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

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

#251
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who's done tech support in previous lives... I can say with 100% confidence users will always claim they "didn't do anything" when there is no other possible cause for the situation. "I didn't click anything!" usually means 1) They're embarrassed to admit they clicked something or 2) They are embarrasses to admit they didn't read some prompt before clicking through it. Even if the user doesn't remember cli…

When I was a teenager I was charged for watching porn at a German hotel just by switching channels and watching the porn channel for too long, maybe two minutes. I think those kind of scams are quite common when they already have your credit card. To make the story more relevant for your point my father payed the bill at the checkout and I denied watching porn at all. He got mad at the hotel and wrote legal complaint…

That's like saying "but I only opened the mini-bar bottles for a little bit".

You were certainly warned what would happen, and likely had some sort of parental advisory warning you clicked through. IDK German law regarding these things, but in the US you usually have to manually opt-into "adult" channels when at a hotel.

The fact that you denied watching it at all really serves to make my point, though. Users deny deny deny... but they still did it, didn't they?

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

#252

I have switched to prepaid gift cards instead of giving apps the right to take money from my bank account. No payment information linked to Google- got burned by auto renewal once and never again.

Not paying a debt you legitimately owe doesn’t eliminate the legitimacy of the debt. Most app owners probably won’t take any further action against you because it’s not usually worth the time and money (at least in the US), but they’re entitled to. If they sell your debt to a debt collector, have fun with that. (Tangent: there is usually a certain number of years of inaction after which they can’t go after you for th…

> If they sell your debt to a debt collector, have fun with that.

If you have the time and volition, and aren't terribly concerned with your credit rating, it can actually be quite fun because a lot of debt collectors routinely violate the law in terms of what they're allowed to do, and you can usually make some money off them in that way.

Of course, I'm talking about small debts. If you owe enough money, the collector will probably sue you, and that truly is no fun.

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

#253

Nothing makes me want this to pass more than Disney and Netflix fighting it. If those assholes are opposed to it, almost by definition I'm going to be for it.

For customers it is quite good, but to be fair, Netflix cancellation process is very straightforward, at least in Europe. There weren't any tricks, they just said see you later and cancelled.

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

#254

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…

This is one reason I prefer subscribing via Apple's store where possible--it's always a hassle-free cancellation and all my subscriptions are in one screen.

This is also a reason to subscribe with paypal. (Interestingly Disney+ felt it needed to send me an email every day for 3 months saying "your subscription is about to be cancelled!" after I did this. But when you go into the D+ interface, the ONLY thing you can do is update your payment information. So I did what anyone would do: marked their email as spam and got on with my life. But I can't help but wonder how many fake subscriptions D+ is floating like this...)

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

#255
post #7

I prefer that the government doesn't go too heavy handed with the rule and try to solve all problems with requirements such as maintaining detailed phone records. We don't want huge costs of compliance making it harder for small players to enter the market. I think the rule of "sign up online, cancel online using a clearly visible option in the account settings", plus the legalese to cover corner cases, would be a hu…

> We don't want huge costs of compliance making it harder for small players to enter the market. A laudable goal in theory. In practice when was the last time a small player entered the streaming market? This mindset enables the massive entrenched corporations to abuse customers.

There are quite a few niche streaming services which have kicked off in the last few years -

- Nebula (content from YouTube creators),

- WoW Presents Plus (RuPaul’s Drag Race and associated shows)

- Taskmaster.tv (the UK taskmaster series)

I’m not sure how independent any of those are (e.g. RuPaul’s Drag Race is linked with MTV, and Taskmaster with the UK channel 4) and they are intentionally niche, sometimes with a single show.

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

#256
post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> They could do this by making a record of the date, device and profile that renewed. But they can't. Most likely they do, and decided it wasn't worth fighting over this issue. OP's dad, using OP's account, consented to billing. There's really no other option, unless we're just going to say things non-technies think, like the computer decided on it's own or something. Netflix cannot just randomly decide to charge peo…

Yes, you're right, it's not possible for "a company" to commit fraud and still be a company, right? If the world worked like that, you would expect to find many examples of companies committing fraud.

And you'd never find a bank like Wells Fargo committing fraud for money, right? Because surely they wouldn't be a bank?

And you'd never find a company violating its own user privacy rules, like Facebook, because they'd surely be out of business, right?

