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Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it

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Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it

#451

Post by neop1x »

samcheng wrote: post #99
tech-historian wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in 2006 an AOL subscriber recorded their conversation with an AOL customer service agent while trying to cancel the service. It was really bad, way worse than this NYTimes process. The NYT wrote an article about the debacle [1] and had this to say about Netflix's great customer service and ease of cancellation, compared to AOL's awful service: "Seeing how Netflix would be so protective of my time were I to leave…

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...

Interesting. I cancelled Netflix account 7 months ago and haven't used it since. A few days ago I received "Action needed: Reset your password" due to allegedly "suspicious sign-in". After changing the password and looking into the Recent activity, I couldn't see any suspicious recent login there. So I contacted the support and they said cancelled accounts are deleted after 10 months since cancellation. So now, with 3 months remaining, they apparently send a fake "suspicious sign-in" email in an attempt to convince me to re-activate the account. The email they sent was legit (no phishing) but there was near-zero probability of someone signing in because I used netflix-specific email address and randomly generated password for this account. EDIT: I also think they are breaking GDPR by keeping the account for 10 months after cancellation.

Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it

#452

Post by alfiedotwtf »

sliken wrote: post #426
flovec wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had success pursuing bad i.e. potentially illegal cancellation practices by filing a complaint through the attorney general's office where the company is located. In my case: 1) First I had a rough time cancelling my account _in person_ at a T-mobile store. The remote T-mobile employees in charge of cancellation kept hanging up on the T-mobile employees calling them from the store because cancellations are bad.…

Wow, had similar. I cancelled online, they said my account was in good standing, nothing owed, and killed my t-mobile.com account. A few months later I got a collections notice for $500 from t-mobile, went to a t-mobile store, said that my account looked weird, and they had recorded me as not owning my phone, despite a clear account history that I paid full price for the phone and didn't owe anything. Still get colle…

All these stories... is this an American-only thing and is common place? Because there’s no way that could happen here in Australia

Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it

#453

Post by phlo »

e-clinton wrote: post #125
hda2 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't call this generosity. This is the normal conduct of normal honest businesses.

Normal? What other business does that? I can’t think of one.

SkyDemon (a flight planning and navigation app) is a delight for subscribers:

* Subscriptions are for one year at a time, and have transparently indicated pricing. No "$2.71 per day, charged annually", no hidden tips, taxes or convenience fees.

* If you don't use the app for a few months, they auto-extend your subscription by an extra month as a courtesy.

* When your annual subscription is about to expire, they send a reminder a few weeks and another a few days before the expiration. If you don't renew, you get a final "Sorry to see you go, here's how to reactivate for $annual_price, if you don't renew we'll delete your stored data in a few months" email.

This is how subscriptions should work. They send an appropriate amount of notification at a good schedule to make sure you don't accidentally forget to renew, and don't pester you to death if you don't.

Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it

#454

Post by dd36 »

sliken wrote: post #426
flovec wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had success pursuing bad i.e. potentially illegal cancellation practices by filing a complaint through the attorney general's office where the company is located. In my case: 1) First I had a rough time cancelling my account _in person_ at a T-mobile store. The remote T-mobile employees in charge of cancellation kept hanging up on the T-mobile employees calling them from the store because cancellations are bad.…

Wow, had similar. I cancelled online, they said my account was in good standing, nothing owed, and killed my t-mobile.com account. A few months later I got a collections notice for $500 from t-mobile, went to a t-mobile store, said that my account looked weird, and they had recorded me as not owning my phone, despite a clear account history that I paid full price for the phone and didn't owe anything. Still get colle…

FCRA claim for damages if you were denied credit or paid a higher price for something, like a mortgage or car insurance.

Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it

#455

Post by eightails »

kristianc wrote: post #144
e-clinton wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normal? What other business does that? I can’t think of one.

If you don’t use Amazon Prime during the trial period (or over the year if you sign up for a year) Amazon auto refund you.

Also if you accidentally let your Prime roll over for another month and you try to cancel a few days later without having bought anything that month, they'll offer to refund the most recent payment. Happened to me a few weeks ago, I was surprised.

Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it

#456

Post by spuz »

neop1x wrote: post #451
samcheng wrote: post #99

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...

Interesting. I cancelled Netflix account 7 months ago and haven't used it since. A few days ago I received "Action needed: Reset your password" due to allegedly "suspicious sign-in". After changing the password and looking into the Recent activity, I couldn't see any suspicious recent login there. So I contacted the support and they said cancelled accounts are deleted after 10 months since cancellation. So now, with…

It sounds like there are two departments in Netflix working against each other. One is trying to make sure that customers have a positive experience (not paying for a service they don't use) and the other trying to retain revenue by any means necessary (sending fake security warnings to artificially trigger activity on an account).

Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it

#457

Post by sumedh »

neop1x wrote: post #451
samcheng wrote: post #99

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...

Interesting. I cancelled Netflix account 7 months ago and haven't used it since. A few days ago I received "Action needed: Reset your password" due to allegedly "suspicious sign-in". After changing the password and looking into the Recent activity, I couldn't see any suspicious recent login there. So I contacted the support and they said cancelled accounts are deleted after 10 months since cancellation. So now, with…

Damm, same thing happened to me. I initially thought I was going crazy that my password was hacked but something did not feel right about that suspicious sign in email.

Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it

#458

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

chmod600 wrote: post #278

I just cancelled and it was relatively painless, to their credit. When they asked the reason, I said that political coverage was unfair. Left is OK, unfair is not. I don't consider myself "on the left" but I really don't mind a publication being left of center or right of center. If it's good, I will pay for it (I subscribed tp The Atlantic at least twice, and the New Yorker once, and probably others in a mix of prin…

The New York Times' dismissive responses to leading American historians like Gordon Wood and James McPherson when they pointed out distortions and inaccuracies in the 1619 Project was an eye-opener to me.

The NY Times promoted an extremely suspect hypothesis about the American Revolution (that it was fought in order to preserve slavery - there's essentially no evidence for this hypothesis), and got push-back from some of the top historians of the US. The NY Times' response was essentially, "You're wrong, and we're not changing anything." Then the NY Times' own fact checker published an article in Politico pointing out that she had warned the NY Times not to claim the revolution was fought in order to preserve slavery, but that the NY Times had ignored her. That finally prompted the NY Times to issue a slight modification of their claim ("some" of the colonists fought to preserve slavery - which colonists is completely unclear, but at least the updated statement is so vague that it can't be disproven).

All around, it was clear that the NY Times had an agenda to push, and they didn't care if historians disagreed. That didn't stop the 1619 Project from winning a Pulitzer, though!

Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it

#459

Post by thinkingemote »

knorker wrote: post #369
jb775 wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they want to persuade me to hold a set of opinions Glad more people are realizing this. It's harder to spot/acknowledge for people on the left since the biased coverage feeds into their worldview...in my opinion it's artificially solidified their confidence on how "correct" they feel they are about political topics. The next step in this realization is nothing to do with one-sided reporting, it's the massive scale…

The right don't have agenda-pushing affect their world view? Huh? There was recently an attempted insurrection based on fake news, you know. I must say though that Fox News has gotten downright rational (on all things) since then. Politically biased, sure, but they're actually news lately.

the comment you replied to didn't comment about the right, but that bias is "harder to spot/acknowledge for people on the left"

The implied reverse therefore would be that it's easier for people on the right to see bias in the media. Not that the right dont have bias.

Re: Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it

#460

Post by tvphan »

Theory5 wrote: post #36
whoisjuan wrote: post #25

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…

This happened to me with audible. They didn't have the cancel subscription on the app. Had to hunt for it on the site. Was asked if i was suuuuuuure i wanted to leave, 3 separate times before it canceled. Definitely not thinking of doing that again, or like i do for some streaming services, pay for a couple months, stop, then pay for a few more. Utterly rediculous.

This probably has to do with Apple charging 30% for any in-app payments so Audible didn’t bother implementing any payments / subscriptions functionality on their app.
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