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“Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says
121–130 of 890 posts
Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says
#122Living in Europe, I couldn't believe that if I wanted to unsubscribe to New York Times, I would need to call one of their hotlines which operated in US time-zones. IIRC the open hours were after midnight in my timezone, and their local hotline was out of order. I seriously thought that I had signed up for a phishing site ...
A few times I found it was easier to cancel a card than to cancel a subscription. I still find it insane that the "normal" way to pay for goods and services is to pass full details of your payment card, sufficient to make any future payment, and just trust the merchant. Surely the sane way is you generate some token they can redeem against, but you can e.g. expire it or modify it. It thankfully is now more of a thing…
That's what 3dsecure is for.
in EU (well, at least in my country, France) a payment without 3dsecure is extremely easy to chargeback.
Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says
#123I’ve had gym memberships where calling to cancel wasn’t good enough, you had to come in person to cancel.
Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says
#124What would the consequences be of subscribing to something with a disposable card, then deactivating that card instead of formally unsubscribing? Can companies send your information to a debt collector or somehow force you to pay since you didn't cancel? Can it affect your credit score?
German law knows “Dauerschuldverhältnis” (permanent indebtedness). If you don’t cancel the contract and just cease payment, the other party can obtain title against you, and eventually impound you.
True, but easy way to get around this is to just revoke the SEPA mandate - which you are always allowed to. You still owe the money, but after revocation they will have to send you an invoice and wait for your payment. Larger companies will not do this as they have no process for this, and rather allow termination.
Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says
#125Living in Europe, I couldn't believe that if I wanted to unsubscribe to New York Times, I would need to call one of their hotlines which operated in US time-zones. IIRC the open hours were after midnight in my timezone, and their local hotline was out of order. I seriously thought that I had signed up for a phishing site ...
Yeah; I've had this "send us a letter via snail mail to cancel" recently. Saying "it's unreal" doesn't capture the absurdity.
Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says
#126Living in Europe, I couldn't believe that if I wanted to unsubscribe to New York Times, I would need to call one of their hotlines which operated in US time-zones. IIRC the open hours were after midnight in my timezone, and their local hotline was out of order. I seriously thought that I had signed up for a phishing site ...
It’s why they hate people that sign up via IAP - literally one click and the subscription is gone.
What's IAP?
Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says
#127I found a loophole for NYT and The Economist. Convert your payment to PayPal (they allow you to edit payments, but not remove them), and then go into PayPal to cancel the active payment agreement. Easier than cancelling the card, or calling them.
Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says
#128In Portugal the law makes it so you can cancel any service using the same means that you used to subscribe it, so if they support subscribing online, unsubscribing also has to be doable the same way; same goes for via phone, personal or whatnot. It makes sense, prevents service providers from making it too difficult to terminate a contract.
Portugal is logical on some stuff. Another example is prostitution is legal but you can only advertise yourself. I wonder what other countries have prostitution set up like this. Or the speed traps that just trigger a red light. Decriminalization of all drugs obviously too.
> Another example is prostitution is legal but you can only advertise yourself.
that's an excellent rule - because pimping should be illegal.
Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says
#129Fuck New York Times, I had to go through this chaos once and promised to never ever use any of their services ever again. I even went to the pain of making sure all my ad blockers were in full force when visiting the NYT. I developed a strong sense of hatred after realize what kind of slimy tactics they used to stop you from cancelling a subscription. One day, I found a loophole. I would email them requesting a cance…
Just to play devils advocate, can’t they just send it to collections if they really wanted to? I did the same thing for a gym membership (NYSC) and they threatened collections 3 months later. Fortunately, they went bankrupt.
He tried to reach them to cancel his subscription. In that case, he could challenge collection and then go to court to prove his case?
For the gym, it depends on your contract. Maybe you had a 1 year commitment but you paid monthly?