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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

#801

Post by zuminator »

LambdaComplex wrote: post #433
8ytecoder wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren’t that the same? I thought ‘must’ would be more appropriate.

"Should" means that there are scenarios where doing something is not necessary, and therefore really does not constitute a hard requirement. "Shall" means that you are inherently required to do something; it is much closer (if not identical) in meaning to "must". "Should" is the subjunctive mood; there is an implied "if" somewhere in there: You should do this if blah blah blah, I would do this if blah blah blah, etc.…

My two cents. "Shall" and "must" seem identical at face value, but functionally they are quite different.

Compare "You shall not pass this spot!" with "You must not pass this spot!" The former is a straightforward command. This is what must (not) be done, period. The latter has a strong additional implication that "If you insist upon passing the spot, something bad will happen to someone."

If you're at a party drunkenly acting out and your host comes to you and says, "You shall leave right this instant" there isn't any choice in the matter. It's a forgone conclusion that you will leave, end of discussion. "You must leave right this instant" sounds like we want you to leave, and if you don't, there will assuredly be regrettable, albeit unstated consequences.

So, "must" tends to have an implication that a detrimental outcome will definitely happen if the exhortation is disregarded. Yet statutes and contracts usually use "shall." I think this is largely traditional. One must obey the King's Law, not because of any penalty, but because it is the King's Law. But it also has an operational advantage -- it separates the command from the implication of assured penalty. One might think that implying an assured penalty is better, so what gives?

Well, a typical statute might read, "All documents shall be submitted in black ink. All submissions shall total no more than 10 pages." If the shalls were replaced with musts, it would sound as though any invalid submission will be rejected out of hand. But just leaving them as pure "shall" commands gives legislators flexibility in crafting a penalty as weak or strong as desired. E.g. "Failure to adhere to any of the preceding requirements may result in the submission being rejected." We might punish you, or maybe not. Or perhaps, "failure to comply shall result in any pages after the tenth page deemed defective and omitted from consideration." There's a consequence, but as long as you're ok with it, go right ahead. Sometimes legislative sessions wind up deleting the passage with the penalty and then you're left with a "shall" with no penalty at all.

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

#802

Post by adrr »

ajb wrote: post #185
yodsanklai wrote: post #138

I had the issue with the WSJ. I couldn't believe it was so hard to cancel. My solution was to update my card with an incorrect number, they canceled the subscription after the payment was declined.

The problem with that is that you still have a valid contract, some companies will ding your credit rating and still pursue you for the money.

Don't these subscriptions charge at the start of the bill cycle and not rears? You're not incurring debt.

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

#803

Post by tootie »

histriosum wrote: post #658
tootie wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really it. They want a chance to convince you to stay and/or get feedback on why you're leaving. They can also offer some kind of one-off promotion or something to retain people. Subscriber loyalty is the absolute lifeblood of these kinds of businesses. I work at a non-profit and we collect recurring payments from people who don't actually get anything tangible in return. The membership are rigidly ethical…

If you are concerned that the only way to keep people subscribed is to offer them a one-off promotion when they've decided to cancel -- isn't that kind of a tacit acknowledgement that your product doesn't contain the value that you are charging for? To me, it seems a bit like you've actually reinforced the GP's point... On the non-profit point of view, that's hard for me to understand -- I run a small non-profit and…

Almost every subscription is priced to whatever the market will bear and not an actual unit cost plus fixed margin. Our services are digital. It costs us $XX million to operate all the services we do and next to nothing to serve that a single user. In fact we give 99% of our services away for free and only ask for donations of whatever they care to give. Most donors don't actually get anything in return for their money.

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

#804

Post by bluGill »

apendleton wrote: post #694
susiecambria wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

these recomendations are addmisable in court, if yiu want to get a lawyer involved about your lack of satisfaction. Or even if you are a lawyer trying for a class action lawsuit.

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

#805

Post by bluGill »

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.

Should allows for someone who has a real exception that we can't even think of to explain themselves. Maybe such a thing doesn't exist, I can't think of it. But just in case you have an out.

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

#806

Post by bluGill »

smilespray wrote: post #767
LanceH wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the good old days of paper delivery I used, "I'm moving to Zimbabwe." They never had a checkbox for Zimbabwe and the call ended there. Now, I guess they'll just pitch the online edition. Maybe I'll try, "I'm about to winter over in Antarctica and won't have the internet bandwidth for your paper. Do you guys deliver there?"

Tough luck, they've got decent semi-decent bandwidth down there these days. Perhaps Mars?

There are several different stations down there, by different countries. I wouldn't assume they all have good connection.

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

#807

Post by frosted-flakes »

ookware wrote: post #362
Reason077 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with the UK subscription craft beer service, beer52.com [1]. Subscribe easily with a few clicks, but they make you call during office hours and endure 10+ minutes on hold to cancel. Sadly in the UK I guess we won't get the benefit of any new EU legislation to address this. [1] https://ibb.co/r4LfK5F

When I had an account with Beer52 I them and said, effectively, "This is my notice to cancel and the main motivation to cancel is because of anti-consumer behaviour like having to call to cancel. I do not authorise any further payments and any payments you do take will be subject to a dispute with my credit card company". To their credit they did send me a reply saying my account had been cancelled and I never spoke…

How did you contact them, email?

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

#808

Post by rudian »

Joeri wrote: post #759
idworks1 wrote: post #756

Anecdata (only because I don't have access to the data anymore). Customer satisfaction is so much higher when they get a one click unsubscribe. In fact, when the friction is so low, the customer is likely to start the subscription back. I say this as someone who worked in customer service automation. The worst customer satisfaction score with lowest rate of re-subscription is from companies that make it hell to unsub…

There is this common perception of companies as if they are entirely rational organizations, and every policy that we don’t like exists because it is profitable and benefits the company at the expense of the customer. But sometimes bad policies are just bad, they benefit no one, and they exist for dumb reasons. Maybe call to unsubscribe is one of those policies.

I think “companies” have run out of the “benefit of the doubt” as far as I’m concerned. Using the web has become a pain not because companies don’t care about UX, but because they think popup X will increase profits — and it often does.

Certainly there’s a good amount of ignorance in every company, but many choices are purposeful.

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

#809

Post by Avery3R »

mwest217 wrote: post #693
GloriousKoji wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Within the past couple of months they replaced it with a version that only has a daily spend limit.

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

#810

Post by taway125 »

Axien wrote: post #352
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…

That is crazy. I spent 20 minutes trying to cancel the WSJ. It is infuriating.

I recently tried to cancel the WSJ

Them: Hello

Me: Hello, cancel my account

Them: I'm sorry to hear that, what is the cause of

Me: I just want to cancel my account

Them: Lets try and understand what we can improve

Me: I just want to cancel my account

Them: Sir, i understand but perhaps we can explore other options

Me: CANCEL MY ACCOUNT

Them: ....

Me: Are you having a hard time understanding English

receptionist says he was born in America and found it insulting that I suggested he doesn't understand English.

Me: Glad you understand English. Cancel my account.

Them: We have several options available

Me: Cancel my account in 30sec or I'll contest it with the credit card company

receptionist says in that case they will continue to bill me. FYI: False, Ive now made a documented attempt to cancel my account and they didnt. You can contest it with your credit card company.

Me: Cancel my account in 30sec or I'll contest it with the credit card company, note we're speaking at 2:14pm eastern on 15 november 2021 and i'm noting i tried to cancel my account and you are refusing.

Them: cancels account.

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