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‘Click to Cancel’ legislation introduced in Pennsylvania

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Re: ‘Click to Cancel’ legislation introduced in Pennsylvania

#171

Post by CogitoCogito »

withinboredom wrote: post #160
lovecg wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is generally in the contract you sign when agreeing to the membership in the first place. There’s a lot of fine print stipulating how cancellation will work exactly.

Can’t you just strike that from the contract, initial it, sign the contract and return it? If they refuse the/any edit, can’t you say they negotiate in bad faith and void the entire contract?

If the contract is void from the beginning, how do you ever plan to use the gym? Aren't you just in the same position you were before you contacted the gym in the first place?

Re: ‘Click to Cancel’ legislation introduced in Pennsylvania

#172

Post by core-utility »

WalterBright wrote: post #150
konschubert wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe there would be fewer of them, and the people who use them would pay a bit more. While the rest would enjoy the freed up real estate and the money saved.

10x more. It'd basically put the industry out of business.

Are gyms really that costly to run that they can't sustain on a moderate paying userbase? I'm talking basic cardio and weight gyms, not the mega gyms with a pool and massage. The property might be prime but a lot of that comes to the choice of LA Fitness, 24, etc. choosing to build their own custom building in prime areas. Smaller gyms like Planet Fitness tend to use otherwise empty storefronts.

Re: ‘Click to Cancel’ legislation introduced in Pennsylvania

#173

Post by core-utility »

WalterBright wrote: post #123
QuikAccount wrote: post #4

Fully in favor of this. I recently had to cancel a subscription that had no "cancel subscription" button and instead forced you to contact customer service so they could try to sell you on discounts and etc. No, just let me cancel and get on with my day. Unfortunately, it seems health clubs(and I assume gyms?) are exempt from this when they are like 80% of the problem.

Health clubs rely on 90% of their members never showing up. If they all cancelled, there'd be no more health clubs.

That shouldn't give them a pass to provide scummy cancellation practices. Most people I know who don't use their gym membership have also never tried to cancel.

Re: ‘Click to Cancel’ legislation introduced in Pennsylvania

#174

Post by core-utility »

izzydata wrote: post #39
zja wrote: post #19

Not to excuse companies that make you jump through hoops to unsubscribe, but is there any reason you can't just call your credit card/bank and cut off transactions to a company that's giving you a hard time? I've heard horror stories about people trying to cancel gym memberships, and wondered why they don't just stop paying, and let the gym figure it out.

I remember seeing a website here that let you create prepaid cards that you could use for things like this. I'm not sure if you were able to refill the balance on them though, but it would be convenient to be able to just let them attempt to charge an empty debit card.

The issue still comes in with obligation to pay. If the gym has enough info on you, they can send you to collections as some others have pointed out.

Re: ‘Click to Cancel’ legislation introduced in Pennsylvania

#175

Post by core-utility »

nikanj wrote: post #167
jwally wrote: post #166

I can't advocate privacy.com enough for these shenanigans! Issuing a credit card for each vendor - with spend caps or close the card whenever. If I can't find your cancel service page within five minutes of searching; I just close the card and am done.

They are allowed to send your bills to collection. They probably won’t, but don’t count on it. Not paying your bills is not a legally protected way of cancelling.

On fixed-cost memberships, I'd love to see legislation forcing the hand to say that payments are for future services, not past, and that failure to pay means being cut off from future services until payment is made. This way these companies couldn't send you to collections since you're paid up for everything you've "consumed".

Re: ‘Click to Cancel’ legislation introduced in Pennsylvania

#176

Post by lousyd »

humaniania wrote: post #102
tylersmith wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the result of lobbying, and undeniably the result of the politicians putting forth the bill.

Sounds like the kind of thing ALEC would push through for someone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legislative_Exchange_...

It doesn't sound at all like the kind of thing ALEC would do.

Re: ‘Click to Cancel’ legislation introduced in Pennsylvania

#177

Post by whizzter »

kube-system wrote: post #122
thallium205 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Geico insurance is like this. You have to call to cancel the policy.

I recently switched away from Geico and my new insurer offered to mail them a letter to cancel on my behalf.

A friend of mine has more or less developed a niche for his business on handling cancellations via verified digital signatures (Lawyers of the companies on the receiving end tried to put up roadblocks and deny this initially but all of them seems to have relented afaik).

Re: ‘Click to Cancel’ legislation introduced in Pennsylvania

#178

Post by fmajid »

datadata wrote: post #79
bombcar wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already see this - have you read the disclaimers on loans? Many will have a call out for California, Wisconsin, and South Dakota if I remember correctly, as those states have certain things required or prohibited. Any online store dealing with gun or gun-adjacent stuff already has been dealing with variations of these for years; knives that are illegal in certain areas, etc. Home Depot has to block shipping gas-po…

Are these frictions good for either businesses or consumers? What is wrong with the desire that a good consumer protection protection be rolled out nationally rather that state by state?

That’s why there are efforts like the Uniform Commercial Code to harmonize basic laws across all 50 states. Unfortunately many aspects of it are stacked against consumers like UCITA that enables abusive software licensing practices.

Re: ‘Click to Cancel’ legislation introduced in Pennsylvania

#179

Post by dunefox »

kornhole wrote: post #77
tshaddox wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately in most of the Bay Area, even just the floor space to have anything remotely usable as a home gym would cost many hundreds of dollars per month.

This takes creativity. Gymnast rings cost ~$10 which you can hang from a tree branch. Someone gave me a barbell, but I had no weights. So I screwed rings into some heavy logs and am now deadlifting ~400lbs. I get to do all this in my bikini in the sun while maintaining my garden between sets. I look like a fitness model and spent about $30 on my yard gym.

If you can afford to live there you can surely afford weights, but the space for storing logs (of all things) just isn't practical.
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