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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

#701

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

fuzzer37 wrote: post #474
marcosdumay wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are variations of slavery. "You work or I will make you suffer" is slavery.

> "You work or I will make you suffer" is slavery. All work is slavery.

Actual slaves that don't get paid and get whipped if they don't meet quotas would have a major problem with your statement.

Most of the people here not only have the option of quitting, but a fair number could probably choose not to work for several months, or even the rest of their life. They certainly are not slaves.

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

#703

Post by NikolaNovak »

antasvara wrote: post #600
marginalia_nu wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to delete my Spotify account (in Sweden). Not just cancel, but delete because they inexplicably put my profile on the Internet in full display and I was not even a little bit okay with that. I think 7 different "yes I'm really sure, yes despite the sad violin music and yes despite the images of sad puppies", a support ticket, several emails going back and forth confirming I'm really sure, and then a few more…

I think the general idea is that if they make it difficult enough, some people might just decide that it's not worth canceling. I'm sure there's some metric that says most people canceling a subscription are unlikely to resubscribe, so making it difficult to do so probably increases the likelihood of keeping you by some small percentage, offsetting your likelihood of coming back. The NY Times is a great and slimy exa…

I'm sure their metrics are right overall.

In my case, however, they were wrong: I wanted to pause The Economist as we had a baby and I wasn't going to read a weekly newspaper for a bit... or anything but try to get an infant to survive and try to get some sleep :P

They have a particularly dark pattern where it APPEARS they have an online one-click cancel; they make you go through the whole rigamarole of Yes I'm sure / No I don't want a deal; and only then they send you to an agent, who tries to chat you up about your neighbourhood and build a bond suggest helpful tips to make time to read and generally talk about anything except cancelling your sub.

As a result, my blood is filled with dark seeping hate for The Economist, and what was going to be a 3-month pause is now a life-long mission to dissuade everybody I can from sending them a penny - same as with Goodlife fitness :D.

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

#704

Post by kelp »

California SB-313 (https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...) was passed in 2018 and has this requirement:

"... a consumer who accepts an automatic renewal or continuous service offer online shall be allowed to terminate the automatic renewal or continuous service exclusively online, which may include a termination email formatted and provided by the business that a consumer can send to the business without additional information."

But I have one recent anecdote that suggests this language is not specific enough to lead to a very good outcome.

I had a SiriusXM subscription for my car, and paid $52.21 for the past 12 months of service. And they wanted to renew me for something in the ballpark of $20/month ($240/year). I absolutely hate that business practice and having to go talk to them to negotiate a better rate, otherwise they auto-renew you for a much worse rate than you were already on.

So I went to cancel. There is no click to cancel option. You have to call or do online chat. I think the online chat is how they can say they follow California law.

It still took me about 30+ minutes to actually cancel the service, because the person responding to the chat has to run through a script to try to retain you. First they want to know if you are enjoying the service. Then they want to know what stations you like. Then it's "I'll switch you to this new plan that's only $12/month, can I go ahead and do that?"

All the while I'm telling them that the reason I'm cancelling is that they tried to auto-renew me to a much higher rate, and now they are making it super hard to cancel, which makes me want to cancel more.

So I had to go round and round insisting I wanted to cancel. Never did they offer me anything close to the previous rate I was paying. Though I see now that if I re-enabled my subscription I'd get close to that rate again for 6 months. But for a service that I only use when I don't have good cell phone coverage, and the annual time waste they put me through to avoid over paying... It's not worth it.

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

#705

Post by entropicdrifter »

Zanni wrote: post #630
antasvara wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the general idea is that if they make it difficult enough, some people might just decide that it's not worth canceling. I'm sure there's some metric that says most people canceling a subscription are unlikely to resubscribe, so making it difficult to do so probably increases the likelihood of keeping you by some small percentage, offsetting your likelihood of coming back. The NY Times is a great and slimy exa…

I'm sure it improves retention, but it also negatively affects their subscription rate (probably not as much or they wouldn't do it). The primary reason that I won't subscribe to the NYT is their cancelation policy. Barriers to exit are barriers to entry.

>probably not as much or they wouldn't do it

Bold of you to assume these companies are rational actors

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

#706

Post by kqr2 »

kelp wrote: post #704

California SB-313 ( https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... ) was passed in 2018 and has this requirement: "... a consumer who accepts an automatic renewal or continuous service offer online shall be allowed to terminate the automatic renewal or continuous service exclusively online, which may include a termination email formatted and provided by the business that a consumer can send to the bu…

Does this also apply to gym memberships which are notoriously difficult to cancel?

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

#707

Post by chirau »

strenholme wrote: post #344

Since I live in California, which has a “click to subscribe means you must have click to cancel” regulation, this isn’t an issue for me. After the New York Times published their inaccurate hit piece attacking Scott Alexander and Slate Star Codex/Astral Codex Ten, I was able to cancel online just clicking my way through. I now subscribe to The Wall Street Journal, which looks to be the most neutral newspaper right now…

Wall Street Journal robbed me this way.

I clicked to subscribe to a paid membership for both print and web. Then when I wanted to cancel, they sent me to a chatbot. The chatbot told me told it had unsubscribed me. Three months later (I wasn't at home), I realized WSJ was still charging me monthly for a WSJ subscription. I called them to see what is going on, they told me you can only unsubscribe via a call. I told them I had used the bot which was the only option on the site and it confirmed that I had been unsubscribed. The person told me it only unsubscribed you from Barron's not WSJ.

So yup, after 10 years of loyalty to them, they definitely burnt me and I will never subscribe to them or any of their publications ever again.

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

#708

Post by kazinator »

bjoli wrote: post #571
eckesicle wrote: post #502

Meanwhile in Scandinavia: You are legally entitled to unsubscribe from any contract in any way that is most comfortable to you. [0] For example, you can: * send them a letter * send them an email * call them and tell anyone who picks up the phone * write it on a napkin and hand it to an employee All are equally legit and legally binding. Companies obviously do not want to deal with the manual overhead, so services ty…

Sixt (car rental) did not follow these rules. The procedure was something like "write a letter to out german head quarters". I ended up making a GDPR request for them to first send me all data they had and then remove any data (including email addresses) they had on me. I will hopefully never have to use their services again.

Avis sends me a monthly statement for $0 dollars, even though I have not rented a car in years. :)

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

#709

Post by cwp »

kelp wrote: post #704

California SB-313 ( https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... ) was passed in 2018 and has this requirement: "... a consumer who accepts an automatic renewal or continuous service offer online shall be allowed to terminate the automatic renewal or continuous service exclusively online, which may include a termination email formatted and provided by the business that a consumer can send to the bu…

Damn, I had that exact same experience. Eventually, in exasperation I said something like "I don't want you to respect my wishes, I want you to act on them." And somehow that did the trick and the CSR cancelled immediately. Of course, I then got increasingly insistent spam from them for the next year.

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

#710

Post by mynameisvlad »

_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…

> No it shouldn't and that should be obvious.

Explain why that should be obvious. If you’re building a service for a customer, said customer should be your top priority.

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