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Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

wsj.com

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Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#5
I don't understand, do people not log in online to look at their credit card statements? It takes 5 minutes to skim your transactions, look for suspicious charges, get a quick read on where money is going.

There are lots of challenges to actually canceling subscriptions, but not knowing that you're being charged for something every month? Seems absent-minded to me.

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#6

I don't understand, do people not log in online to look at their credit card statements? It takes 5 minutes to skim your transactions, look for suspicious charges, get a quick read on where money is going. There are lots of challenges to actually canceling subscriptions, but not knowing that you're being charged for something every month? Seems absent-minded to me.

No, they don't.

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#7

I don't understand, do people not log in online to look at their credit card statements? It takes 5 minutes to skim your transactions, look for suspicious charges, get a quick read on where money is going. There are lots of challenges to actually canceling subscriptions, but not knowing that you're being charged for something every month? Seems absent-minded to me.

I check all my accounts every day.

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#9

I don't understand, do people not log in online to look at their credit card statements? It takes 5 minutes to skim your transactions, look for suspicious charges, get a quick read on where money is going. There are lots of challenges to actually canceling subscriptions, but not knowing that you're being charged for something every month? Seems absent-minded to me.

I put all my subscriptions on a single credit card (and use it for nothing else) so that it's easy to scan. Otherwise they'd be buried.

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#10

I don't understand, do people not log in online to look at their credit card statements? It takes 5 minutes to skim your transactions, look for suspicious charges, get a quick read on where money is going. There are lots of challenges to actually canceling subscriptions, but not knowing that you're being charged for something every month? Seems absent-minded to me.

Yes, exactly. I am myself guilty of exactly that. My excuse (a really lame one): logging in to my credit card accounts is too much of a friction with 2FA and all that, and then sifting through statements is work. I don't want to do the work.

Of course, that's a pathetic excuse, and I tell myself that one of these days I will check my statements but that day never comes.

It's quite easy to be lazy in the moment and put this "work" off to tomorrow. As a result, days, weeks and months go by.

I now use privacy.com for most subscriptions and one-off trials etc. It at least notifies me via email every time there is a transaction.

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