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Carta is making it too difficult to cancel subscriptions, some founders say

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Re: Carta is making it too difficult to cancel subscriptions, some founders say

#41

Post by sharkweek »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #38
paultopia wrote: post #26

This is the sort of thing that a decent corporate lawyer ought to be able to handle. Obviously not giving legal advice to anyone's specific situation here (and I don't have a current bar card, though I am a law professor), but generally there's an implied contract law duty of good faith.[1] Dirty tricks like writing a contract that says something like "you can cancel at the end of a term, but you have to have a meeti…

I really, really think folks are overthinking this. This isn't a Comcast subscription. This is an enterprise software deal that costs many multiple thousands of dollars. Anyone that thinks that Carta was ever going to go "Oh, sucks to be you, you couldn't schedule your cancellation meeting before the renewal date, well, tough cookies, you have to pay us $18k for your next contract year" simply doesn't know how enterp…

This is correct. While there are certainly dark patterns and pain in the ass retention process hoops the company might try and make you jump through, putting in email that you want to cancel, calling and escalating until you talk to someone who will cancel your account, etc. will get your subscription cancelled. Should we have to do this as customers? No, but vote with your wallet and make a note you’d never renew until this kind of shit is fixed and they’ll at some point get the message.

Worked at a few SaaS companies and there are playbooks for retention, upselling, renewals, etc but if a customer wants to cancel, the company will cancel.

I’d put more weight on Carta in this example just having a broken process that I’m sure this negative press will incentivize them to respond and fix.

Re: Carta is making it too difficult to cancel subscriptions, some founders say

#42

Post by waterhouse »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #14
thot_experiment wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Execs should be to blame for everything a company does. That's how leadership is supposed to work. Culturally we should not be okay with someone having power without the consequent responsibility. Hopefully we see that shift.

I actually think the opposite should happen. I think currently that much too much success of a company is attributed to its leadership, which is why execs are paid so insanely disproportionately compared to everyone else. When you start saying "You have to take the blame for everything that happens in a company", it actually ends up concentrating even more wealth at the top of the pyramid. As a somewhat macabre examp…

I don't think that's the primary reason for CEOs being paid a lot. I think a much bigger reason is: For large companies that manage large amounts of resources, company-scale decisions are extremely impactful, and therefore it may be net beneficial to pay tens of millions to get someone whose decisions are slightly better. For example, someone who on average makes 0.01 fewer billion-dollar mistakes per year is worth $10 million per year on that count alone.

Re: Carta is making it too difficult to cancel subscriptions, some founders say

#43

Post by StressedDev »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #38
paultopia wrote: post #26

This is the sort of thing that a decent corporate lawyer ought to be able to handle. Obviously not giving legal advice to anyone's specific situation here (and I don't have a current bar card, though I am a law professor), but generally there's an implied contract law duty of good faith.[1] Dirty tricks like writing a contract that says something like "you can cancel at the end of a term, but you have to have a meeti…

I really, really think folks are overthinking this. This isn't a Comcast subscription. This is an enterprise software deal that costs many multiple thousands of dollars. Anyone that thinks that Carta was ever going to go "Oh, sucks to be you, you couldn't schedule your cancellation meeting before the renewal date, well, tough cookies, you have to pay us $18k for your next contract year" simply doesn't know how enterp…

No one is overthinking anything. Carta's behavior is poor, self-serving, and definitely using a dark pattern. If they cannot promptly schedule a meeting, they should wave the meeting requirement.

Here are some other thoughts:

1) Canceling a subscription should be easy and take less than 3 minutes. There is nothing special about enterprise software subscriptions.

2) Requiring a meeting to cancel and then scheduling the meeting after the customer is charged a renewal fee is outrageous. This should never happen.

3) Customers tried to contact Carta and could not get help. This means they could not just "call up Carta" and tell them "Your shit is broken, there are no cancellation meetings for weeks."

Re: Carta is making it too difficult to cancel subscriptions, some founders say

#44

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

lxgr wrote: post #15
dogboat wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There needs to be a rule that any recurring revenue service can be cancelled on the bank side. Then to cancel you contact you card provider not the company. A UK direct debit is like this I think. If this breaches contract then the service provider needs to get a lawyer. The finance system should serve people first - and then tax and law follow. Obviously KYC AML excepted. Such a system might knock 5% off the SP500 b…

Successfully cancelling/reversing a payment does not automatically extinguish any debit incurred, though. It's a great backstop to a company ignoring a cancellation, but I don't think it should be the default. It would be great to integrate a cancellation mechanism into the payment rails though, i.e. allow sending a proactive signal "your customer wants to cancel their service and next payment will fail". But that's…

> Successfully cancelling/reversing a payment does not automatically extinguish any debit incurred, though.

The company could just not apply the debit, and instead send their customer a friendly message like,

"Heya! We regret to inform you that your payment method on file failed. We'll try a few more times over the next month, and then your account will be suspended, with the data retained for download/export and/or in case the account is reinstated. If you have any questions, or would like to make alternative payment arrangements, please call [phone number] during [normal office hours], and one of our billing specialists will promptly help you out. Thank you!"

