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Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

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Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#391

Post by petsfed »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #107
paxys wrote: post #106

It's bizarre to me just how many people in this country ( especially the ones who can least afford it) simply do not take charge of their financial health. Even in this very thread you can see all kinds of excuses ("it's too hard to log in and check credit card statements every month", "they make you call or chat to cancel so I don't bother", "they should cancel subscriptions automatically if you don't use them", "it…

People tend to act shocked when I tell them my finance app requires me to enter transactions manually and doesn't magically categorize everything. You spend a third of your life working for that money, surely you spend 5 minutes at most tracking how you spend it.

When I was very poor (~$22k/year), I had a google sheet that had a running tally of all my transactions, what category they came from, and was therefore able to forecast months in advance when I'd be able to afford to go to a movie with my partner. If I was going to have a shortfall (maybe because I'd been scheduled for less hours unexpectedly, or I had an unexpected health issue), I'd know weeks in advance if I was at risk of missing rent, and adjust my grocery spending accordingly.

Being exposed to the crushing reality of my poverty, alongside the daily ritual of sending off job applications and reading rejection emails from last week's applications, took a heavy toll on my mental health. If I was running things that close to the bone again, I'm certain I could take that habit up again, but one of the ways I know I've come up is that my survival does not require me to categorize every transaction in real time and confirm adherence to the budget down to the penny.

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#392

Post by anthomtb »

antisthenes wrote: post #300
snarf21 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, was just going to say this is Planet Fitness' whole value prop .. Cheap enough that the lie you tell yourself that you will go more next month is easily worth $10 / month.

Planet fitness hasn't been $10 for a while now. Their cheapest plan is something like $12.99 and with fees it's up to $18 or so. And that was 5 years ago.

That still sounds dirt cheap for a gym. I workout at home or outdoors these days, but my last gym membership (24 Hour Fitness) was $25/month, 5 years ago, and the folks at the front desk were amazed I had that rate.

Aside, is Planet Fitness still unfriendly to people that push themselves during workouts? I'm no bodybuilder and never will be (my little-girl wrists made that decision) but the idea of a "lunk alarm" was rather off-putting.

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#393

Post by bhaney »

grotorea wrote: post #139
marcrosoft wrote: post #3

Use virtual credit cards and privacy.com. It really helps with peace of mind that you can really have a free trial and not worry about it.

Potentially stupid question: if you cancel the virtual credit card, can't the company then send your debt to collections resulting in a bigger headache?

What debt? Typically when you sign up for a service with a free trial, they charge you before each paid period. You get X days for free as part of the trial, then at the end of the trial they attempt to charge you for the next month of service. When that charge declines, they just don't provide you with the next month of service, and all they've given you is the free trial which incurs no debt.

If you're receiving a service at cost but agreeing to pay for it later, then yes they could send you to collections if you refuse to pay it, but that model is only really used for a select few services (some phone plans come to mind). The vast majority of online services are prepay.

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#394

Post by sahila »

jjulius wrote: post #348
sahila wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you can teach yourself, like how most everyone who is looking over themselves financially did. Learning doesn't end with schooling, and for most they know that, doing dance, art, and sport classes for example all on their own. It’s just that financial literacy isn’t a priority.

If it's not a priority for people, and we understand that there is an incredibly wide range of circumstances that everyone is in, much of which don't allow for easy fiscal education, access to it, or time for it, it should be pretty darn obvious that it should be a part of our basic education system. Am I to take your response as a suggestion that we shouldn't bother introducing this subject matter as a requirement a…

Let's add it as a class, I'm not against it. I do have doubts about its efficacy introduced to students in high school before they have their first credit card and their counselors continuing to push the college at all costs view, but it won't hurt.

I'm not sure what the solution is. Frankly I just don't think people are that interested in it - even if you do know about it, looking at your cc bill or budgeting just isn't a thing people want to do. If you know your mortgage jumps up in 5 years, most people will think they'll be able to afford it then. We vote in policies that help the wealthy because everyone assumes that's who they'll be soon enough!

That all being said, I'm not sure how much we should protect people against themselves. I don't mean to take a libertarian view and we can improve the current situation (like making subscription cancelling easier and online), but I don't think solving finances is a tenable one. I'm digressing, but we all like to kick the can down the road, including our national debt or pension obligations.

