191–200 of 793 posts
Passed 3-2 along party lines. Remember this when you're going to vote. Elections matter.
Not surprised that you're being downvoted despite telling the truth, because "politics is off-topic while technology is on-topic" (even though politics is often deeply intertwined with technology).
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Yes. The problem is the current law. Which needs to be changed. Make these predatory contracts illegal.
I don't think these sorts of contracts should be illegal. I think a lot of things around them should be, like gyms requiring you to go in-person to cancel, or offering a terrible phone service to cancel, or marketing it deceptively such that you were unaware it was a contract. But getting a discount in exchange for a longer-term commitment is often a benefit to consumers. I just paid Visible for a year of cellular se…
A problem with our contract law is that if you get anything out of a contract it becomes really hard to terminate if the terms don't allow for it (a peppercorn). With contracts now being written in dense legalese with multiple pages of terms and conditions, it's not really feasible to expect the common contractor to have a full understanding of exactly what they are signing up for.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. The problem is the current law. Which needs to be changed. Make these predatory contracts illegal.
I don't think these sorts of contracts should be illegal. I think a lot of things around them should be, like gyms requiring you to go in-person to cancel, or offering a terrible phone service to cancel, or marketing it deceptively such that you were unaware it was a contract. But getting a discount in exchange for a longer-term commitment is often a benefit to consumers. I just paid Visible for a year of cellular se…
This is already framing it in marketing terms. You're not getting a discount but being charged an artificial price premium for less/no commitment. This can get especially obscene in places where gyms are required by law to offer monthly membership options but they charge a significant markup if you go that route.
All of this has the effect of suppressing competition.
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The FTC has been doing a ton of stuff the last 4 years, you just haven't been paying attention.
Such a long list you've shared. Besides lawsuits and policies already struck down what pro-consumer policy have the enacted prior to Nov 2023 (the start of the presidential election)
Passed 3-2 along party lines. Remember this when you're going to vote. Elections matter.
Not surprised that you're being downvoted despite telling the truth, because "politics is off-topic while technology is on-topic" (even though politics is often deeply intertwined with technology).
One of the people who voted against it explained why and it has nothing to do with wanting to make cancellations harder. But we can't acknowledge that truth because that goes against the "one side is good, one side is bad" narrative so many here try to push so often and so hard.
There 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.
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.
> 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 price
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/10/...
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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…
My understanding is that under the hood this does happen, but in the company's favor-some memberships will survive your credit card changing? There was a patio11 article about it which I can't find at the moment. (edit: maybe not. maybe it was a tweet? in any case I remember it being a thing)
Which feels like it defeats the purpose of getting a new generated card.