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“Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

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Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#201

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

john37386 wrote: post #194

I subscribed to a weekly meal kit. It was very easy to onboard and I liked the service for many months. My situation changed and I no longer needed their service. I wanted to cancel my subscription and it's impossible to do online. It's written in super small to call their happy representative. I didn't like this situation so what I'm doing is skipping the meal kit for the next 4 weeks. Every month I log on their web…

Can you name the meal kit place ( asking only, because I was debating the heavily advertised one about fruits and veggies )?

Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#202

Post by soco »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #187
manigandham wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not outrageous at all. Your failure to pay doesn't invalidate your contract that you will pay for their services. It's definitely frustrating to cancel, and this is a good ruling that will help make it easier, but it's still your responsibility to do so.

How could it not invalidate the contract? Services are provided after payment is made. If no payment is made, no service is provided.

Have you ever read your contracts? Maybe it would be time to do so now, before you run into troubles with collectors.

Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#203

Post by Nextgrid »

hnarn wrote: post #75
nasir wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can instruct your bank to stop the direct debit payments and they'll cancel your subscription.

You shouldn't say this to people like it's some obvious truth. There are many cases in which this action will land you in trouble due to it not being a legally valid termination of the contract (which of course may be different by country -- it's very common that cancelling requires an actual message to the other party). One specific example is if your contract has a termination period, which is pretty common, at lea…

This makes sense if the contract indeed has a minimum commitment that hasn't been reached.

But if the contract has no minimum term (or it has since passed) and you've made a reasonable effort to attempt to cancel with no success, it'll now be on them to recover the money through legal means which would require them to explain to the court why your cancellation attempt was ignored, demonstrating their bad faith in the process. That's not something they want to do.

Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#204

Post by sodality2 »

Reason077 wrote: post #157
kieloo wrote: post #18

Same thing with The Guardian. Subscribed online and was then told I can’t cancel via email and have to endure a pushy sales call if I want to cancel. Similar experience with The Economist except it was via live chat instead. These experiences honestly make me want to never subscribe to a newspaper again.

Same with the UK subscription craft beer service, beer52.com [1]. Subscribe easily with a few clicks, but they make you call during office hours and endure 10+ minutes on hold to cancel. Sadly in the UK I guess we won't get the benefit of any new EU legislation to address this. [1] https://ibb.co/r4LfK5F

Sometimes I wonder what little things differ between countries. But this is new to me. Is it true that you find that hold time to be annoying/out of place in the UK? I once was on hold with an insurance company for ten hours... I began to wonder if 1. something happened that got me stuck in the queue, or 2. if they even had a single person working the lines.

Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#205

Post by soco »

malka wrote: post #122
rich_sasha wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think 3d protects you in this case of recurring charges.

Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#206

Post by portportport »

codingclaws wrote: post #114
lagadu wrote: post #29

In 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.

The drug policy is well known, but the speed traps is new and amusing. It reminds me of the horn activated red lights in India. Genius idea.

Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#207

Post by darkwizard42 »

john37386 wrote: post #194

I subscribed to a weekly meal kit. It was very easy to onboard and I liked the service for many months. My situation changed and I no longer needed their service. I wanted to cancel my subscription and it's impossible to do online. It's written in super small to call their happy representative. I didn't like this situation so what I'm doing is skipping the meal kit for the next 4 weeks. Every month I log on their web…

You should honestly just tell your credit card about this situation and if they are tier 1 (Chase, Amex, etc.) they will likely deny the charge on your behalf if you can show proof that you tried to cancel but weren't able to.

People can say they have you in whatever financial agreement, but if the processor has evidence you are NOT trying to pay it, they can at least stop it from going on their rails (and your card)

Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#208

Post by makapuf »

ratww wrote: post #191
sokoloff wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also dislike this business practice, but I don’t think the only way it comes about is from lack of confidence in product/service. Let’s say you were building a startup and had to prioritize limited resources on everything that sucked about it. You’re talking to users, tracking various metrics, trying to get people to use it, and your backlog of things you wished you could do is 3+ years long. You’d build easy sign…

You don't have to "build" anything. Just have a button "cancel subscription" with a mailto: link... or even some text saying "email us at @ from your account and it will be cancelled within N hours/days". Currently what most companies (including startups) do is burying the cancellation instructions in some Knowledge Base, or forcing some back and forth via email or phone. You can rationalise bad behaviour all day, bu…

Well a simple email would be too easy to forge. But I'm sure its not hard to setup something I "your account" page.

Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#209

Post by 88913527 »

mercy_dude wrote: post #173

Good. The worst experience I ever had was with NY Times when I wanted to unsubscribe I had to go through multiple call/chats with a person and it was almost impossible since it was hard to get in touch with one. I am glad FTC is doing something others are afraid to do.

Anyone with access to a public library (photo ID will get you a free library card) can access eLibrary services that get updated daily. No need to pay for NYT, for WSJ, or any major national newspaper. By paying taxes, you're already paying for digital access to this media.

I applaud the FTC's decision but I wish people realized there's more practical means for accessing media that is more frequently locked behind paywalls these days. You fight it with a library card.

Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says

#210

Post by darkwizard42 »

xg15 wrote: post #161

> Publishers tend to think of this as “retention.” My understanding was that "retention" used to be simply a measure of how many unique users/customers kept using your product. With some implicit (maybe too optimistic) understanding that they stayed because they wanted to. In classic "if your measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a measure" tradition, "retention" today seems to be about keeping as many recurring…

I don't think this concept is new. I mean look at the gym/fitness market. It is largely defined by gyms looking to onboard members with special discounted entry rates and then largely leaving them be and milking the monthly payments.
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