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FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions
311–320 of 793 posts
Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions
#312When 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…
there's a particular car rental company that I can't get off their list because it error 500's when I click the unsubscribe button
Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
Taxes should also be included in the advertised price, then. Just imagine!
Actually there's a purpose to keeping taxes separate. Policymakers want the tax burden to be visible, it is not part of price transparency because the vendor has nothing to do with the tax rate.
Taxes are also hyper local and can differ between dine in/out making it hard to show the final price up front.
Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions
#314Earlier 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.
> book a plane ticket without being lied to about what the actual prices is This hasn't been true for at minimum 10 years. Paying for extra leg room is not a "junk fee"
That really depends. Me and everybody else in my close family doesn't really need that.
And we short but not to that far from the average height.
Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
That would be nice, but there is a LOT of background work before that is feasible (in the US). As it currently stands, for many products a vendor would need to know who you are and where you live before they could quote you a total price. That's unacceptable.
other countries have figured that out even countries with multiple levels of taxation like in the U.S. it's not an unsolvable problem.
> not an unsolvable problem
I never said it was. In fact, I specifically said that there is work to do before making the rule about listing all prices inclusive of taxes.
Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Staff often doesn’t like it either. Probably some combination of actually making less money and being overly optimistic about what they would be making if they were getting tips. a bar I was aware of that advertised paying $20+ and hour with no tips switched to a tipped model due to staff complaints.
it sounds like what happened is management simply did not replace the tipped wage with an appropriate flat wage. if management provided a satisfactory wage, nobody would complain.
Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions
#317Earlier 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.
I have good news! (as long as Lina Khan stays on as commissioner) > FTC Proposes Rule to Ban Junk Fees: The proposed rule would ban businesses from running up the bills with hidden and bogus fees, ensure consumers know exactly how much they are paying and what they are getting, and help spur companies to compete on offering the lowest price. Businesses would have to include all mandatory fees when telling consumers a…
> (as long as Lina Khan stays on as commissioner)
She may not be around for long (a travesty in my opinion if so). Neither presidential candidate is stumping for her kind of activism, even the Dem one. And the big money wants her gone.
Sure we can vote, but it seems big money has more influence regardless.
Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions
#318There are so many things like this that have needed fixing for such a long time. The fact that something is happening, even slowly, is so heartening. If your reaction is wondering if this is legal then you should be interested in the passing of new laws that make it unequivocally legal. Society should be able to govern itself.
This feels like one of those things that could be solved on the payment end with something like a unique payment ID for each subscription, rather than giving a CC number. Then you just enable or disable payment IDs (perhaps for a limited time, e.g., "create a payment ID that works for Netflix for the next three months but not after that"), rather than relying on vendors to decide whether they feel like charging you o…
India basically has this - when creating subscriptions, merchants typically create "mandates" which specify max amount permitted per month, frequency, and duration.
Afterwards, 1) if per month amount is greater than a regulated threshold, manual confirmation is needed. [ This is friction ] , 2) cancelling can be as simple as going to your bank's website and deleting the "mandate".
In all honesty, this is probably a really balanced approach, but the roll out was a real pain, with banks and merchants collaborating on who supports whom, etc. International payments got screwed completely - to this day, I can't subscribe to nytimes, after almost 2.5 years of this.
(A good summary - https://support.stripe.com/questions/rbi-e-mandate-regulatio... )
Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions
#319I wonder how this would work for gyms? They should clean up their act anyway. If other customers are like me I’ve been putting off joining for over a year because they’re so scammy and I don’t want to get locked in. I even went to sign up and walked out because the price ended up being double what they advertised with weird fees and the base plan not being useable once they explain it.
I was wondering this too.
LA Fitness wanted me to mail something to their headquarters, which was intentionally onerous. I filed a complaint with BBB and cc'd LA Fitness on them, and they ended up cancelling it for me.
Still, I did originally sign up for the gym in person, so I wonder if they'd be allowed to force the person to come back in person to cancel. This still seems like too much work, especially for when people move.
Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Staff often doesn’t like it either. Probably some combination of actually making less money and being overly optimistic about what they would be making if they were getting tips. a bar I was aware of that advertised paying $20+ and hour with no tips switched to a tipped model due to staff complaints.
there would be a rough transition period, but i do believe that in countries where tipping is not the norm, places just pay more to get better stuff the way non-tipped labor already works.
one of the breweries i live by recently moved from non-tipped to tip, and it's generally a disliked change from what I hear because most of the time the brewery is open it's not busy enough to make up for the loss in wages, and then people fight over the really busy shifts.