Netflix is the villain
Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal
231–240 of 546 posts
Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal
#232Why is it still the norm in the US to allow companies to charge their customers whenever they please, without the customers having any control? In India, businesses are required to get a consent, at the time of subscription, to charge the customer on a recurring basis. This is called an e-mandate and requires multi-factor authentication to create. The card holder can cancel the mandate online, through their bank, wit…
It's not and 99% of the time it's blatant user error. Like the guys top post that is refusing to believe his father slammed the re-subscribe button when sharing his account with him.
Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal
#233It's the fact that unsubscribing to several services on a mobile phone is a nearly impossible task that is infuriating to me. Most streaming apps immediately divert you to their app (if it's installed) if you search for them on the web. These same apps will also tell you to "go to the web to manage your subscription". This forces the user to first delete the app and cross their fingers that the website doesn't just bounce them back over the app store.
Also, why has safari's mobile "request desktop site" not worked for me in over 5 years? It never brings a desktop site anymore... so annoying.
Apple tried to fix this by diverting any in-app subscriptions thru their app store, but because they take such a substantial cut of the sub revenue, companies would rather redirect users to the web to buy a sub and not provide the capability within the app. Despite Apple's efforts here, it has completely backfired and made the end user experience a deplorable state of affairs.
Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal
#234One click to cancel would actually be too easy. I once had subscribed to encylcopedia brittanica. They also sent email messages. I replied to one and said “please ubsubscribe me”. They cancelled my brittanica and refunded me! I wanted the emails to stop. Now to sign up I’d need to enter my payment info again; I just stayed unsubscribed. I will sometimes check how cancellation works by looking at the cancel area. Woul…
....You cannot be serious
The only stuff I’ve ever had trouble cancelling were newspaper subscriptions. Definitely support making that easier.
I can’t read the article due to the paywall. Precisely how easy and instant is the cancellation process required to be under this proposal: a button that says cancel, you click it, and you are cancelled?
I suspect that would surprise a lot of people and make them frustrated. Cancelling shouldn’t be easier to do accidentally than signup.
Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal
#235Subscription providers will be as shameless as allowed by law. Or worse. I try to cancel subscriptions immidiately after signing up when i only want the service for a limited time. For an Italian newspaper's online subscription, after contacting them for cancellation via web form, my family was informed: you have to call a number and that cancellations will only be accepted 1 day before the end of the subscription. L…
Adobe do that "cancellation window" trick too. I'd never seen it anywhere else, though; I thought they were uniquely scummy.
My waste removal company has it and it’s a 5 year contract. You have a window of 90-120 days before the 5 year contract renews for another 5 years.
John’s refuse in CT
Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal
#236Earlier 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.
As someone who's done tech support in previous lives... I can say with 100% confidence users will always claim they "didn't do anything" when there is no other possible cause for the situation.
"I didn't click anything!" usually means 1) They're embarrassed to admit they clicked something or 2) They are embarrasses to admit they didn't read some prompt before clicking through it.
Even if the user doesn't remember clicking something, or doesn't remember what that something said before they clicked it - they still clicked it.
Think about it for a second. Think about how software works, how billing works, and how the law works. What you propose, a hidden re-billing mechanism, would invite so many lawsuits it wouldn't be worth it. Not to mention the fraud allegations, bad PR, etc.
Your dad signed in, was prompted with something saying he needed to re-activate billing to use Netflix, and he agreed. It's that simple.
Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its really likely your father renewed the subscription with consent, and forgot about it. Netflix doesn't auto renew simply by watching. It asks you to renew the subscription. It requires conscious consent.
How do you know this? Where is the record? If Netflix is going to charge me money, they need to prove that I incurred the charge. They could do this by making a record of the date, device and profile that renewed. But they can't. In my case they refunded the erroneously renewed subscription as a "one time courtesy". Like they're doing me a favor. Yeah, it's "one time" because I'd have to be a fool to do business with…
> They could do this by making a record of the date, device and profile that renewed. But they can't.
Most likely they do, and decided it wasn't worth fighting over this issue.
OP's dad, using OP's account, consented to billing. There's really no other option, unless we're just going to say things non-technies think, like the computer decided on it's own or something.
Netflix cannot just randomly decide to charge people for things. That would obviously be fraud, and Netflix wouldn't still be a company today if they depended on fraud for billings. Think about it...
Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal
#238Subscription providers will be as shameless as allowed by law. Or worse. I try to cancel subscriptions immidiately after signing up when i only want the service for a limited time. For an Italian newspaper's online subscription, after contacting them for cancellation via web form, my family was informed: you have to call a number and that cancellations will only be accepted 1 day before the end of the subscription. L…
> Quite surprised this was apparently legal in Italy
Did you verify that? Because I wouldn't be surprised if it's not actually legal, but that it's just a "we'll try it and no one fines us if we break the law" type of thing. When I lived in the UK (pre-Brexit) quite a few companies broke EU consumer laws all the time, such as mandatory listing of FULL price up front, but no one really seemed to care enough to actually do something about it so loads of companies (small and large) just did illegal stuff.
From what I can find, EU law isn't super-strong on subscriptions, although most countries do seem to have national laws. For example in Netherlands automatic renewals are only allowed month-by-month after the initial contract period, and you need to be able to unsubscribe with the same communication method that you used to subscribe. Simple common-sense no-brainer stuff, really.
Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal
#239Illinois says that any subscription must be cancelable in the same place it's created, so if I sign up for Hulu using my smart tv,I can cancel there as well. It's really good. People often complain about the proliferation of streaming services, but thanks to the law mentioned above, I'm able to subscribe and then immediately cancel. If I decide I want more time I can resubscribe later. I get to watch what I want with…
California has the same law.
Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal
#240Why is it still the norm in the US to allow companies to charge their customers whenever they please, without the customers having any control? In India, businesses are required to get a consent, at the time of subscription, to charge the customer on a recurring basis. This is called an e-mandate and requires multi-factor authentication to create. The card holder can cancel the mandate online, through their bank, wit…
It's not and 99% of the time it's blatant user error. Like the guys top post that is refusing to believe his father slammed the re-subscribe button when sharing his account with him.
The example from the top post sure I may give some leeway, but there are plenty of subscription services where it is clearly multiples of effort more difficult to cancel than to subscribe. Common example being - can only cancel over the phone after being told 10 reasons by a sales rep as to why you should continue to pay. This is not down to user-error, this is blatantly trying to fraud your users.