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

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

#71

Post by tchalla »

nivenkos wrote: post #34
_Donny wrote: post #5

Living in Europe, I couldn't believe that if I wanted to unsubscribe to New York Times, I would need to call one of their hotlines which operated in US time-zones. IIRC the open hours were after midnight in my timezone, and their local hotline was out of order. I seriously thought that I had signed up for a phishing site ...

It's just as bad in Europe! Signed up to O2 Deutschland - had to send a fax or send a physical letter to cancel.

There are 3 ways to cancel an O2 contract - (1) Online intimation + phone call, (2) Letter or (3) Fax [0]. Most routers (like Fritzbox) come with a fax function which you send an online fax [1]. O2 charges a maximum of 0.14 cents per fax page or free based on your DSL plan. Alternatively, you can also send a physical letter online (0.70 cents) [2].

Your comment below says that there is no receipt for confirmation. O2 provides a default PDF form on their website which to fill for termination. The letter explicitly states that "o2 should send you a written confirmation of cancellation". It is illegal for O2 to be in receipt of a letter and not send a confirmation. I am sorry if that happened to you!

Don't get me wrong - the auto-renewal of contract practices in Germany are predatory for the consumers. Recently, there has been a change in law that forces providers to extend contracts by 1 month instead of 1 or 2 years.

[0] https://www.o2online.de/service/kuendigung/

[1] https://en.avm.de/service/knowledge-base/dok/FRITZ-Box-7490/...

[2] https://www.deutschepost.de/de/e/epost.html

[3] https://static2.o9.de/resource/blob/498264/12cd6ca6ee17a02b9...

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

#72

Post by t0mas88 »

nivenkos wrote: post #34
_Donny wrote: post #5

Living in Europe, I couldn't believe that if I wanted to unsubscribe to New York Times, I would need to call one of their hotlines which operated in US time-zones. IIRC the open hours were after midnight in my timezone, and their local hotline was out of order. I seriously thought that I had signed up for a phishing site ...

It's just as bad in Europe! Signed up to O2 Deutschland - had to send a fax or send a physical letter to cancel.

That's illegal in Europe. You have to be able to cancel via the same means as you signed up. So if you can signup online then you must be able to cancel online.

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

#73

Post by huhtenberg »

nivenkos wrote: post #34
_Donny wrote: post #5

Living in Europe, I couldn't believe that if I wanted to unsubscribe to New York Times, I would need to call one of their hotlines which operated in US time-zones. IIRC the open hours were after midnight in my timezone, and their local hotline was out of order. I seriously thought that I had signed up for a phishing site ...

It's just as bad in Europe! Signed up to O2 Deutschland - had to send a fax or send a physical letter to cancel.

Probably no less than 90 days in advance too.

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

#74

Post by rich_sasha »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #63
rich_sasha wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few times I found it was easier to cancel a card than to cancel a subscription. I still find it insane that the "normal" way to pay for goods and services is to pass full details of your payment card, sufficient to make any future payment, and just trust the merchant. Surely the sane way is you generate some token they can redeem against, but you can e.g. expire it or modify it. It thankfully is now more of a thing…

You hand that info to the merchant because your credit card company can issue chargebacks against them and that costs them a pretty penny with their payment processor, especially if it happens often. Credit card disputes almost always slant in favor of the customer. Folks just don't seem to realize: you make a reasonable effort with the vendor, and then go straight to your credit card company. I caught a restaurant "…

I believe this doesn't work with debit cards, which are the norm in Europe.

Still though, it's a weird system. Instead of giving someone just enough permissions to spend my money, I give them permissions to spend all of it, with some other party reimbursing me if that goes awry (and I notice).

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

#75

Post by hnarn »

nasir wrote: post #64
nivenkos wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just as bad in Europe! Signed up to O2 Deutschland - had to send a fax or send a physical letter to cancel.

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 least in my part of Europe. If you simply stop paying, you are denying the other party N months of revenue (your cancellation period) that you are contractually obliged to pay. You are now defaulting on your payments and will likely pay additional fees.

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

#76

Post by dazc »

aigo wrote: post #28

The Times of London does this, and so does The Telegraph. Most of my subscriptions go via PayPal or Google so I can just cancel the payment and eventually my service will be cancelled for lack of payment.

The Telegraph have stopped doing it. I think they have now realised it's counter-productive. Hopefully, others will follow.

Incidentally, I also think it's now common knowledge that unsubscribing will, in most case, initiate a lower price offer.

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

#77

Post by t0mas88 »

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.

Not just Portugal, this is a European thing but apparently Germany hasn't implemented it yet and will do so starting next year.

That's the weird thing with some European "laws", they give countries 1 or 2 years to implement it and some countries abuse that to go and implement it on the very last day.

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

#78

Post by hnarn »

t0mas88 wrote: post #72
nivenkos wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just as bad in Europe! Signed up to O2 Deutschland - had to send a fax or send a physical letter to cancel.

That's illegal in Europe. You have to be able to cancel via the same means as you signed up. So if you can signup online then you must be able to cancel online.

Source?

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

#79

Post by fundatus »

rich_sasha wrote: post #30
_Donny wrote: post #5

Living in Europe, I couldn't believe that if I wanted to unsubscribe to New York Times, I would need to call one of their hotlines which operated in US time-zones. IIRC the open hours were after midnight in my timezone, and their local hotline was out of order. I seriously thought that I had signed up for a phishing site ...

A few times I found it was easier to cancel a card than to cancel a subscription. I still find it insane that the "normal" way to pay for goods and services is to pass full details of your payment card, sufficient to make any future payment, and just trust the merchant. Surely the sane way is you generate some token they can redeem against, but you can e.g. expire it or modify it. It thankfully is now more of a thing…

It's not a token, but similar: Europe has Direct Debit mandates, which you give to the biller and they can be revoked.

https://gocardless.com/guides/sepa/mandates/

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

#80

Post by bedobi »

neya wrote: post #59

Fuck New York Times, I had to go through this chaos once and promised to never ever use any of their services ever again. I even went to the pain of making sure all my ad blockers were in full force when visiting the NYT. I developed a strong sense of hatred after realize what kind of slimy tactics they used to stop you from cancelling a subscription. One day, I found a loophole. I would email them requesting a cance…

> God, I never realized how passionately I could hate a company like this.

May it burn in hell huh xD sorry but this is so relatable and cracks me up badddd

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