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FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

ftc.gov

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Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#221

Post by lovethevoid »

Uehreka wrote: post #190

When people try and say that regulating stuff like this is impossible, I often think about how unreasonably great the regulations around “Unsubscribe” links in emails are. There really seems to be no loophole or workaround despite there being huge incentive for there to be one. Every time I click an “Unsubscribe” link in an email (it seems like they’re forced to say “Unsubscribe” and not use weasel words to hide the…

Got to love the CAN-SPAM act. It seems rare such acts would pass these days without making substantial compromises for advertisers. Which if it were up to them, we would still be looking for a tiny unsubscribe link at the very bottom in a font color that matches the background.

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#222

Post by Workaccount2 »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #123
Workaccount2 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This is why you shouldn't let ChatGPT do your thinking for you. Skimming is an important art. Her basic points are: 1. The FTC doesn't have the authority to make this rule, and in government there must be a hard line between "I want this" and "this is legal" unless you want a dictatorship. 2. The reason the FTC has so many Congressionally-enacted laws to follow is because of a history of overstepping its legal author…

So might not be legal?

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#223

Post by rootusrootus »

conradev wrote: post #185
thefourthchime wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now, let's institute an actual price rule. I can't rent an Airbnb or book a plane ticket without being lied to about what the actual prices is.

California did this: > Guests in California will see a fee-inclusive total price—before taxes—on all listings. https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/3610 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...

> before taxes

Now they just need to fix that part.

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#224

Post by VBprogrammer »

cogman10 wrote: post #175
thefourthchime wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now, let's institute an actual price rule. I can't rent an Airbnb or book a plane ticket without being lied to about what the actual prices is.

"Fees" on top of the top line price should be illegal. It's just a way to smuggle in a 100% increase in the purchase price to get an initial buy in for a product. It is super scammy. Heck, I would even take this a step further and say that taxes as well should always be fully included in the topline price. If a company wants to add a breakdown of how much went to taxes, I'm ok with that. The sticker price should alwa…

As a British person this is always so alien when traveling in the US. You could go one step further and suggest that perhaps tips which are practically mandatory should be included in the headline price but that might be a step too far.

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#225

Post by floatrock »

SoftTalker wrote: post #54

Sounds good, but it would have been nice for them to define what a "negative option program" means.

You don't deserve to be downvoted -- this is a classic case of "how does all this legal jargon affect me as a consumer?"

Took a little bit of googling, but https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/04/24/2023-07...:

> Negative option offers come in a variety of forms, but all share a central feature: each contain a term or condition that allows a seller to interpret a customer's silence, or failure to take an affirmative action, as acceptance of an offer. Before describing the proposed amendments, it is helpful to review the various forms such an offer can take. Negative option marketing generally falls into four categories: prenotification plans, continuity plans, automatic renewals, and free trial (i.e., free-to-pay or nominal-fee-to-pay) conversion offers.

So the "negative option" seems to be referring either to silence-is-consent or an-explicit-no-option, and this rule is around how sellers present (or don't present) such ideas.

But I'm a bit fuzzy on this legaleese too.

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#226

Post by megiddo »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #96

It would be great to see the FTC go against predatory subscription services like Adobe. I'm fuzzy on the exact details, but I think they promoted a yearly subscription that was meant to look like a monthly subscription, where if you cancelled early they would charge you an exorbitant cancellation fee. I'm not sure how these new rules affect them. One recent idea I've had is that many online subscription services shou…

Let me regale you with the story of my Adobe Subscription cancellation.

I had been considering learning Illustrator and to align myself, I decided to get a little skin the game. I signed up for the "monthly" subscription. I downloaded Illustrator, and this screenshot was my entire experience:

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-prev...

Suffice it to say, this didn't meet my expectations. I thus decided to cancel and was presented with a $108 cancellation fee.

Boo.

