This will be great for insurance and gym customers. Both make it as difficult as possible to cancel.
“Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says
721–730 of 890 posts
Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says
#722Earlier quoted context omitted.
My personal favorite was a poorly-timed stop light, with a red-light camera. If you entered the intersection as the light turned yellow, and drove the speed limit, you would still be partially in the intersection when the light turned red. And promptly get a ticket in the mail. Nobody realized what was happening (at least not those on the receiving end of the tickets) until my high school math teacher got one. She we…
Then gets sued for practicing engineering without a license. In a display of civic engagement, Mats emailed the Oregon State Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying in the hopes that they could help him raise public awareness and asked for their “support and help to investigate and present the laws of physics related to transportation engineering.” He got the opposite. After curtly informing Mats that t…
This sounds like a power tripping bureaucrat more than anything. I would take it up on appeal. Heck, might even be able to find a lawyer to help bring up a countersuit on contingency.
Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says
#723Meanwhile 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…
How does this law translate to decentralized contracts/subscriptions? It may not be possible to support these analog mediums on an Ethereum smart contract for example.
I don't think the law really cares about this sort of thing.
Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says
#724Great job FTC/Lima. We need it and you delivered. On a separate note. Why is it really hard for HN community to make a compliment? Yes, some companies will try to skirt around. But most of us seem to agree this is a step in the right direction and being hopeful is nice.
> On a separate note. Why is it really hard for HN community to make a compliment? You can find a bunch of compliments in this thread, and others. Don't portray the "HN community" as a monolithic entity with a single will. It's not. And trying to guilt-trip the community into making compliments is bad form, really annoying, boring to read, and goes against the spirit of intellectual curiosity.
I agree with you otherwise, but please edit out swipes like that last sentence. It's not necessary and not in the spirit of "Be kind" [etc.] à la https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says
#725Dark patterns aren't just for cancellations. A couple years back, a friend bought me a one year gift subscription for Britbox[0]. When I tried to activate the gift subscription, the site refused to allow me to do so unless I provided them with a credit card number. Which, from a practical standpoint, makes no sense as it was a gift . I wasn't going to provide these wankers with my credit card number[0], so I then had…
This is one reason I miss one-time credit card numbers. My main credit card used to allow you to generate one-time numbers. You could control the limit on the numbers, how long they would last, you could edit this, and so forth and so on. I loved it because you could give a different unique card number to each site, that would self-destruct after a specified amount of time. It was great for stuff like this because if…
Not trying to do an advert here, but privacy.com does offer this as a service. I've never used them myself, but if you don't mind paying a bit of money (subscription fee, I think?) this is a good option.
Personally, I think all banks should offer this type of service! It sounds wonderful.
Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says
#726I dealt with "fax to cancel" I think as recently as 2018.
The wackiness is almost expected
Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says
#727Earlier 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…
The UK Times did the same thing to me, except I had to call at 2am my time (no 24-hour service) in order to sit on hold and then get the "are you aware of all the features?/we can give you a special deal" pitch some poor woman with a cough had to read.
Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says
#728California 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…
Some car companies require you to sign you up for a "free" SiriusXM subscription with a new car purchase, which you then have to go through the effort to cancel.
I told the dealership I'd never buy a car from their brand again because of this.
Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says
#729Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many of us are trying to do exactly that. Can you explain how smugly proclaiming "see how we are better than you!?" furthers the conversation? It is not a constructive comment, it does not offer any meaningful insight to how we might improve the US. It's just divisive.
Showcasing a better system that the US could emulate is a great way to offer insight into how the US could improve. Interpreting it as "See how we are better than you!?" -- literally no one has said this. Interpreting it like that is just putting insecurity on display. Given the choice of two reactions: - "Geez, that system does sound better than what we've got going on here, we should consider adopting it" and - "I…
> Interpreting it like that is just putting insecurity on display.
Of course, that's exactly it. Responding to every single thread about the US with "I don't understand why the US is this way, we do it better" isn't divisive at all. And anybody who suggests so is insecure.
I prefer a constructive discussion. This ain't one.
Re: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, FTC says
#730Meanwhile 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…
Man, I remember the ordeal that was trying to cancel a cell phone plan when I was a broke student studying abroad. Had to plead with them in arcane, formal French (a real pain considering I wasn't even fluent in everyday, conversational French--ended up needing help from a native French friend) on stationary and they still rejected my cancellation and continued to charge my French bank account. I tried closing my Fre…
> I tried closing my French bank account, but they wouldn't let me (IIRC because the cell phone provider was making ongoing withdrawals)...The French bank continued sending me demands for money.
This is the worst level of fraud. The bank is pretending to be providing you a service here! But instead they funnel your money to someone else.
I had another variation of this, with AIB in Ireland, in case anyone ever thinks of doing business with them. Vodafone started billing me for a defunct account, due to (I charitably believe) an operational error. AIB refused to revoke Vodafone's unlimited access to withdraw funds from my account.
I'd guess the scope of this fraud is in the billions to hundreds of billions EU-wide, but it doesn't seem to have come to the attention of regulators yet.