Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel • Hacker News Board

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

#291

Post by ToucanLoucan » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 9:26 PM UTC

brvsft wrote: post #274

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We all know many people who are extremely sloppy with their personal finances, and sign up for things they can't afford, debt they are unlikely to pay back, etc. You know I have heard this my entire life, and I have yet to actually meet any of these people. The people I have met though fall into one or more of a number of categories: - People uneducated in finance, usually lower class: You can say things like "well…

> And like, all of that aside, even if you meet NONE of those categories, I still, frankly, believe it's not only possible but the only ethical response to all of this is: we should have a society that leaves enough room for people to fuck up occasionally without ruining their goddamn lives. At this point, I don't understand what the fuck you people are talking about. This is an article about people paying for subscr…

The topic of the original post is an article about that. The GP comment we're all replying to took that as a direction to discuss how many people do not take care of their finances, and how you, as an individual, are on your own. Several comments in reply to that person went on to discuss how "take care of your financial health" is only really an applicable statement when the person in question is at least somewhat educated in finance: that tons of people reach adulthood without that knowledge or those skills. And, that situation is complicated still more by the fact that many businesses, quite intentionally, are preying on both that lack of knowledge in general, and on people at large using dark patterns to obfuscate or make canceling subscriptions difficult. Then, off of that, someone else commented saying that they felt a reply was misrepresenting what was said by another, stating that "we all know people who are sloppy with their finances", which is, IMO, a clear and standard example of the appeal to common belief fallacy. To which I challenged, citing numerous experiences to the contrary I have had, and my utter lack of experiences to this common knowledge I have been told is common knowledge: that people, by and large are poor because they fail at money management, and not, which is my contention, that the majority of that time they are not poor because of bad money management, but they are poor because they are poor and are being taken advantage of. This is not hyperbole, this is just an evolving discussion. If you don't like the direction it's taking, you're free to not participate.

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

#292

Post by JohnFen » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 9:28 PM UTC

hunter2_ wrote: post #169

Algemarin wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This discussion is about subscriptions but the general idea applies to so much more – basic budgeting, retirement savings, not paying random fees, not paying interest, moving spare money to investment accounts every month, rebalancing your investments every quarter, negotiating rents, negotiating your salary. I think it's one of the major failures of the education system. Why is there no class in school which cover…

Most subjects taught in K-12 tend to be ancient: language, math, history, science, music, etc. with occasional modern electives. Obviously personal finance is also ancient on some level, but I wonder how long it's actually been so complicated and critical as to warrant consideration for being taught in school. I'm no expert, but I think the complexities like payment cards, insanely complex tax code, etc. are quite mo…

When I was in grade school (a very long time ago), personal finance was a huge focus. It was the main thing you learned in Home Economics class. When my kids were in grade school, it was basically not taught at all. Home Ec was more about sewing and cooking than about, you know, economics.

I don't know when that change happened, but it's to the detriment of everyone.

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

#293

Post by antisthenes » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 9:30 PM UTC

jjeaff wrote: post #137

rockooooo wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sure, but when there's a dozen apps that will do it automatically, why?

if the app automatically categorizes things, you don't ever have to look at it. doing it yourself requires that you review every transaction individually.

My credit card statement already automatically categorizes things.

I don't know what's the point of using a 3rd party app for this, unless you feel very generous about providing your data for someone to sell.

I also don't know what's the point of reviewing transactions individually. If I pay something monthly (e.g. internet/car insurance/utility bills), I'm not going to look at it every month. I might check it at the end of the year to see if there are any 10x anomalies, but that's it.

I'm also not going to check transactions under $20, unless there are hundreds of them that are unexpected.

Although I do feel sorry for buyers who spend $1000+ every month on impulse shopping, but those are also the kind of people to never check their financial health anyway.

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

#294

Post by JohnFen » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 9:31 PM UTC

ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #200

paxys wrote: post #106

It's bizarre to me just how many people in this country ( especially the ones who can least afford it) simply do not take charge of their financial health. Even in this very thread you can see all kinds of excuses ("it's too hard to log in and check credit card statements every month", "they make you call or chat to cancel so I don't bother", "they should cancel subscriptions automatically if you don't use them", "it…

Whenever I get a free trial of Prime, I immediately set a reminder on my phone to cancel it in a month. It's really not that hard.

It's even easier to reject all free trials of everything. That's what I do.

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

#295

Post by jms703 » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 9:31 PM UTC

janalsncm wrote: post #195

paxys wrote: post #106

It's bizarre to me just how many people in this country ( especially the ones who can least afford it) simply do not take charge of their financial health. Even in this very thread you can see all kinds of excuses ("it's too hard to log in and check credit card statements every month", "they make you call or chat to cancel so I don't bother", "they should cancel subscriptions automatically if you don't use them", "it…

> No one is looking out for you This is literally what law enforcement and consumer protection is for. Otherwise we could make the same argument about pickpocketing victims, which is frankly what this is more akin to.

Strongly disagree. You gave them the means and permission to bill you on a regular basis. These area valid and legal transactions. There are no protections from poor judgement (if you deem a subscription to be a poor choice).

