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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

#461

Post by newshorts »

Nothing is easier than mailing a letter. You don’t even need a router for it!

Simply click to subscribe and mail us a letter of intent to cancel when you want. Of course it will take us 60 days to process mail and if your handwriting isn’t great we might not be able to read your account number.

To access your account number, simply log in and click the lower right hand side of the page 5 times while holding the shift key down. If your account number doesn’t show up, call tech support.

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

#462

Post by drstewart »

daenz wrote: post #422
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…

>so they sent my account to a collections agency Important clarification: they sold your account to a collections agency. They made more than what you actually owed them by doing that, which is probably why they did that.

> They made more than what you actually owed them by doing that

This makes absolutely zero sense and does not happen. Why would the collections agency pay more for debt than it's worth? Why wouldn't they sell all their accounts then? Free increase in profits!

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

#463

Post by nobody9999 »

daenz wrote: post #422
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…

>so they sent my account to a collections agency Important clarification: they sold your account to a collections agency. They made more than what you actually owed them by doing that, which is probably why they did that.

>Important clarification: they sold your account to a collections agency. They made more than what you actually owed them by doing that, which is probably why they did that.

I had this experience some years back.

The obnoxious collections agent (no robocalls for that stuff back then) tried to bully me.

I just laughed and wished them luck getting a penny out of me. Never heard from them again.

Nothing on my credit report either.

Perhaps things are different now.

Something to remember is that corporations (including collections agencies) have to pay lawyers if they want to take legal action against you.

And at $250-$400/hour, unless the "debt" is in the many thousands, it's generally not worth it to sue.

Note that I'm not suggesting that anyone stiff their creditors. Rather, it's useful to keep that bit of information in mind when dealing with unfair/unethical attempts to extort money[0] from you.

[0] Especially when a "collection agency" (read legal extortion racket) purchases your "debt" for pennies on the dollar.

Edit: Added detail about "debt" purchasing.

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

#464

Post by jdc0589 »

nunez wrote: post #459

This is amazing. I wanted to delete a bunch of services I had passwords for in 1Password. A significant number of them couldn't be cancelled online. You couldn't even call. You had to email to ask for a cancellation. This, in effect, meant that they held your data hostage. Of course, this means nothing if fees aren't associated with non-compliance.

this is only useful for some paid services (and does nothing to deal with your data they still have), but virtual credit cards are a life saver. I feel powerful every time I can't cancel something from a service's website but I can just go kill the virtual credit card I signed up with.

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

#465

Post by Spivak »

jjk166 wrote: post #445
HelixEndeavor wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 subsc…

I'm gonna need one concrete example of this because I cannot for the life of me think of a single instance where bundled subscriptions, "buying Showtime through your cable provider" shouldn't be required to allow cancellation through the place you bought it.

Sure, it sucks day one that 3rd party sellers don't have cancellation flows but it's not an intractable problem.

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

#466

Post by unethical_ban »

taxyz23 wrote: post #437

I totally agree that call to cancel is a PITA and companies should be called on the carpet for it. The prime example of this is when I tried to cancel my Consumer Reports subscription a few years ago and it required me to Snail Mail a cancellation. What hypocrisy. But government intervention and more red tape is not the answer. Public shaming and taking your business elsewhere works better and maintains freedom. Othe…

Ah yes, that free market where any rapscallion can create a multi-hundred-reporter corps filled with publisher and Nobel prize winning staff spread across the globe to report on current events and politics.

You can't fork the NYT.

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

#467

Post by golemotron »

> To comply with the law, businesses must ensure sign-ups are clear, consensual, and easy to cancel. Specifically, businesses should provide cancellation mechanisms that are at least as easy to use as the method the customer used to buy the product or service in the first place.

That's a tall order with one-click.

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

#468

Post by mindslight »

user3939382 wrote: post #328
koheripbal wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some might try that but one call with the FTC legal team will make any company stop that shit immediately. You don't piss off gov't regulators

> You don't piss off gov't regulators Yep. If you deal with them you learn quickly that all that “splitting hairs” stuff you see in Hollywood dramas buys you nothing. For a lot of administrative compliance, with the state or Feds, they are judge jury and executioner and the rules are what they say they are. Unless you have a lot of money and influence don’t play games with them.

You're certainly right for personal advice, but does the New York Times not have a lot of money? They've certainly got the influence bit covered. Once you can buy enough of your own bureaucrats to tie up their bureaucrats, regulators' power isn't so clear.

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

#469

Post by lostcolony »

jdc0589 wrote: post #464
nunez wrote: post #459

This is amazing. I wanted to delete a bunch of services I had passwords for in 1Password. A significant number of them couldn't be cancelled online. You couldn't even call. You had to email to ask for a cancellation. This, in effect, meant that they held your data hostage. Of course, this means nothing if fees aren't associated with non-compliance.

this is only useful for some paid services (and does nothing to deal with your data they still have), but virtual credit cards are a life saver. I feel powerful every time I can't cancel something from a service's website but I can just go kill the virtual credit card I signed up with.

Though you still need a documentation trail showing the attempted cancelation, lest you find your credit history affected and a some scummy collection agency trying to collect years later.

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

#470

Post by repiret »

twothamendment wrote: post #386
user3939382 wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't piss off gov't regulators Yep. If you deal with them you learn quickly that all that “splitting hairs” stuff you see in Hollywood dramas buys you nothing. For a lot of administrative compliance, with the state or Feds, they are judge jury and executioner and the rules are what they say they are. Unless you have a lot of money and influence don’t play games with them.

Yup, the same rules apply to building inspectors. You better hope you get the good one because they can twist codes around on a whim and they are always right.

Depends on the inspector and the contractor. More than once I’ve had contractors successfully win arguments with building inspectors in the wrong.
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