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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

#831

Post by Cederfjard »

butwhywhyoh wrote: post #795
Cederfjard wrote: post #774

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ve only really stated though that these policies are deliberate, which I think few people would have thought otherwise, not that they’re necessarily the best policies there can be. The question is if they’re actually better for the bottom line than the alternative (given the timeframe that the people who make and influence these decisions care about). Is ”squeezing out an extra pay cycle” or two possible missing…

The OP was directly countering the point made by the GP: "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" No one stated anything about it being the "best policy it can be".

OK, fair enough. I still read it in the context of the thread's original thesis, that frictionless cancellations increase customer satisfaction, and thus retention and profit in the long run. And I still don't see the comment they directly responded to saying that the policies aren't deliberate, only that they "exist for dumb reasons" and "benefit no one", which could still arguably be true if the alternative is both more profitable and serves people better.

But I hear you - taken more in isolation, and with better faith on my part, the comment makes sense. I'm still curious about actual data though.

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

#832

Post by CaptainJustin »

sreitshamer wrote: post #829
hirsin wrote: post #790

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking to this myself - I was blown away by Masterclass letting me do this, after I forgot it would renew. I responded to their "hey you've been charged" email with something like "I forgot about this and didn't mean to renew". In perhaps ten minutes I had a cancelation notice and refund. Way more likely to get their stuff again. Bonus points for not sending the bill from some faceless "no reply" address.

A “you’re about to be charged” email would be friendlier and give the customer a feeling of more control. That’s what we do. (We of course will also refund the charge if you email us after it happens.)

I love that idea. Can you imagine we had a standard around this? For example: Monthly payments - notification could go out >24 hours before the transaction will occur.

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

#833

Post by ajb »

adrr wrote: post #802
ajb wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you agreed a contract to pay someone and stop paying without terminating the contract, then as soon as you miss a payment, you are in debt.

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

#834

Post by Wowfunhappy »

TheTrotters wrote: post #826
hirsin wrote: post #790

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking to this myself - I was blown away by Masterclass letting me do this, after I forgot it would renew. I responded to their "hey you've been charged" email with something like "I forgot about this and didn't mean to renew". In perhaps ten minutes I had a cancelation notice and refund. Way more likely to get their stuff again. Bonus points for not sending the bill from some faceless "no reply" address.

I had a great experience with Audible. I switched from Audible UK to Audible US but forgot to cancel the former. After six months I noticed I had 6 credits I didn't want. I sent one short e-mail explaining what happened and within 15-30 minutes I got a response that said they'll refund everything.

I’m glad you had a good experience, but IMO the way Audible works is a mess of dark patterns to begin with. If you stop paying for one month you loose all your credits, so when I’m not reading as much I end up in a bind where I can’t cancel, but if I don’t cancel I get deeper in a hole.

You can pause a subscription, but only once every couple years and only for 90 days, and the option is hidden.

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

#835

Post by bertil »

hirsin wrote: post #790
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…

Speaking to this myself - I was blown away by Masterclass letting me do this, after I forgot it would renew. I responded to their "hey you've been charged" email with something like "I forgot about this and didn't mean to renew". In perhaps ten minutes I had a cancelation notice and refund. Way more likely to get their stuff again. Bonus points for not sending the bill from some faceless "no reply" address.

For what it’s worth: I’ve been considering trying out Masterclass because their content seem great, but worried that something will come up and I’ll be locked into a yearly contract or something, so I never tried.

Your comment made me confident that I should.

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

#836

Post by scruti »

barbazoo wrote: post #580
kieloo wrote: post #18

Same thing with The Guardian. Subscribed online and was then told I can’t cancel via email and have to endure a pushy sales call if I want to cancel. Similar experience with The Economist except it was via live chat instead. These experiences honestly make me want to never subscribe to a newspaper again.

The difficulty cancelling Economist one time put me off from subscribing to a paper ever since. I don't get it, their content is good, let me cancel easily and I'll come back easily. How desperate are those services that they implement measures like that, counting on people to not follow through the cancellation process, forgetting to cancel altogether, etc. And then doing the absolute minimum necessary, e.g. offerin…

The Economist reached the point of calling me to ask if I knew someone who would be interested into a subscription. I love the magazine but their marketing is really invasive and annoying.

Last time I cancelled they were a nightmare calling me every other day.

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

#837

Post by jffry »

barbazoo wrote: post #580
kieloo wrote: post #18

Same thing with The Guardian. Subscribed online and was then told I can’t cancel via email and have to endure a pushy sales call if I want to cancel. Similar experience with The Economist except it was via live chat instead. These experiences honestly make me want to never subscribe to a newspaper again.

The difficulty cancelling Economist one time put me off from subscribing to a paper ever since. I don't get it, their content is good, let me cancel easily and I'll come back easily. How desperate are those services that they implement measures like that, counting on people to not follow through the cancellation process, forgetting to cancel altogether, etc. And then doing the absolute minimum necessary, e.g. offerin…

I don't know if this is the case, but these are exactly the sort of awful "customer retention" strategies I would expect from an organization where somebody is being judged/rewarded based on minimizing customer turnover metrics below some threshold.

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

#838

Post by haroon »

flerovium wrote: post #501
matheusmoreira wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reasonable would be lack payment ending the contract. We should be able to simply stop paying them with zero repercussions. Let them deal with the administrative trivia required to cancel a service.

The problem is that in the US, one cannot easily stop a debit/credit card from being billed for a particular service. A more general solution is to make the payment infrastructure allow me to ban a particular merchant. You can implement this by reissuing a debit card, but there's no reason not to make it seamless for individual merchants.

Funny you should say that.. we're working on it ;) https://www.truebill.com/truecard

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

#839

Post by chiefgeek »

kieloo wrote: post #18

Same thing with The Guardian. Subscribed online and was then told I can’t cancel via email and have to endure a pushy sales call if I want to cancel. Similar experience with The Economist except it was via live chat instead. These experiences honestly make me want to never subscribe to a newspaper again.

Same with the New York Times. Having gone through calling to cancel, I vowed never to subscribe again. Now I simply scan the front page to make sure the end of the world isn’t upon us. (Many days, reading it, it appears as though it is!)/s
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