Correction: Here's what it'll take to cancel if you don't make a call.
I've purchased and canceled NYT and other papers several times. One phone call does it.
Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it
681–690 of 845 posts
Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it
#682This happened to me. It was infuriating and made me lose a great deal of respect for the company.
Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it
#683Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looking at the USA from European eyes, there are no leftist publications, nor any left mainstream politicians there!
It simply means something different in the US vs Europe. In the US, "left" tends to be centered around social and cultural issues, such as racism, sexism, immigrant rights, abortion rights, affirmative action, or increasingly things like white privilege - what is sometimes derisively called identity politics. In Europe, "left" tends to be centered around the economic sense of the term, that is, socialism, communism,…
It simply means something different in the US vs Europe.
It means something different to you. The US is a big country, and your understanding of the left is pretty shallow and certainly doesn't speak for the whole country.
That you say the left is centered on ID politics is evidence that you're out of touch with leftist politics. I would venture to say because there's not a loud leftist voice in the mainstream media.
Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it
#684I just don't see any reason to be this rude to the agent. Also, why even bother explaining why are you cancelling? Just say you want to because you want to. Done. The conversation would have been done in 2 lines.
Totally agree. Having been in a call center-type job before, I can attest that the people on the other end are just trying to survive.
Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it
#685Imagine having a business model so fragile that your only line of defense is to obscure the cancellation process through these tactics. Do they really think that they can curve their churn this way? I mean best you’re doing is getting maybe another month or so of revenue from a customer who is just pushing the pain of cancelling because they are busy or lazy. And at the end instead of getting what could be a dormant…
I get that ending the subscription is annoying and I wish they hadn't done it but claiming they have a "fragile" business model is just wrong.
They are WILDLY successful. Their operating profit jumped 28% last year and literally are blowing away the competition in overall subscriber numbers and growth. It's really not even close
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/business/media/new-york-t...
Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it
#686Imagine having a business model so fragile that your only line of defense is to obscure the cancellation process through these tactics. Do they really think that they can curve their churn this way? I mean best you’re doing is getting maybe another month or so of revenue from a customer who is just pushing the pain of cancelling because they are busy or lazy. And at the end instead of getting what could be a dormant…
This happened to me with audible. They didn't have the cancel subscription on the app. Had to hunt for it on the site. Was asked if i was suuuuuuure i wanted to leave, 3 separate times before it canceled. Definitely not thinking of doing that again, or like i do for some streaming services, pay for a couple months, stop, then pay for a few more. Utterly rediculous.
When I canceled my audible subscription I wasn't aware that I also would loose my remaining 7 credits...
I will not subscribe again after this experience.
Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it
#687There should be a law that you can cancel via the same method that you signed up. For example you can sign up for recurring paid channels on the Amazon app on Roku, but have to log in on the computer to cancel. What happens is my 80-year old parents try a week of HBO, Starz, Showtime, Britbox etc. Then can't figure out where they actually signed up. Was it under roku, under amazon, under a new app? What credentials d…
In the Netherlands at least this is actually the law. May even be EU law – not sure.
Of course, the law is only as good as it's enforced. A few years ago I wanted to cancel a mobile phone subscription and the cancellation procedure said I had to send a letter. Like, an actual letter. lol? I just sent an email quoting the law, and since I didn't get a reply I stopped payments. Never heard from it. I sent a notification to the consumer protection agency, but not sure if they actually did something with it.
Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it
#688Imagine having a business model so fragile that your only line of defense is to obscure the cancellation process through these tactics. Do they really think that they can curve their churn this way? I mean best you’re doing is getting maybe another month or so of revenue from a customer who is just pushing the pain of cancelling because they are busy or lazy. And at the end instead of getting what could be a dormant…
Back in 2006 an AOL subscriber recorded their conversation with an AOL customer service agent while trying to cancel the service. It was really bad, way worse than this NYTimes process. The NYT wrote an article about the debacle [1] and had this to say about Netflix's great customer service and ease of cancellation, compared to AOL's awful service: "Seeing how Netflix would be so protective of my time were I to leave…
They've been wildly successful over the last several years and are dominating the competition in online subscriptions so I think the advice they've been acting on recently is working just fine.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/business/media/new-york-t...
Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it
#689I had a similar issue with the Wall Street Journal a few years back, and despite having spent the majority of my career working on Wall Street, I’ll never buy a subscription again. I signed up for a really good deal for 6 months of digital + paper delivery, but my paper always arrived a day or two late, so before my 6 months were up I tried to cancel, but couldn’t figure out a way to do so on their website. I message…
Incidents like this make me wonder why there isn't an appetite for better consumer rights in the US. If this had happened in the UK, you'd have the option to pro-actively block the payment, recover it, and legal standing to defend getting your money back. Letting companies redefine the rights of their customers seems bizarre to me.
In my experience consumer rights in the UK isn't all that either. They basically just ignored all the EU consumer protection laws and never enforced them, so companies could do what they want, like add hidden surcharges for example.
Probably still better than US, but that's not saying much.
Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it
#690Earlier quoted context omitted.
AOL in the 90s was second only to phone companies for being able to scam retention people. In our college house, we’d always run these rackets and get free plane tickets, CDs, tickets, etc. The phone companies were even better. At peak, we’d farm $300-600 a semester for switching long distance.
I don’t understand. If AOL and telcos were scamming people, how did you make money off of their scams?
A popular scam was “slamming”. A “bad” phone company would use pressure tactics or lie and get people to sign up for ridiculous long distance plans... $5/minute or something like that.
The “loophole” on the consumer side was that of you lived with 5 roommates, you’d transfer the phone service every couple of months and then switch the long distance plans with a legit company like AT&T, Sprint, etc.
There was a period of time in the 90s where you would get a check or credit for switching... as much as $200-300! Long distance costs were in free fall and telcos were swimming in cash, so they decided to buy market share.