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

#296

Post by EwanG » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 9:32 PM UTC

tomcar288 wrote: post #280

darth_avocado wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of these are valid issues though. I'd consider myself in top 1% when it comes to financial health and I still pay for stuff I forgot to cancel. Some of the reasons: > They make you call between 9 am and 5 pm, and hold for hours to cancel, sometimes even disconnect forcing you to start over, while not offering a callback option. Sometimes there are weeks I absolutely cannot afford to do this because of work. > Yo…

my solution to this is to not have any subscriptions except for property taxes, garbage, utilities, insurance and phone plan. and I absolutely avoid 30 day free trials (if they ask for credit card info) like the plague. the moment I see a credit card number entry field, I close the browser tab immediately. but, I'd like to know, which companies have onerous cancellation policies?

Bloomberg - Had a subscription and saw the renewal coming up. Decided to cancel, but you can't do it yourself - you have to go through their service desk and of course they try five ways from Sunday to get you to reup with a cheaper plan (that then jumps to the full price after 1 to 3 months).

Spectrum (previously Time Warner Cable) - To cancel you need your account number (both the TW and the Spectrum ones for folks who were converted) and your PIN for each - which you likely setup only once and may well not have realized you needed since it's only for starting service and cancelling. Don't have them? You can't cancel. Let me emphasize that again, if you don't give them the right number they will continue to charge you until your credit card expires, and then send you to collections. I am fastidious about account info and had mine, but some of my neighbors were less so.

Were you looking for a full list (I have more) or just wanted a couple of examples?

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

#297

Post by jjav » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 9:34 PM UTC

tunesmith wrote: post #118

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People tend to act shocked when I tell them my finance app requires me to enter transactions manually and doesn't magically categorize everything. You spend a third of your life working for that money, surely you spend 5 minutes at most tracking how you spend it.

I'm guilty of being averse to this too, even though I intellectually know that if I accept manually entering transactions, then there are so many more options I can choose for tracking finances. As it is, I'm locked into a Banktivity subscription fee... I think part of it is that it is just so hard to centralize all finances through just one bank. The best bank for retirement doesn't support business credit cards; th…

> I think part of it is that it is just so hard to centralize all finances through just one bank.

I always advice against single points of failure (whether software, security, or finance). Do the opposite, pick the best for each and intentionally avoid overlap.

I have credit cards from every major bank but I don't have anything else at those banks. My accounts with money in them are in other institutions where I don't have cards or anything else. My mortgage is with a bank where I have nothing else with them, and so on.

Decentralize, avoid too many eggs in any one basket.

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

#298

Post by vineyardmike » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 9:34 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #215

janalsncm wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one is looking out for you This is literally what law enforcement and consumer protection is for. Otherwise we could make the same argument about pickpocketing victims, which is frankly what this is more akin to.

So willingly going to netflix.com, picking a plan, entering your credit card info, hitting subscribe and watching TV for the next month is the same as getting pickpocketed?

I signed up for a service years ago - scent bird - and it was nearly impossible to cancel.

They kept changing the app and I could never find the way to cancel (turns out it doesn’t exist). I would just eat the most monthly because I never wanted to spend the time to figure it out. One day I sat down to check their website. No way to cancel.

So I went to the support page. It has a deep-link to the cancellation page. The link is broken. Reddit and others couldn’t find a valid link. Everyone said to DM them on social media.

So I tried to contact support, but they don’t publish a valid email or phone number staffed conveniently in my time zone.

So I blindly emailed “support@“ and asked to cancel. The response was another broken deep link. I replied no I wanted support staff to do it. They refused. So I told them I was a California resident and we have a law on the books requiring that online signups can be cancelled online and support staff is legally required to honor a cancellation request. No reply.

I got an email a few days later cancelling my account for violating their arbitration clause in their TOS.

This is basically pickpocketing.

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

#299

Post by hartator » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 9:34 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #247

karaterobot wrote: post #228

> Their average response was $62. When they were given more time to guess again, they increased their estimate to $96. They were still way off. The correct answer was $273. I have been in rooms at SaaS companies where the fact that people forget to cancel the subscription was described as an important benefit of the subscription model, and a reason to set the price at something easily overlooked. People are terrible…

Gyms, cloud storage, restaurant buffets, insurance all follow this business model. If everyone paying into it actually expected to extract their entire money's worth of value the whole industry would collapse.

> restaurant buffets

Buffets have monthly subcriptions?

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

#300

Post by antisthenes » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 9:35 PM UTC

snarf21 wrote: post #273

karaterobot wrote: post #228

> Their average response was $62. When they were given more time to guess again, they increased their estimate to $96. They were still way off. The correct answer was $273. I have been in rooms at SaaS companies where the fact that people forget to cancel the subscription was described as an important benefit of the subscription model, and a reason to set the price at something easily overlooked. People are terrible…

Yeah, was just going to say this is Planet Fitness' whole value prop .. Cheap enough that the lie you tell yourself that you will go more next month is easily worth $10 / month.

Planet fitness hasn't been $10 for a while now.

Their cheapest plan is something like $12.99 and with fees it's up to $18 or so. And that was 5 years ago.