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Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions

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Re: Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions

#21
post #5

Adobe needs to be next. I had to cancel a card because that was easier than cancelling Creative Cloud.

Don’t they charge you to cancel or something? I also remember their suite being absolutely fucking dumb I never used it again

They let you sign up for an annual discount but still pay monthly. The cancelation fee is if you try to end the annual commitment early. If you just sign up monthly(seriously always do this when you see these offers) there is no cancellation fee.

Re: Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions

#22
post #5

Adobe needs to be next. I had to cancel a card because that was easier than cancelling Creative Cloud.

Canceling a card isn't the same thing as canceling a subscription. Most businesses will have you still pay via a different payment method to resolve your debt.

They'll invoice you but don't actually pay. They aren't going to take you to court over a $50/month subscription; the easier route for them is to just disable your account, which is what you wanted anyway.

Never give them your actual residential address (they don't need to know it), birth day, or SSN, or be tricked into giving them such. If they ask on any customer service chat or phone, the answer is they don't need to know it.

Without these things they can't exactly put it on your credit report, either. They may send it to collectors, but don't talk to them. Let them cry. They still won't serve you a court summons over $50.

Keep businesses in check from this money-grabbing behavior. Any kind of subscription should be easily cancellable.

Re: Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions

#23
post #2

A great idea of a product is some sort of unified system for companies to correctly manage subscriptions. There needs to be standards for what makes a user flow acceptable or not when it comes to cancellations.

Why would a company participate in this? Most don't seem interested in making cancellation easier .

Because they like money and having different choices for consumers to give them money wins out.

Re: Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you only need PS in short bursts, may I recommend https://www.photopea.com/ ? It's not at 100% feature parity with PS but it's pretty darn close.

Appreciate the suggestion but I'm terrible at editing so I just stick with PS because the cost for a month or two when I need it isn't much and it's really easy to find videos walking through exactly what I need to do. Even a single hour spent trying to translate a tutorial would more than wipe out the savings.

Totally fair, I understand :)

Re: Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had been paying monthly for 13 years straight and they still demanded a cancellation fee because it turned out I was on an annual commitment (which by the way they hiked the price of by 50% with a month’s notice and by the time you notice the larger payment go out you are in a whole new 12 months). So yes, I complained about that.

Ok so you were on an annual plan to save money and when you cancelled you had to pay an exit fee to account for the annual discount. Seems reasonable to me. They gave you a months notice of the price increase and you didn't cancel until after it went into effect?

Shouldn’t auto renew and auto commit though.

Re: Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok so you were on an annual plan to save money and when you cancelled you had to pay an exit fee to account for the annual discount. Seems reasonable to me. They gave you a months notice of the price increase and you didn't cancel until after it went into effect?

Shouldn’t auto renew and auto commit though.

Why? It's a subscription auto-renew is the default. As for auto-commit why would they change your subscription choices on you without you choosing it?

Re: Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions

#29
post #2

A great idea of a product is some sort of unified system for companies to correctly manage subscriptions. There needs to be standards for what makes a user flow acceptable or not when it comes to cancellations.

Why would a company participate in this? Most don't seem interested in making cancellation easier .

You have to participate in order to get access to most iPhone users.

Re: Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had been paying monthly for 13 years straight and they still demanded a cancellation fee because it turned out I was on an annual commitment (which by the way they hiked the price of by 50% with a month’s notice and by the time you notice the larger payment go out you are in a whole new 12 months). So yes, I complained about that.

Ok so you were on an annual plan to save money and when you cancelled you had to pay an exit fee to account for the annual discount. Seems reasonable to me. They gave you a months notice of the price increase and you didn't cancel until after it went into effect?

Why are you defending obvious theft?
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