I hit up customer service and explained my frustration. I was told that I was going to pay that $108 since I agreed to it. I countered that contracts required consideration and since Adobe had provided no consideration for my valuable cash, no contract had been perfected betwixt us. He was unwilling to see my point. I asked for his contact information for follow-up, which he provided. I then explained to him that after I hung up, I was not only NOT going to pay, but that within 60 days Adobe would cancel the subscription voluntarily on their side and not collect a single further dime from me.

His response basically amounted to "good luck with that."

So, I got a temporary prepaid credit card number with $5 on it and swapped out the CC on file with Adobe.

I then went over to Amazon and spent that $5. Who knows on what.

A month goes by, turns out $0 is insufficient for a monthly subscription payment. I get a notice that the balance isn't good. I get several more notices.

Then I get a notice that if I don't pay, I'll lose access. At about 60 days, they cancelled the subscription. I took a screen shot and emailed it to the CSR's contact with my "I told you so" scrawled on it.

I never heard back, but in my mind it was a great victory. Tickertape and swooning ladies.

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#227

Post by jfengel »

cptaj wrote: post #150
fooqux wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The fact that multiple companies are springing up with the main selling point being "help you cancel subscriptions you thought you already cancelled" should be a wake up call to the legislature that this problem has gotten out of hand.

For sure. I hate excessive regulation, but if companies keep poisoning the well, action has to be taken

The problem is that "excessive regulation" often means "regulations that inconvenience me". Often regulations are put in place to help somebody else, and they are met with wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#228

Post by kaibee »

nerdjon wrote: post #167
layla5alive wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't come out as part of sign up, they came out for install, which is a separate phase. You signed up on the phone or online. They don't need to remove hardware from your house to turn it off.

I think you are missing my point here. Is there a requirement that a signup flow is a single process that you do all at once? What if they just moved the last contract you had to sign to something that you clicked on the technicians phone after they set everything up? I get that it is part of the install process and we think of it as a different phase. But in reality how much of a diasctintion is that really? I am tr…

> I am trying to understand what is realistically stopping Comcast from saying that the signup process is not complete until service has been activated? Nothing I am seeing or what is being said here is telling me they could not argue this.

In theory, the economics of this don't work out (Comcast/ISPs might be an exception). It would raise their onboarding costs a lot and raise their offboarding costs too. But if they're a local monopoly the might get away with it.

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#229

Post by yawaramin »

Uehreka wrote: post #190

When people try and say that regulating stuff like this is impossible, I often think about how unreasonably great the regulations around “Unsubscribe” links in emails are. There really seems to be no loophole or workaround despite there being huge incentive for there to be one. Every time I click an “Unsubscribe” link in an email (it seems like they’re forced to say “Unsubscribe” and not use weasel words to hide the…

Uh, email unsubscribe links started out great but are now really bad unfortunately :'-( The mailers do all sorts of tricks to make it really difficult to ubsubscribe. Eg, you think you subscribed to one newsletter but they actually subscribe you to many different actual subscriptions with your email address, and give them slightly different names, like 'XYZ News', 'XYZ Updates', 'Stay in touch with XYZ'. Then you are forced to unsubscribe from each of these one by one, and you don't even know if you got them all; there could be more that they could spring on you later.

There are now email unsubscribe services, but they don't really work either: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-email-unsubs...

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#230

Post by mholm »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #224
cogman10 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fees" on top of the top line price should be illegal. It's just a way to smuggle in a 100% increase in the purchase price to get an initial buy in for a product. It is super scammy. Heck, I would even take this a step further and say that taxes as well should always be fully included in the topline price. If a company wants to add a breakdown of how much went to taxes, I'm ok with that. The sticker price should alwa…

As a British person this is always so alien when traveling in the US. You could go one step further and suggest that perhaps tips which are practically mandatory should be included in the headline price but that might be a step too far.

Many restaurants have tried this, and end up switching back because comparing prices to other restaurants puts them at a disadvantage. I think the only way for it to happen is regulation that forces it. Might as well include taxes in that price too.
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