301–310 of 845 posts
General advice when subscribing to NYT is to do it through PayPal. Once you cut them loose from their funding from PayPal, they let you go without hesitation.
This is the only reason I’m not a subscriber. I have no interest in starting an open ended subscription that I have to fight to cancel. Shame too because I love the NYT, but I’m mostly able to scratch that itch with the economist, my local paper, and some smaller news outlets.
You can subscribe through Apple/Google and cancellation will be a few clicks away.
Imagine having a business model so fragile that your only line of defense is to obscure the cancellation process through these tactics. Do they really think that they can curve their churn this way? I mean best you’re doing is getting maybe another month or so of revenue from a customer who is just pushing the pain of cancelling because they are busy or lazy. And at the end instead of getting what could be a dormant…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Netflix is notoriously generous here. They allegedly auto-cancel accounts that don't use the service for too long! https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/net...
I wouldn't call this generosity. This is the normal conduct of normal honest businesses.
Well, which one is it? /j
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nonsense. If your situation was generalizable, then no one would accept rebates or gifts offered during the cancelation process - yet many do, which is why sales rep continue to offer them.
I think it's a little more complicated than that. Back before prices got better, my parents used to call up the cable company every year to "cancel our service". Why? "It's too expensive." Eventually they would "give in" after shaving $20 off our monthly bill. This of course was their intent the whole time: they saved thousands of dollars over about 10 years as a result. Very few people actually determined to cancel…
I've never been able to cancel any subscription with ease, so nowadays I always use Privacy to get temporary credit cards. When I want the subscription cancelled, I try the provider's website, if it doesn't work, I just cancel the card all together.
This sounds like some kind of fraud, or at least an easy way to tank your credit and get debt collectors after you if caught. For what it's worth I've never had trouble canceling anything I've subscribed to.
Imagine having a business model so fragile that your only line of defense is to obscure the cancellation process through these tactics. Do they really think that they can curve their churn this way? I mean best you’re doing is getting maybe another month or so of revenue from a customer who is just pushing the pain of cancelling because they are busy or lazy. And at the end instead of getting what could be a dormant…
I said the phrase "I want to cancel cable but keep internet" 23 times to a Time Warner retention specialist then their supervisor, and I may have talked to her supervisor, too. They get paid to ignore you and read back canned responses like "but what about your favorite channels?", "what about watching sports?", etc. It was the first time my girlfriend had ever seen me angry.
It keeps companies in line.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I said the phrase "I want to cancel cable but keep internet" 23 times to a Time Warner retention specialist then their supervisor, and I may have talked to her supervisor, too. They get paid to ignore you and read back canned responses like "but what about your favorite channels?", "what about watching sports?", etc. It was the first time my girlfriend had ever seen me angry.
The worst experience I had with this involved 4 customer service representatives simply hanging up (after a 30+ minute wait) after exhausting their script. I simply recorded the final call, stopping paying the bill, and sent the documentation I had to the credit reference agency when the contract went into default At some point they sent a debt collection agency, that was much less stressful than it sounds. They call…
Very hard to close the account, even in person. My point was to make sure that there is no recurring payments left on the account.
Similar bullshit. You ask to close the account, and they keep asking you back with a square face.
In the end, a year after I left Canada, I get a call from collectors saying that they have $600+ debt+penalties+interest on my allegedly closed credit card from a service the bank added itself, and that they set my credit score to zero.
Then I found that TD subscribed me on some bullshit "credit alert" right in the month when I asked for account closure.
An immediate WTF was how in the world my credit card was still active. In than latter came out that TD does not let people really close their CC accounts, only "stop them," which only amounts to just hiding you CC from web UI, and that you need specifically say that you want to "really close" the account, which I did. So, next time, if will ever set my foot in the country, I will need to ask them to "really, really, really close my account"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I said the phrase "I want to cancel cable but keep internet" 23 times to a Time Warner retention specialist then their supervisor, and I may have talked to her supervisor, too. They get paid to ignore you and read back canned responses like "but what about your favorite channels?", "what about watching sports?", etc. It was the first time my girlfriend had ever seen me angry.
The worst experience I had with this involved 4 customer service representatives simply hanging up (after a 30+ minute wait) after exhausting their script. I simply recorded the final call, stopping paying the bill, and sent the documentation I had to the credit reference agency when the contract went into default At some point they sent a debt collection agency, that was much less stressful than it sounds. They call…
I subscribed to the NYT a couple years back. I had to talk to a rep to get canceled, and at one point he offered something like half a year for free if I'd keep the subscription. I insisted on canceling, because I was getting irritated, and he laughed out loud that I refused the free offer. Right then they lost me forever as a customer. But it was a valuable lesson on looking at the exit strategy for a service before…
There is value to them in having you as an active subscriber on a paid plan, even if they've given you a discount.