“Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says • Hacker News Board

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

#691

Post by apendleton » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 7:18 PM UTC

DrammBA wrote: post #530

meshaneian wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general "should" is a recommendation, not a requirement. "shall" indicates a requirement "should" indicates a recommendation "may" is used to indicate that something is permitted "can" is used to indicate that something is possible, for example, that an organization or individual is able to do something https://www.iso.org/foreword-supplementary-information.html https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt Additionally, y…

If you don't mind me asking, what's the point of "should"? Usually anything that is not a hard requirement is promptly ignored, so I'm not clear why is time devoted to create "should" statements.

The way they've framed this is not that it's a new rule, but rather, a statement as to how they intend to enforce the existing rules that are already on the books, and a "recommendation" to regulated entities as to what actions they should/shouldn't take in order to not suffer negative enforcement consequences (in other words, it's not "the rule is now that you must do this," but rather "just FYI, our interpretation of current rules/statutes/whatever is that behavior X is already prohibited, so if you don't want to get in trouble with us for failing to comply, you really ought to do this").

This is advantageous to the agency if they can get away with it because new rulemaking involves a bunch of extra, lengthy process under the Administrative Procedures Act (they have to publish a bunch of drafts and collect public comments on them, then address any substantive comments they receive, etc.).

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

#692

Post by daenz » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 7:18 PM UTC

vinaypai wrote: post #585

daenz wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Um, no. Collection agencies buy debt at a discount, and make a profit if they manage to collect the full amount. It would make no sense for them to buy debt for more than what is owed.

I can't edit my original post now, but I misread that the account grew from more than just $2 before it was sold. If the gym sold a $2 account to a collections agency, the collection agency buying it lines up with my experience of them tacking on hundreds of dollars in overhead costs when they try to collect.

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

#693

Post by mwest217 » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 7:19 PM UTC

GloriousKoji wrote: post #667

ww520 wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citi and Capitol One have the virtual credit card feature.

While I'm super glad that Citi added the Virtual Account Number feature back to their credit cards, I'm puzzled by the fact that the virtual credit card numbers can no longer have an associated total spending limit. Now it's a daily spending limit which is fairly useless.

As of a few months ago they could have an aggregate spending limit, I used it in June.

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

#694

Post by apendleton » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 7:20 PM UTC

susiecambria wrote: post #444

dhimes wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just responded to another comment to the same effect, but this is neither a law nor a regulation, but rather a policy statement, probably so they can get away with not having to go through APA-mandated notice-and-comment rulemaking, so it's deliberately framed as recommendations for how to comply with existing rules/statutes rather than creation of new ones.

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

#695

Post by subsubzero » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 7:21 PM UTC

Great job on cracking down on illegal behavior from bad actors.

The next step I'd like to see is to focus on having deletion of accounts made very easy for all apps. Alot of web/social media companies make creating a account dead simple, but when you want to delete an account the tab is hidden by dark pattern design, or its made extremely complex and time consuming by sending multiple emails to different 'departments'. Account deletion should be legally as simple as account creation.

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

#696

Post by anandsuresh » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 7:21 PM UTC

About time this happened. I experienced this with the ACLU, of all the entities out there using this dark pattern. Enable subscriptions online to donate to the ACLU, but if you changed your mind, you have to get the phone to cancel. Needless to say, I just let my credit card expire.

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

#697

Post by KennyBlanken » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 7:22 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #683

napo wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I had the opposite experience. I'm French and I spent 2 years in the US. I had a T-mobile subscription, and it was too painful to cancel my subscription. With my accent I could barely pass the robot that was trying to understand why I was calling. Then when I had someone on the phone, the call just dropped, in the middle of conversations. I did that a few times and then gave up. I assume I'll also receive a no…

T-Mobile has stores all over and they can help you cancel in person (I did this in the US, and it's very common to change carriers). I suspect you can also cancel online. You can also pay with credit card, and in extreme cases you can have your credit card company decline/block charges (I had to do this when Hertz tried to defraud me out of hundreds of dollars). I also suspect banks will happily decline/block charges…

Former Tmobile customer here. I ended up with an account on my credit report because tmobile never actually closed the account and kept right on billing me.

Twice. Once back in the late 90's when they were called something else, I think...and again a few years ago.

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

#698

Post by nasir » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 7:22 PM UTC

hnarn wrote: post #75

nasir wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can instruct your bank to stop the direct debit payments and they'll cancel your subscription.

You shouldn't say this to people like it's some obvious truth. There are many cases in which this action will land you in trouble due to it not being a legally valid termination of the contract (which of course may be different by country -- it's very common that cancelling requires an actual message to the other party). One specific example is if your contract has a termination period, which is pretty common, at lea…

I agree with your point that you could get into trouble for violating your contract terms. I perhaps should have mentioned specifically about NYTimes which seem to have designed around people blocking the payments to cancel their subscription.

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

#699

Post by throwaway894345 » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 7:23 PM UTC

MisterTea wrote: post #685

napo wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I had the opposite experience. I'm French and I spent 2 years in the US. I had a T-mobile subscription, and it was too painful to cancel my subscription. With my accent I could barely pass the robot that was trying to understand why I was calling. Then when I had someone on the phone, the call just dropped, in the middle of conversations. I did that a few times and then gave up. I assume I'll also receive a no…

Thankfully living in a big city in the USA there are T mobile stores you can go to and speak to a human being face to face.

I don't think you even need to be in a particularly big city. I think most cities of at least 50k population have one even if it's just a kiosk in a mall.

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

#700

Post by another-dave » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 7:24 PM UTC

_2d30 wrote: post #652

mynameisvlad wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Customer choice and experience should almost always trump “increased costs”. Plus, this ignores practically the entirety of the rest of their comment, where they explain that the extreme openness just means that companies make it absurdly easy to do so they explicitly don’t have to deal with all that.

> Customer choice and experience should almost always trump “increased costs”. No it shouldn't and that should be obvious. > Plus, this ignores practically the entirety of the rest of their comment, where they explain that the extreme openness just means that companies make it absurdly easy to do so they explicitly don’t have to deal with all that. Yes, this is good, but the FTC's ruling does this as well so it's bet…

I imagine though that you'll still have companies trying to stretch the definition of "at least as easy as sign-up" to breaking point.

You didn't just "click to sign up", you probably filled in a sign-up form to create an account, clicked on a link in your email to validate your account, then filled in another form to add payment info.

I wouldn't be surprised to see companies saying we can have multiple, multi-page 'exit' forms and an "Are you sure?" email and still be FTC compliant.