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Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

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

#361

Post by jjav »

godelski wrote: post #55
nlawalker wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got a great tip here on HN: if your credit card supports email notifications for transactions, set it to alert you on every transaction. On my Citi card the notification is called “Transaction amount exceeds” and is configurable with a dollar amount, which I set to zero. Now I get an email within a minute or two of every charge that includes the amount and payee in the email. It’s a great way to put recurring charg…

This sounds like it can get a bit overwhelming. I absolutely abhor notifications on my phone unless they are things that need my immediate attention. Email is a particular pain where it is difficult to impossible to differentiate spam from legitimate communications. I really do wish banks or visa/mastercard would offer virtual card functionality. It really would empower users to have more control over their money and…

> This sounds like it can get a bit overwhelming.

Indeed, I wouldn't want that but glad it's an option.

There's no need to review transactions the moment they happen to catch any fraud. It is fine to wait for the statement and review it once a month. You're still not liable, so there's no rush to do it immediately.

> I really do wish banks or visa/mastercard would offer virtual card functionality.

Some do, although for some reason it has never worked for me (but also have not tried debugging the process too much).

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

#362

Post by wolverine876 »

lazide wrote: post #342
behringer wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This with dignity? Or do you also ask for handouts everywhere you go?

Taking free money isn’t asking for handouts. Taking free money is (in this case) someone you know handing you $100 and saying ‘merry Christmas’ or whatever. Sure, you could throw it on the ground and say ‘f you’. But these are existing customers who already give you money and are presumably happy with your service.

> presumably happy with your service

The OP is about billions being spent by people who are not happy but haven't unsubscribed, so that seems like a bad presumption.

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

#363

Post by sangnoir »

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…

> 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.

They may be too exhausted from their second job - or from the one job they have to be on their feet the whole work day - and may not have the mental energy to comb through financial statements. You have the luxury of time and energy, so real reasons sound like excuses to you. I would recommend you (re)read John Scalzi's essay on Being Poor[1]. Except:

>> Being poor is knowing how hard it is to stop being poor.

The link between stress and poor decision-making is well studied, and unfortunately poor financial health is self-reinforcing: being poor is very expensive!

1. https://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/

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

#364

Post by JumpCrisscross »

notaustinpowers wrote: post #157
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They make you call between 9 am and 5 pm This is customer service. A written notice of termination works for any consumer contract. > but you paid for the year Unpay for it. This is the utility of credit cards.

> This is a customer service. A written notice of termination works for any consumer contract. Not entirely. Most places don't accept cancellations over email, or require certified mail for cancellations, which just means now you have to go to the post office between 9-5. > Unpay for it. This is the utility of credit cards. Most places have segments in their contract that state if you do a chargeback or block a payme…

> Most places don't accept cancellations over email, or require certified mail for cancellations

E-mail yes. But I've never seen a letter mailed fail. Especially if you Cc your state's consumer protection regulator.

> if you do a chargeback or block a payment, they will terminate your account

Wait, what are we trying to do?

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

#365

Post by jjulius »

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.

>Gyms, cloud storage, restaurant buffets, insurance all follow this business model.

I'm struggling to understand how you can lambaste people by saying "jUsT cAnCeL iT"[0] when you seem to be well aware of the business model of gyms, wherein cancelling a membership is widely-known to be a purposefully cumbersome and difficult experience.

[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39059793

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

#366

Post by wnc3141 »

gedy wrote: post #142
rectang wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rapacious corporations agree with you — no matter how deceptive or even illegal their practices are, no matter how much R&D money is brought to bear in designing innovative user interfaces and bureaucratic frameworks which systematically exploit human weaknesses (particularly those of vulnerable populations such as less-tech-savvy elders) to bleed the populace dry... it's all the fault of the individual victims w…

I think you are misrepresenting OPs point. 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. Am I sad for companies who take in these people as customers? No, but let's not canonize people who are reckless with their spending, even when warned.

My rule of thumb looking at any problem has evolved to: it it's one person, blame them. If it's happening to swaths of the population, scrutinize the system they operate in. Mistakes can only be treated entirely as such if most other people don't fall for them. Otherwise it's a systemic issue.

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

#367

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#368

Post by [deleted] »

blueridge wrote: post #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.

[deleted]

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

#369

Post by petsfed »

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…

Eh, there's a pretty big difference between "I'm too lazy to solve this" and "the only reason this requires so much effort is because the business would lose a ton of revenue if people could simply stop paying for things that they don't want to have". There really is no reason why cancelling a subscription at some predefined point in the future should require any kind of business-hours-only-must-talk-to-a-physical-person approach, and if your CSR handling your cancellation is not empowered to actually process your request (which is pretty common with e.g. cable and phone companies as well as gyms), then its abuse, pure and simple. I know what my hourly equivalent is, so if the cost to my employer (or myself, if I'm an independent contractor) while I sort this out when I should be working is more than the monthly bill itself, then it becomes not worth my time to sit on the phone and deal with it.

I had a regular order with Chewy, until the dog food brand I was having drop shipped stopping selling that particular type of dog food to Chewy (but I could get it somewhere else). And I had to sit on hold for 30 fucking minutes, just so Chewy would stop charging me (considerably more) for, and shipping to me, dog food that I did not want, had never wanted, and was actually shopping elsewhere to avoid. And I didn't find out that they didn't carry that brand anymore until they shipped "what we believe is the closest match" to me. I honestly thought it was a mis-pick initially, so when I went to resolve it, I followed that customer service UI pattern, to no avail. They've changed it since then, but the fact still remains, that was not at all a scenario I should've needed to call in for. I certainly shouldn't have needed to sit on hold for it. When I finally spoke to the CSR, she was apologetic that I even had to talk to her about it.

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

#370

Post by jjav »

jjoonathan wrote: post #329
jjav wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, although I'd rather pay the few dollars for that and the 10 minutes in the post office, than spend endless hours on hold just to be hung up on and start again.

10 minutes during weekday business hours plus 30 for commute and 20 minutes of standing in line if you go at noon. Also, the discoverability of this workflow is complete dogshit. None of this is a problem for me, but I fully understand why dishonest businessfolk love to exploit the hell out of these "tiny conditions" and then turn around and pretend they don't understand why they are a big deal.

> Also, the discoverability of this workflow is complete dogshit.

Yes, the correct solution is certainly to pass laws that force companies to enable easy and quick unsubscribe process.

Just commenting on that between the two bad choices of hours and hours on hold, or 10 minutes in the post office, I'll take the latter.

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