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US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel

arstechnica.com

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Re: US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel

#261

Post by whycome »

ghoul2 wrote: post #154
postalrat wrote: post #47

I should be able to go into my bank or card service online. View a list of all my subscriptions. Click on a subscription (or select all). And cancel. If there is a card that offers this let me know because I'll be switching immediately.

Thats how it works in India: all your "repeating" charge authorizations show up on a portal maintained by the issuing bank. All services that charge via these authorizations send an SMS alert before they debit the next charge. At any time, you can go into the portal and cancel any of these authorizations. No need to talk to the charging co at all, though still, best to first cancel from them. Jus that they know its t…

This is brilliant and simple. Canada could have this. Except the major telecommunications companies have a stranglehold on the govt and wouldn’t be for it.

Re: US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel

#262

Post by rayiner »

miltonlost wrote: post #258
rayiner wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Courts don’t make decisions on whether executive rules are told or bad, serve consumers or not. The main oversight they have is ensuring compliance with procedural rules and statutory technicalities.

[flagged]

The non-Federalist Society folks think that “emanations from penumbras” is constitutional law. How can right wing judges even compete with that?

I think we may have drastically different understandings of what “the law” is.

Re: US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel

#263

Post by HybridCurve »

fuzzy_biscuit wrote: post #187
b00ty4breakfast wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

neoliberal deregulation and regulatory capture, not necessarily in that order, has basically killed federal consumer protection in the US.

I don't see the neoliberal deregulation you're talking about, so I'll bite. Regulatory capture I have seen too often e.g. net neutrality getting killed by a Verizon cronie masquerading as a public servant in the FCC. However, from my perspective, it's been mostly conservative powers undoing consumer protections. Unless you mean liberalism in the more European sense, in which case I agree.

The Asian Financial Crisis in 1997: deregulated capital flows allowed speculators to rapidly pull money out of countries like Thailand, causing their currencies to collapse. The IMF stepped in, but their 'rescue' packages demanded strict conditions- forced privatization, and further deregulation, which often made things worse. And let's not forget Black Wednesday, when speculators broke the Bank of England. This was called "a textbook case of a speculative attack enabled by capital mobility" which is a core neoliberal policy. Just like all politics: never trust the meaning or identity of something derived from it's headline, title, name, or label- those are always the first lies we are told.

Re: US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel

#264

Post by VonTum »

guelo wrote: post #171
Hnrobert42 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A then-commissioner who is now the head of the FTC.

That commissioner also hated the fact that consumers were going to stop being robbed by big corps.

I find it unproductive to assign emotion to such blatant corruption. I'd rather frame it as "That comissioner sees it to be in his personal best interest to not stop consumers being robbed by big corps."

Re: US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel

#265

Post by whamlastxmas »

thrance wrote: post #241
John23832 wrote: post #236

What consumer does this serve at all? What citizen does this serve at all? This only serves to allow firms to erect effort barriers to keep rent seeking fro their customers. The "gotcha" that the Khan FTC didn't "follow the rules making process" is parallel construction.

It serves the current administration's in-group: the ultra-wealthy.

Got a surprise for you if you think any admins in group isn’t the ultra wealthy

Re: US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel

#266

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

John23832 wrote: post #236

What consumer does this serve at all? What citizen does this serve at all? This only serves to allow firms to erect effort barriers to keep rent seeking fro their customers. The "gotcha" that the Khan FTC didn't "follow the rules making process" is parallel construction.

The standard capitalist response would be, it serves the consumer of a service who wouldn't be willing to pay more for the additional guarantee of click-to-cancel.

It doesn't seem that farfetched to me to imagine two sites offering equivalent services, one at $5/month and the other at $6/month, with the only difference being the $6/month site offers click to cancel. This dollar price difference is often the difference between the life and death of a company.

A harsher way of phrasing it would be this serves the consumer who actually pays attention to their bills. I've had a cheap gym membership sitting around for a few months that I haven't gone to. I don't want to go to the effort of cancelling it, because that's hard. My sloth subsidizes the gym goers who actually do use the service every day and pay less than they otherwise would for the privilege. Poor, lazy, stupid people like me should still be given the option to spend our money in poor, lazy, stupid ways.

Re: US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel

#267

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

I'm not unsympathetic to those who need to cancel a gym membership or whatever. But Congress is too lazy or cowardly to do it themselves, so they delegated, and the courts have been reluctant to allow delegation lately... Congress knows that too.

Really though, our banks should be the ones fixing this problem. Do they not work for us? We're more like fee cattle than we are customers. It should be simple to cancel through the bank itself, disallowing further payments. In fact though, the opposite happens. Once one of these vampire scams gets your card number, they can put through payments that you have disallowed and the bank will side with them rather than you. Had an incident with a cell phone company a few years back and the bank decided that they had more say over my money than I did. None of this can be or will be fixed, because you're all distracted by the news media telling you that the evil courts have cheated the heroic FTC bureaucracy, and that you need to vote for the other team to restore balance to the force.

If purchasing a service requires your account/routing number, or the card number + cvs code, you really just need to go without.

Re: US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel

#268

Post by whamlastxmas »

apwell23 wrote: post #252
beezlewax wrote: post #111

I've used a learning platform called Brilliant in the past. The cancellation process was so convoluted that it was impossible to cancel the account. Dark patterns and confusing language. They refused to refund me and after I thought I'd cancelled and I had to run a charge back from my bank. This is nefarious behaviour on their part and consumers need to be protected from it.

i only subscribe to services through app store on my iphone. even if costs me premium.

I use privacy dot com cards I can turn off in a single click

Re: US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel

#269

Post by apwell23 »

whamlastxmas wrote: post #268
apwell23 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i only subscribe to services through app store on my iphone. even if costs me premium.

I use privacy dot com cards I can turn off in a single click

doesn't stop it from being sent to collections.

wtf are ppl downvoting this. i had it happen to me.

Re: US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel

#270

Post by whamlastxmas »

KomoD wrote: post #128
Irongirl1 wrote: post #51

FYI: Everyone just use privacy.com It allows you to make virtual cards that are single use. So if a merchant keeps trying to charge you, it will automatically decline. Until the powers that be gets its act together and stops allowing businesses to run all over us...this is the way.

Then you risk getting sent to collections instead.

I can use fake name and address with privacy cards
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