Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal

businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 546 posts

Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal

#221

Post by monsieurbanana »

dangus wrote: post #198
jrockway wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you cancel your lease and then stay in your apartment until the lease expiration date, they aren't going to renew your lease. You paid for the entire month, you're allowed to stay for the entire month.

“After the final date” is a key phrase in the comment I replied to. The word “after” is there. If you stay a day past your lease your landlord can charge you the next month’s rent. If you take a wrong turn and accidentally enter a toll highway you’ll get charged a toll, automatically in many places. If you forget to turn your faucet off you’ll pay for water and sewer usage even if you said you didn’t need the water.…

Just as a thought exercise, if you were actually defending Netflix, what would you change in your comment?

Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal

#222

Post by spandrew »

lolinder wrote: post #79
atum47 wrote: post #69

Netflix is such a crook. I had cancelled my subscription a while ago. They gave me the rest of the month to watch (since i already paid that month). Well, I had cancelled because I don't watch anymore. Guess what? Since it was a family plan, my father end up watching on his house, in another city. So Netflix renew the subscription. Fun right? I get a message everytime my card gets charged, that's why I noticed I was…

Do you know the details of what happened here? Unless you know otherwise, it sounds like your father probably ended up clicking the "renew subscription now" button when prompted, not that simply logging in triggered the charge. I'm ready to believe that the renewal prompt was heavily geared towards making it easy to renew, and Netflix should be required to make it equally easy to cancel, but unless you know he didn't…

He almost certainly did click renew sub — esp. if that is in the flow? User researchers know very well people's recollection of their use is not reliable data.

Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal

#223

Post by jsweojtj »

atum47 wrote: post #201
atum47 wrote: post #69

Netflix is such a crook. I had cancelled my subscription a while ago. They gave me the rest of the month to watch (since i already paid that month). Well, I had cancelled because I don't watch anymore. Guess what? Since it was a family plan, my father end up watching on his house, in another city. So Netflix renew the subscription. Fun right? I get a message everytime my card gets charged, that's why I noticed I was…

UPDATE 2 After not being able to find any email or conversation with the support I was able to log back in Netflix and get a history of charges to my credit cards, which is still stored in their system. Dates are in DD/MM/YYYY format https://victorribeiro.com/netflix.jpg

It looks like it renewed automatically on the 17th every month, and then... it was reactivated on the 20th? I think this lends credibility to the idea that someone on the account tried to watch something 3 days after the subscription ended, couldn't without resubscribing, and simply clicked to restart the subscription. Obviously, it could be as you described it as well.

A simple test would be to see what happens if you try to, today, try to watch something on Netflix. Does it allow you to start watching shows? Or does it ask you to do something like restart a subscription? What do you see today?

Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal

#224

Post by pixelatedindex »

kevinmchugh wrote: post #55

Illinois says that any subscription must be cancelable in the same place it's created, so if I sign up for Hulu using my smart tv,I can cancel there as well. It's really good. People often complain about the proliferation of streaming services, but thanks to the law mentioned above, I'm able to subscribe and then immediately cancel. If I decide I want more time I can resubscribe later. I get to watch what I want with…

What if companies don’t follow that? For example it’s really easy to signup for sfchronicle but they make you jump through a lot of hoops to cancel.

Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal

#225

Post by spatley »

renewiltord wrote: post #199
rogual wrote: post #190

Strange to see Netflix on the list, because here in the UK it's extremely easy to cancel. You just click once and it's done, and you still get to watch for the rest of the month. I'm sure it can't be because of UK law, because we have plenty of other companies here who make cancellations awkward.

Same, here in California I just tried it. Account > (big button at top) Cancel Membership > Finish Cancellation. That's about as perfect as I'd want it. I don't want a cancel button on my main screen and I do want a confirm field when I make destructive actions. Finish Cancellation button is highlighted in Blue and obvious default. Below that is a "downgrade plan" option. There is also a note above Finish Cancellatio…

The very fact that they have different cancel paths in different locales says that they are doing the one that is most advantageous to netflix according to the laws of that locale.

Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal

#227

Post by masfuerte »

treecrypto wrote: post #187
Justsignedup wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution to like 90% of all problems: The CEO is legally responsible for every illegal action taken by the company. This is also true for all managers down to the department that caused the illegal action. That's it. Nothing else. You'll see a massive amount of bad behavior from companies instantly stop. When your neck is on the line, you won't do it. Or you'll quit. However given history, this will never occur.…

Wouldn't this make it possible for a disgruntled employee to do something illegal, and falsely claim they did it on the company's instructions?

The situation we have now is companies setting targets that can only be met by breaking the law and then acting innocent when the employees do. I don't know how we fix this.

Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal

#228

Post by partdavid »

lolinder wrote: post #79
atum47 wrote: post #69

Netflix is such a crook. I had cancelled my subscription a while ago. They gave me the rest of the month to watch (since i already paid that month). Well, I had cancelled because I don't watch anymore. Guess what? Since it was a family plan, my father end up watching on his house, in another city. So Netflix renew the subscription. Fun right? I get a message everytime my card gets charged, that's why I noticed I was…

Do you know the details of what happened here? Unless you know otherwise, it sounds like your father probably ended up clicking the "renew subscription now" button when prompted, not that simply logging in triggered the charge. I'm ready to believe that the renewal prompt was heavily geared towards making it easy to renew, and Netflix should be required to make it equally easy to cancel, but unless you know he didn't…

I had more or less the exact same thing. I certainly didn't like the idea that my "authorized users" (who are in my home) could simply click on a show to watch it, or even "renew" without giving a password and restart a cancelled--not suspended--account. It's bad treatment and only makes me want to never do business with Netflix, but... okay, it's kinda sorta "my" fault.

But when I had my customer service interaction, they said they could not tell me that that's what happened, or if it did, when and on what device. That to me is inexcusable. If you're going to charge me money you need to be able to justify why and for what.

Secondly, I could not use Netflix's interface to remove or deauthorize my payment method. Also unconscionable. The customer service agent needed to "block" my card (how do I know that they even did it? I have no way to verify as the payment method remains associated with the account).

It's not on me to "know" someone "didn't" do something--it's incumbent on Netflix to actually know and have a record that that's what happened. If they don't do that--then yeah, crooked.

Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal

#229

Post by nojvek »

tqwhite wrote: post #214

It sounds like we all should 'lose' our credit cards once a year. It's a hassle to give the new number to the companies we want to keep but probably worth it for the ones we don't.

Then you get all sorts of late payment charges and charges are then sent to debt collection agencies, which then dent your credit score.

T-mobile charged me $7 for being 1d late on payment because my credit card expired. No late payment notice. Just a charge on next bill.

Verizon is even worse. They have 30 day free trial from the time you sign, not when the equipment is delivered. So if they misdeliver to wrong address, you're on hook for $280 even if you don't have the equipment.

US policies and politicians in general are very corporate friendly.

Re: Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal

#230

Post by partdavid »

neximo64 wrote: post #118
atum47 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What if you dad is lying to avoid embarrassment? Shouldn't matter, right?! Once I cancelled was not supposed to be charged again unless I agree to it. If my father wanted to renew the subscription, he should use his card, right? the renewal process should function as a new subscription, if not done by the same person that subscribed in the first place.

Its really likely your father renewed the subscription with consent, and forgot about it. Netflix doesn't auto renew simply by watching. It asks you to renew the subscription. It requires conscious consent.

How do you know this? Where is the record?

If Netflix is going to charge me money, they need to prove that I incurred the charge. They could do this by making a record of the date, device and profile that renewed. But they can't.

In my case they refunded the erroneously renewed subscription as a "one time courtesy". Like they're doing me a favor. Yeah, it's "one time" because I'd have to be a fool to do business with a company that treats me this way.

Post reply on HN