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Tell HN: Pluralsight and the dark-pattern of auto-renewals

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Re: Tell HN: Pluralsight and the dark-pattern of auto-renewals

#121

Post by tomjen3 »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #84
danielbarla wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just taking advantage of forgetfulness, I think there are a number of additional psychological factors that make you more likely to keep it active. Off the top of my head, I'd say: laziness might make you convince yourself that it's not a big amount, there might be a sunken cost fallacy at play (similar to how phone agents keep you on the line on purpose, which also serves to make you feel like you didn't wa…

And the unsubscribe process might be a chore: at least that's what happens with email subscriptions.

I haven't in general had issues with email unsubscribing, worst case I will have to log in.

I have had to write an angry email to a paper because they though they could get away with only doing phone unsubcribing (when they did signups just fine online).

Re: Tell HN: Pluralsight and the dark-pattern of auto-renewals

#122

Post by taneq »

mooreds wrote: post #105
paulgb wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even when I make a one-time donation online to some charities, a lot of them seem to spend that donation sending me mailers asking me to donate again. I wish I could donate with a "don't add me to your list" option.

You can do that with a money order. Of course you can't do that online. I chatted once with a friend in the non profit space about a service that let people donate online anonymously to charities. She didn't think the idea was a good one because, just like for businesses, there's a lot of value in knowing who your donors (customers in the business scenario) are for non profits. They get additional income from selling…

> there's a lot of value in knowing who your donors (customers in the business scenario) are for non profits

Well, of course, but the things they use that knowledge for are bad for me.

> They get additional income from selling lists

OK, then they're already my enemy.

> they want to reach out and build a relationship (especially recurring donations)

Ah, there's a word for people who try to build a relationship with you in order to repeatedly get money off you: "Scammers."

Re: Tell HN: Pluralsight and the dark-pattern of auto-renewals

#123

Post by aosaigh »

mrccc wrote: post #65

In Europe, this might be illegal: > Merchants operating in the European Union must give customers 7 business days’ notice before changing the price of their recurring billing plan; 7 business days’ notice is also required before billing customers if it has been 6+ months since their last payment. If you don’t operate in the EU, these notices aren't required (but they're still good practice). From: https://articles.br…

Thank you for this tip (it worked). It looks like this is actually a Visa policy.

From their terms:

"For a recurring transaction, both: … - Provide notification to the card holder at least 7 working day before a recurring transaction if any of the following is true: … - More than 6 months have elapsed since the previous Recurring activity"

Re: Tell HN: Pluralsight and the dark-pattern of auto-renewals

#124

Post by pjh »

btrettel wrote: post #15
redwards510 wrote: post #5

I 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…

Beeminder will apparently automatically stop charging you if you stop logging in to their service.

Yep. The opposite of what your cable company would do.

Re: Tell HN: Pluralsight and the dark-pattern of auto-renewals

#125

Post by amerkhalid »

There are so many such services that make it look like that there is no auto-renewal but when you check help docs, they have instructions to contact customer service to disable auto-renewal.

Having bitten by this a few times in past, now whenever I sign up for any subscription service, I add a calendar entry to cancel service 1 month before it supposed to expire.

If I like the service, then I just update reminder to cancel it before next renewal period.

Re: Tell HN: Pluralsight and the dark-pattern of auto-renewals

#126

Post by pjh »

btrettel wrote: post #15
redwards510 wrote: post #5

I 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…

Beeminder will apparently automatically stop charging you if you stop logging in to their service.

Just saw that this has been debated on HN before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5664998
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