And you'd never find a major phone company billing people for things they didn't have the right to do, because surely AT&T would be out of business, right?

The fact is: "most likely" and "probably" and your uninformed best guess about what happened is not knowing.

I'm not sure why you would think that the only reason that I would think that Netflix restarted my subscription in error is that I'm a "non-techie" (and ugh, what an odious way to try to dismiss someone) who thinks "the computer decided on it's [sic] own." It tells me a lot about your understanding that you can't imagine many scenarios where the interaction of a complex, mostly non-technical system of product design, business decisionmakers, microservice integrations, several apps on hundreds of distinct platforms might behave in an unexpected way that treats consumers unfairly, with varying levels of intention or neglect at different layers.

As the consumer, I'm getting charged the money and I'm the one who needs the justification to indicate that it was authorized. I disagree with your perspective that "Well, they're a 'company', therefore they must have a good reason to charge me, I better pay it".

I do, in fact, think it's "most likely" that someone did... something... on a logged-in device that restarted the subscription. However, I think it's very unlikely that that involved presenting a new billing agreement that they agreed to, or providing the password to my account (remember, this is a subscription that was cancelled, not suspended or paused or frozen or any other kind of seemingly-temporary measure--since Netflix doesn't offer a way to remove accounts, it's the strongest thing I can do to sever my business relationship with them). If the logic is unintentional: an edge case of a logged-in device where that particular app on that platform sent the wrong cookie when starting a stream, etc., then Netflix not caring to investigate and solve it is because they're happy to collect revenue from erroneous and unjustified subscriptions in the hope that consumers won't notice or fight it; which is gross. If the logic is intentional: to obscure the fact that whatever action the user takes results in a re-subscription; then it's gross and possibly illegal (dunno, not a lawyer, and my definition of "crooked" might include things that aren't yet against the law). Either way, they are likely to keep doing it until forced to stop, because your naïve perspective that companies can never do anything wrong is absolutely incorrect.

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

#257
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

....You cannot be serious

The only stuff I’ve ever had trouble cancelling were newspaper subscriptions. Definitely support making that easier. I can’t read the article due to the paywall. Precisely how easy and instant is the cancellation process required to be under this proposal: a button that says cancel, you click it, and you are cancelled? I suspect that would surprise a lot of people and make them frustrated. Cancelling shouldn’t be eas…

So i should be require to entire my payment information and verify an email to cancel a service? Are you mad? I click the red cancel button, it says "Are you sure" and boom I'm cancelled. That's how everyone else on the planet wants it.

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

#258

Why is it still the norm in the US to allow companies to charge their customers whenever they please, without the customers having any control? In India, businesses are required to get a consent, at the time of subscription, to charge the customer on a recurring basis. This is called an e-mandate and requires multi-factor authentication to create. The card holder can cancel the mandate online, through their bank, wit…

When you sign up, you are agreeing to the contract ("I agree to the terms and conditions"). Those terms and conditions legally dictate what you are agreeing to and how you will be charged, and what conditions are necessary to break that contract. They aren't allowed to charge you whenever they please, without customer control, they have to abide by the contract. Unfortunately, most people don't read the contract, and…

"Unfortunately, most people don't read the contract"

Unfortunately, we lack laws to mandate easy-to-understand terms of service that highlight the most important information in a way that actually serves the people instead of businesses.

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

#259

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…

This is one reason I prefer subscribing via Apple's store where possible--it's always a hassle-free cancellation and all my subscriptions are in one screen.

My favorite thing about Apple subscriptions is free trials. You can sign up for a trial and then immediately cancel it and still use your full trial period. No nags. No more need to make a calendar reminder "CANCEL X" on the day before (and inevitably ignore it when the day comes if you're me).

It would be even better if they added a prompt on the free trial signup "Become a paid subscriber after free trial ends?" so you could just click "No" and not have to go through the few extra clicks to cancel (I sometimes have trouble finding the subscription list where you cancel tbh), but it's still infinitely better than signing up for a free trial with the subscription company directly.

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

#260
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…

Netflix is doing what every business does - using and abusing the rules as much as they can to maximize their own gain. It is how business works, how it has always worked and how it always will work.

If you want something different, don't yell at some company that is only acting the way all companies act. Yell at your government for failing to make laws that protoize us, actual people, over business interests. Most businesses follow the laws most of the time, so if they are acting shitty it is because your government has shitty laws.

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