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Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal

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Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal

#141

Post by lolinder »

dylan604 wrote: post #129
atum47 wrote: post #69

Netflix is such a crook. I had cancelled my subscription a while ago. They gave me the rest of the month to watch (since i already paid that month). Well, I had cancelled because I don't watch anymore. Guess what? Since it was a family plan, my father end up watching on his house, in another city. So Netflix renew the subscription. Fun right? I get a message everytime my card gets charged, that's why I noticed I was…

I had a new card issued, and I intentionally did not go online to update with them or any other website expecting to receive email notifications from any and all sites that needed me to update my payment method. Netflix did not. It took me calling them to find out, but they have an agreement with card issuers where they can find out that you have been issued a new card and automatically be granted authorization to st…

Netflix doesn't have a special agreement with card issuers. Like most businesses today, Netflix uses issuer tokens instead of saving your credit card information [0]. This is a good thing—aside from reducing accidental interruptions (not a big deal for you and Netflix, but a huge deal for you and your power company), it's much more secure.

Netflix should make it easy to cancel your subscription, but using an issuer token isn't card fraud, it's good business and an overall benefit to 99% of customers.

[0] https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/improving-cards-under...

Edit, source for my claim that Netflix uses tokens: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181018005247/en/Vis...

Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal

#142

Post by glimshe »

Swenrekcah wrote: post #40
glimshe wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The subscription is a recurrent commitment that you sign up for through a contract. They cancel it automatically because they don't want to bother collecting the money - it's expensive to do so and will lead to permanent churn. But they can; it's your problem to fix the payment method to cover your monthly/yearly commitment. All they have to do is to keep the service available and put something in the contract to tha…

Netflix is not a basic utility. The only thing they have in common are similar billing intervals. But that’s kind of beside the point. When you sign up for a subscription, they only commitment you have made is for the chosen billing interval. If it’s a month you’ve committed for a month, if three years then you’ve committed for three years. But you have not in any way shape or form committed to a single second beyond…

Not being a basic utility is not relevant for the legal implications here, as the renewal terms aren't tied to being an utility - that was just a familiar example. The renewal laws are clearly specified in the contract you accept when signing up for these services, for instance Disney Plus says:

"If you do not timely cancel your subscription, your subscription will be renewed at the price in effect at the time of the newel, without any additional action by you, and you authorize us to charge your payment method for these amounts...We do not refund or credit for partially used used billing periods."

This can be easily read and argued as: if you do not cancel, you owe them. You can argue this in front of a judge, but it will be really hard to say it's "extortion" if the cancellation process is streamlined.

Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal

#143

Post by sonicshadow »

synetic wrote: post #139
andsoitis wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Easy solution: impose crippling fines or maybe a little prison sentence here and there for extortion. Why not? That's what it is. How is it extortion? Who is being coerced and how?

You are correct on the pedantic point of whether or not it is “extortion” under existing laws. Laws can be changed and definitions changed. Or use a different term. The essence of the point is clear. Why nitpick on whether or not “extortion” is the correct word?

Because this is HN and it's more important to launch definition critiques than to discuss substance ever. I think half of HN came from the horrible world of high school policy debate

Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal

#144

Post by Etherlord87 »

RGBCube wrote: post #107
hayd wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the government really need to know every subscription that every person in the county has? This seems like massive overreach/invasion of privacy.

Well, the government can access your bank logs, so I don't think them seeing you have a TV and internet subscription is an issue. It's a great benefit of having an authoritarian government.

The government can access the bank logs, but it doesn't have an automatic channel to do so for everyone at once. Making it easier for the government to spy on its citizens definitely is an issue.

Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal

#145

Post by Roark66 »

LanceH wrote: post #95
atum47 wrote: post #69

Netflix is such a crook. I had cancelled my subscription a while ago. They gave me the rest of the month to watch (since i already paid that month). Well, I had cancelled because I don't watch anymore. Guess what? Since it was a family plan, my father end up watching on his house, in another city. So Netflix renew the subscription. Fun right? I get a message everytime my card gets charged, that's why I noticed I was…

And most of these don't allow removing the last card on file, even if it's cancelled.