Re: Carta is making it too difficult to cancel subscriptions, some founders say

#45

Post by StressedDev »

duskwuff wrote: post #18
dogboat wrote: post #10

This is r/assholedesign Big shout out to Plausible Analytics. You click unsubscribe and you are taken to Paddle (I think). One more click and you are done. You get a follow up email which you can reply to or not. You are done. Anyway. Startups - use Airwallex or similar and create multiple cards. Easy to cancel anything. Then if they wanna chat in April 2025 about it then sure.

TBF, the nature of the services Carta provides (equity management) are rather different from a web analytics company. Offboarding isn't necessarily as simple as shutting off the company's account.

What makes Carta different? Why is offboarding more complex?

Re: Carta is making it too difficult to cancel subscriptions, some founders say

#46

Post by [deleted] »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #22
burcs wrote: post #6

I don't know why anyone would willingly sign up for Carta these days. Between this and the fact they got caught sharing private cap table data, it's like they're actively being hostile to their users.

The article pretty much explains why: > “We switched from Carta to Diligent to try to reduce cost and it was a disaster. Switched back to Carta and will never leave again. It’s a 100x better product and keeps getting better,” posted Bill Smith, founder of Landing. The 2 main issues that are discussed here actually don't seem like a big deal to me in the grand scheme of things: 1. While I think having to schedule a me…

[deleted]

Re: Carta is making it too difficult to cancel subscriptions, some founders say

#47

Post by dogboat »

duskwuff wrote: post #35
dogboat wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok then ask for that shutdown money in advance. (Or write it off if someone churns). Or make the recurring payments quarterly or annual.

I'm not sure you understand what I'm getting at here. Carta manages things like employee stock options. If a company has issued equity to employees or investors, they can't just shut off their Carta account and be done with it - those obligations need to be managed somewhere, and part of the offboarding process needs to be a managed handoff of that information.

I understand what you are saying.

They should still offboard of course!

They should design their service (as in customer service experience) to decouple cancellation from offboarding.

I cancel. I stop paying. Now do your offboarding process.

If that loses them too much money then ask for that upfront as effectively a retainer.

Now you go in to the relstionship eyes open. You pay 3 months upfront then you pay monthly. When you want to stop you click "unsubscribe" with a few are you sures.

Then you stop paying and they offboard you when they get their shit together. After cancellation and prior to that offboard meeting you are getting some bonus free subscription time.

If the offboarding dude is on paternity leave then treat it as extra free subscription as it is on the company not the customer.

Fighting to unsubscribe and chasing companies up sucks.

Re: Carta is making it too difficult to cancel subscriptions, some founders say

#48

Post by conductr »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #38
paultopia wrote: post #26

This is the sort of thing that a decent corporate lawyer ought to be able to handle. Obviously not giving legal advice to anyone's specific situation here (and I don't have a current bar card, though I am a law professor), but generally there's an implied contract law duty of good faith.[1] Dirty tricks like writing a contract that says something like "you can cancel at the end of a term, but you have to have a meeti…

I really, really think folks are overthinking this. This isn't a Comcast subscription. This is an enterprise software deal that costs many multiple thousands of dollars. Anyone that thinks that Carta was ever going to go "Oh, sucks to be you, you couldn't schedule your cancellation meeting before the renewal date, well, tough cookies, you have to pay us $18k for your next contract year" simply doesn't know how enterp…

As a purchaser of a lot of enterprise software, I typically start thinking about renewal/cancellation 3-4 months ahead of the contract expiration. Sometimes earlier if we know we want to cancel.

But honestly, I always redline the auto renewal clause anyway so they want to speak with me.

Re: Carta is making it too difficult to cancel subscriptions, some founders say

#49

Post by Narkov »

dogboat wrote: post #33
duskwuff wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBF, the nature of the services Carta provides (equity management) are rather different from a web analytics company. Offboarding isn't necessarily as simple as shutting off the company's account.

Ok then ask for that shutdown money in advance. (Or write it off if someone churns). Or make the recurring payments quarterly or annual.

It's not a money thing. It is a process thing. They have regulations that they must follow to off-board you.

Re: Carta is making it too difficult to cancel subscriptions, some founders say

#50

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

StressedDev wrote: post #43
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really, really think folks are overthinking this. This isn't a Comcast subscription. This is an enterprise software deal that costs many multiple thousands of dollars. Anyone that thinks that Carta was ever going to go "Oh, sucks to be you, you couldn't schedule your cancellation meeting before the renewal date, well, tough cookies, you have to pay us $18k for your next contract year" simply doesn't know how enterp…

No one is overthinking anything. Carta's behavior is poor, self-serving, and definitely using a dark pattern. If they cannot promptly schedule a meeting, they should wave the meeting requirement. Here are some other thoughts: 1) Canceling a subscription should be easy and take less than 3 minutes. There is nothing special about enterprise software subscriptions. 2) Requiring a meeting to cancel and then scheduling th…

It seems you've misunderstood my comment, as I mostly agree with your points. I'm just saying that the idea that startups need to get a lawyer involved to cancel your subscription is unnecessary. This seems like a pretty clear case of a fuck up on Carta's side, and usually when fuck ups are this obvious if you just point them out the company goes "Oh shit, sorry, we fucked up", which is essentially what happened here.
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