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

niemanlab.org

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

#441

Post by flanbiscuit »

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.

> you can cancel any service using the same means that you used to subscribe it

This should be the way for everything. I'm about to move and I need to cancel my power and my cable and I just want it to be as easy as logging into the system, selecting my last day of service, and that's it

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

#442

Post by RankingMember »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #341
aristophenes wrote: post #316

I had to cancel my gym membership because I was moving, and it required me to send a physical letter. I did this, but found out later that somehow I owed like 2 dollars, so they didn’t count my cancellation request because my account wasn’t up to date (should be illegal). They continued to bill me the entire membership fee, but my credit card had changed, so they sent my account to a collections agency. Right when I…

This behavior is everywhere in the gym industry. It is so bad that the last time I joined a gym, I paid for a year up front with a physical check. I told them i don’t have credit or debit cards (lie) and can only pay by check. At the end of the year, I walked away and never got any letters about paying a renewal or anything.

This is the only way to do gym memberships with peace of mind right now. Gym membership cancellation practices are in desperate need of regulation.

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

#444

Post by susiecambria »

dhimes wrote: post #361
xg15 wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, this sounds a lot better. Thanks for digging in!

I would like it better if the word "shall" was used instead of "should."

Agree. As a policy wonk, I find it particularly odd since "shall" is the language of lawmakers and regulators.

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

#445

Post by jjk166 »

HelixEndeavor wrote: post #412
hwers wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> mandating that cancelling must be possible using the same workflow as subscription I'd rather not put into the law that strict a requirement on our UI design.

I would like to see 1 reason you would find that this UI restriction would be a bad thing.

Let's say you subscribe to something as part of a 3rd party bundle, like say you sign up for newsletter A and there's a whole bunch of other options and you leave newsletter B selected to also subscribe to that. Then the workflow for unsubscribing from B would be going through the subscription workflow for A. This would be bad for all parties: it may be difficult or even impossible for the B group to change A's subscription workflow, group A likely suffers increased churn as pissed off consumers have its subscription manager open anyways, but most importantly it's incredibly unintuitive for the consumer to go through A to change B, especially if they are only loosely related.

While maybe rare for spam email, it's a pretty common scenario for downloaded software. But more generally, there are lots of workflows that are substantially easier in one direction than the reverse. You'd either need to ban all such UIs that are directional, or you open up a huge loophole for bad actors.

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

#446

Post by myfavoritedog »

I signed up for an introductory rate subscription to an online publication, then when the introductory rate was running out, I thoroughly intended to just let it continue at the higher rate.

By chance, I noticed that if I DID want to cancel, I needed to call. The wrongness of the tactic made my decision for me. I called them right away to cancel and let them know that I would have continued with my subscription, but I wouldn't pay for a publication that used unethical retention practices.

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

#447

Post by lrem »

hwers wrote: post #251
xg15 wrote: post #167

> including an option that’s “at least as easy” as the one to subscribe Weirdly enough this sounds like a loophole. I can already see some companies trying to bullshit their way through an investigation: "Oh sure, we don't provide online cancellation, because our way to cancel is even easier than online:" * presents a way to cancel that is in practice more difficult than online *. I think either mandating that cancel…

> mandating that cancelling must be possible using the same workflow as subscription I'd rather not put into the law that strict a requirement on our UI design.

In the meantime I'm sitting here and reading how the way out of one service includes registered mail. Probably multiple, couldn't figure that out. Fun, eh?

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

#448

Post by IncRnd »

8ytecoder wrote: post #409
dhimes wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like it better if the word "shall" was used instead of "should."

Aren’t that the same? I thought ‘must’ would be more appropriate.

Those words actually differ in these sorts of documents but are used as "terms of art".

  Shall is a mandatory requirement.
  Should implies a goal and is non-mandatory.
  Must is not often used, since it really doesn't seem different from Shall.

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

#449

Post by AlwaysRock »

aristophenes wrote: post #316

I had to cancel my gym membership because I was moving, and it required me to send a physical letter. I did this, but found out later that somehow I owed like 2 dollars, so they didn’t count my cancellation request because my account wasn’t up to date (should be illegal). They continued to bill me the entire membership fee, but my credit card had changed, so they sent my account to a collections agency. Right when I…

Gyms are the worst about this. Typically they make it very difficult to cancel and say something like you have to notify them 30 days in advanced and pay for 30 days after you cancel. Effectively making you pay for two months you don't want. Almost every cheap gym is doing this.
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