At least in Europe there is GDPR, you have a right to request a copy of _all_ data any company has on you as well as you can request it's deletion.

Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal

#146

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

atum47 wrote: post #82
lolinder wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know the details of what happened here? Unless you know otherwise, it sounds like your father probably ended up clicking the "renew subscription now" button when prompted, not that simply logging in triggered the charge. I'm ready to believe that the renewal prompt was heavily geared towards making it easy to renew, and Netflix should be required to make it equally easy to cancel, but unless you know he didn't…

I have talked to my father, he did not clicked anything. By simple watching after the final date they gave us it triggered a renewal. the solution proposed in the chat was to logout every device at once and delete my credit card so that wouldn't happen again.

Not that I am accusing Netflix of anything, but at least one time I deliberately told the company to never store my credit card number. Despite repeated requests on their part. One month I altered something in my account and they immediately dinged my supposedly-not-saved credit card information.

Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal

#147

Post by [deleted] »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #127
gwbas1c wrote: post #125

Why doesn't my credit card statement list subscriptions separately? How come I can't cancel through my credit card? It's great that the FTC is cracking down on this; but it seems like the credit card companies also should have some involvement too in making it easy to see what subscriptions you have, and making it easy to cancel subscriptions in a single location.

Why would a company that gets a cut of whatever you buy with its service want to make it easy for you to stop buying things?

[deleted]

Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal

#148

Post by lamontcg »

sonicshadow wrote: post #143
synetic wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct on the pedantic point of whether or not it is “extortion” under existing laws. Laws can be changed and definitions changed. Or use a different term. The essence of the point is clear. Why nitpick on whether or not “extortion” is the correct word?

Because this is HN and it's more important to launch definition critiques than to discuss substance ever. I think half of HN came from the horrible world of high school policy debate

Yeah like the thread yesterday about the teenager that was detained by the airlines -- only legally he was likely never "detained" but we have no good word for the not-legally-detained-but-taken-to-a-room-and-interrogated action that actually happened to him. Since we have no good word for that it becomes trivial for pedants to think they've won an argument while they piss everyone else off arguing over definitions.

Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal

#149

Post by dylan604 »

lolinder wrote: post #141
dylan604 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a new card issued, and I intentionally did not go online to update with them or any other website expecting to receive email notifications from any and all sites that needed me to update my payment method. Netflix did not. It took me calling them to find out, but they have an agreement with card issuers where they can find out that you have been issued a new card and automatically be granted authorization to st…

Netflix doesn't have a special agreement with card issuers. Like most businesses today, Netflix uses issuer tokens instead of saving your credit card information [0]. This is a good thing —aside from reducing accidental interruptions (not a big deal for you and Netflix, but a huge deal for you and your power company), it's much more secure. Netflix should make it easy to cancel your subscription, but using an issuer…

So the reps on the phone that I spoke to lied to me? After talking with Netflix, I then called my bank, and they acknowledged this service exists.

What you're on about acting like I don't know what I'm talking about is absolute nonsense.

Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal

#150

Post by a_wild_dandan »

synetic wrote: post #135
RGBCube wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, "you can sue them" in this context means "you can use e-Devlet to sue a company online, without having to leave your house". e-Devlet is awesome in this regard, I am still suprised lots of more developed countries don't have anything similar. It is like a swiss knife for healthcare, financial and legal services. The e-Devlet app is also pretty fast and the webpage does not suck. Though I wish the signup proce…

Having something this awesome in the U.S. would cut out so many billions of dollars of profit that there is zero chance of it ever being implemented in my lifetime. In the U.S. the purpose of government and regulations are to make it easier for entrenched companies to make a buck. Unfortunately for the citizenry just about all the low hanging fruit in terms of providing a government service to make lives easier and/o…

My favorite example being tax season: The fun mini-game wherein the government knows what you owe, but makes you guess anyway, and guessing wrong could get you in trouble. So we pay experts to make better guesses for us. And some of us know about an Easter egg that might unlock a free guess.

It's a delightful game.

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