Credit Card from https://privacy.com/
Thanks. I used to use virtual cards from Bank of America and Citibank but looks like it's just an after thought to the big banks now...
Re: Tell HN: Pluralsight and the dark-pattern of auto-renewals
#50Pluralsight Nobody help you on pluralsight if youre stuck