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#395

Post by ozim »

Alupis wrote: post #128
eropple wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really see how this follows. A perfectly reasonable option that doesn't affect your use case at all would be "don't charge a customer who didn't use the service during that period." AWS doesn't charge me for an empty S3 bucket, Netflix shouldn't charge for zero minutes of video watched that month. Simple as! The downside, of course, is that this does mean you can't ride the Personal Responsibility bicycle and…

What's wrong with people putting on their adulting pants and actually being responsible? Why outsource personal responsibility to a third party? That seems, absurd. "Frazzled and overloaded" is not an excuse for not looking at your bank account one time in 6 months or longer. That's just plain old fashioned irresponsible. If you are at a stage in life where a $10 subscription is hurting, then it stands to reason you…

What’s wrong with people who have no legs, can’t they just put their adulting pants and start walking?

Cool that you are mentally and physically fit, I am as well.

But there are lots of people who struggle with range of mental disorders or disabilities. Some might have depression some might have ADHD, some might just be much more forgetful so they might think it is good to check account balance but 30 mins later they just don’t feel or remember they had to do it.

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#396

Post by cratermoon »

mysterydip wrote: post #4

Forget to? Or involve so many dark patterns it's nearly impossible to?

I was looking for this comment. Sometimes the only way to cancel is to make a telephone call (to a number that may not be easy to find) and wait on hold to talk to a person, who will then do everything they can to convince you to stay.

Companies put a lot of effort into making signup frictionless, I don't buy an excuses that say cancelling is intrinsically harder than signup and can't be streamlined.

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#397

Post by vegashacker »

antisthenes wrote: post #300
snarf21 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, was just going to say this is Planet Fitness' whole value prop .. Cheap enough that the lie you tell yourself that you will go more next month is easily worth $10 / month.

Planet fitness hasn't been $10 for a while now. Their cheapest plan is something like $12.99 and with fees it's up to $18 or so. And that was 5 years ago.

I see $10 on the random location I clicked on: https://www.planetfitness.com/gyms/oakland-ca/offers

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#398

Post by polymatter »

cwillu wrote: post #384

I tried to downsize my google plan from 2tb to 100gb. It's now charging me for both plans every month, and my available space toggles every couple weeks (with dire warnings in every app about being at 90% capacity when it's on the 100gb plan). Support says all the things that are already on the support pages and then throw up their hands and say they don't have access to do anything to fix it.

Sounds like time to consider small claims court.

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#399

Post by YeBanKo »

paxys wrote: post #106

It's bizarre to me just how many people in this country ( especially the ones who can least afford it) simply do not take charge of their financial health. Even in this very thread you can see all kinds of excuses ("it's too hard to log in and check credit card statements every month", "they make you call or chat to cancel so I don't bother", "they should cancel subscriptions automatically if you don't use them", "it…

It's bizarre to me that some people think that American's are somehow more stupid or gullible than other nations. Lots and lots of capital was spent to make sure that Americans are conditioned to spend as much and as frictionless as possible. And now they do and regulation cannot catch up.

> retirement savings, not paying random fees, not paying interest, moving spare money to investment accounts every month, rebalancing your investments every quarter, negotiating rents, negotiating your salary.

Where else do people need to actively manage their pension accounts like in the US? If your employer does not provide a decent 401k they trying to create a solid retirement investment account is an uphill challenge. In most other places it's simply a tax into a pension fund.

> not paying random fees There is very little price transparency. Random fees are typically not random, but hidden. You can't book a rental car online without being hit with some municipal tax or other surcharge at the counter. In SF a health surcharge often added to the bill on top tax. It makes no fucking sense that it is not a part of the price or part of the sales tax. Cellular carriers and ISPs know exactly how much you gonna be paying but will bend backwards to make sure you don't know it until very end.

You are right that basic financial discipline is a personal responsibility, but removing the asymmetry in the relationship between large businesses and consumers is on the government and legal system.

Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel

#400

Post by pixl97 »

Alupis wrote: post #128
eropple wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really see how this follows. A perfectly reasonable option that doesn't affect your use case at all would be "don't charge a customer who didn't use the service during that period." AWS doesn't charge me for an empty S3 bucket, Netflix shouldn't charge for zero minutes of video watched that month. Simple as! The downside, of course, is that this does mean you can't ride the Personal Responsibility bicycle and…

What's wrong with people putting on their adulting pants and actually being responsible? Why outsource personal responsibility to a third party? That seems, absurd. "Frazzled and overloaded" is not an excuse for not looking at your bank account one time in 6 months or longer. That's just plain old fashioned irresponsible. If you are at a stage in life where a $10 subscription is hurting, then it stands to reason you…

About every week there is an article on HN about dark patterns. It's always fun to say "personal responsibility" but that tends to neglect quite often there is a billion dollar entity spending vast amounts of time and money in finding ways to screw you over. It is not about the $10 per individual, it's the fact they may be spreading that behavior across a million people or more that makes that company a danger to the public.
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