Disney, Netflix, and More Are Fighting FTC's 'Click To Cancel' Proposal (businessinsider.com) 195
Disney, Netflix, and other media and entertainment giants are pushing back against the FTC's "click to cancel" proposal (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source) that would make it easier for people to cancel streaming, gaming, and other services. Insider reports: Companies of all stripes have angered consumers by making services all too easy to sign up for but often confoundingly difficult to cancel, with gyms and news outlets considered among the worst offenders. The FTC has gone after individual companies; it recently sued Amazon, alleging the etailer "tricked" people into signing up for Amazon Prime. That followed the FTC's proposal in March for a regulation that's intended "to make it as easy for consumers to cancel their enrollment as it was to sign up." The policy would cover providers of both digital and physical subscriptions, from streamers and gym memberships to phone companies and cable TV distributors. The new rule would require companies to offer a simple mechanism for users to cancel subscriptions the same way they signed up. For example, you wouldn't have to cancel a service in person or over the phone if you signed up for it online. "I can't tell you how much time I've spent trying to cancel subscriptions I never wanted, let alone the cost!" one person wrote in a comment to the FTC.
The Internet & Television Association, which counts Disney, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery as members, said in its public comment that the proposed reg is so vague, it would lead marketers to be excessive in their disclosures, leaving consumers "inundated" and "confused." The reg would even infringe on its members' freedom of speech, the association argued. "The proposal would also severely curtail or, in some cases, even prohibit companies from communicating with their customers, in violation of the First Amendment," the association wrote. Sirius XM wrote in its comments that one proposed requirement -- that companies maintain records of phone calls with customers -- would cost the company "several million" dollars a year to comply with. The Entertainment Software Association, the video gaming trade organization, noted that the FTC's proposed disclosure requirements "would interfere with game play and customer enjoyment." The ESA wrote that "most consumers understand autorenewal offers and are knowing and willing participants in the marketplace" and that letting customers cancel immediately would prevent member companies from offering them alternative plans or discounts. The ESA was joined in its comments by the Digital Media Association and Motion Picture Association, whose members include Netflix, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Universal Pictures. The FTC will examine the feedback it's received through public comment before considering a final rule.
The Internet & Television Association, which counts Disney, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery as members, said in its public comment that the proposed reg is so vague, it would lead marketers to be excessive in their disclosures, leaving consumers "inundated" and "confused." The reg would even infringe on its members' freedom of speech, the association argued. "The proposal would also severely curtail or, in some cases, even prohibit companies from communicating with their customers, in violation of the First Amendment," the association wrote. Sirius XM wrote in its comments that one proposed requirement -- that companies maintain records of phone calls with customers -- would cost the company "several million" dollars a year to comply with. The Entertainment Software Association, the video gaming trade organization, noted that the FTC's proposed disclosure requirements "would interfere with game play and customer enjoyment." The ESA wrote that "most consumers understand autorenewal offers and are knowing and willing participants in the marketplace" and that letting customers cancel immediately would prevent member companies from offering them alternative plans or discounts. The ESA was joined in its comments by the Digital Media Association and Motion Picture Association, whose members include Netflix, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Universal Pictures. The FTC will examine the feedback it's received through public comment before considering a final rule.
F Them. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: F Them. (Score:3)
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Re:F Them. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, very valid point. But I'm torn on that: I hate that new subscribers, new renters, new whatever get a break, and we who've been loyal customers paying into someone's coffers pay the highest rates? The longer you've been a customer, the lower your rate should be, as has been with my car insurance. It would sure help if there was (much) more competition for things like ISP.
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The longer you've been a customer, the lower your rate should be, as has been with my car insurance.
What planet are you on? My car insurance usually shoots up by about 20% after the first year and 50% after the second; God knows where it goes after that, I have never stayed that long. They rely on customer inertia and the "frictionless" Direct Debit system to catch people out *, as they have me once or twice. So I change companies every year or two to get back to a starter rate. It is a PITA having to do it if you don't want to be shafted by the bastards.
* They say it is for your "peace of mind".
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Sounds like you deal with terrible insurance companies. As a personal anecdote, we do our home, car, and umbrella insurance through Liberty Mutual. They tried to jack up our car insurance rate last year, we called them and asked wtf - turns out they can act as a broker service in addition to underwriting policies themselves, and shifted our policy to an external provider that nullified their price increase and actually saved us some money while not having to dick around with the homeowners or umbrella pol
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If they offer a plan selection at sign-up, they can offer alternative plans when cancelling.
They just can't make you WAIT with continuing your cancellation until they had some sales-guy call you or do some other stalling.
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And it makes it harder for them to progressively scale up the discounts offered as you get closer to canceling.
Re:F Them. (Score:4, Insightful)
Any medium used to communicate the information required to sign up and cancel could also be used to communicate such discounts. The argument is garbage. They are just slingly anything they can fabricate desperately to avoid making it easy for people to drop their services.
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To me if the company want talk to me to stop me canceling, they should have to pay. If you have to call allow the customer to enter how much they wish to charge per minute, after the first 5 minutes, either waiting, calling back, convincing me not to leave whatever that fee gets charged to company.
To me freedom of speech extends to them speaking not me having to listen, The shouldn't have the right to charge for me not listening.
Re:F Them. (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been selling collectibles my whole life, on ebay and in real life. During the pandemic I wanted to try setting up a Shopify store for 'em. Well, they had a pretty bad history of securing user data (https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/05/shopify-breach-hacker-indicted/) so I decided to make my account with a brand new, unique throwaway email. I ended up not finding value in the platform and just sorta forgot about it.
Months later I realized that I was still being charged so I tried to log into my shopify account to cancel. I was given a message that said my account had been restricted due to lack of activity and I would have to confirm my email...BUT THEY WERE STILL CHARGING ME. So they knew I wasn't logging in, knew i wasn't selling anything but kept charging me while also locking me out of the account
Well I'm an idiot and lost the login info for the email I used so I couldn't actually cancel the account. So I just went to my bank, canceled my card and got a new one...SHOPIFY GOT MY INFO FROM THE BANK AND RESUMED CHARGING ME. I actually had to go in and sit down with someone at my branch who had to get someone at shopify on the phone just to cancel an account that they had already flagged as inactive.
The balance of power has shifted so hard against the consumer that canceling your credit card won't even cancel your subscription in some cases.
Re:F Them. (Score:5, Informative)
The problem here is that entering into a service contract is not the same thing as buying a product. You actually have to properly inform the other party that you're cancelling the contract. This is why they can go to your bank and inquire about your information and bank will generally be required to give your info. And why things like chargeback and card cancellation work on purchases, but not service contracts. This has been like this for a very long time. The change isn't "shift in balance of power". Power in this instance has been this way for a very long time.
And in this case, you did fuck up by not cancelling it and losing relevant information, and then trying to deny other party payment they were in fact contractually entitled to. I'm all for the kind of change being advocated in the story, of making cancelling easier. But I'm vehemently against people just going "fuck the contract I signed, I'm just going to change my card and screw you over" actually working. Do your due diligence if you want to require the other party to do their due diligence. Don't lose your account info, and if you do, go through the steps to recover it and then cancel your contract. Preferably with easily accessible single click button that says "cancel my subscription" that is accessible after you log into the service.
Everyone should be required to do the dueir diligence. And yes, that includes both the provider and the customer.
Re:F Them. (Score:5, Insightful)
If the account is still being paid for then it is not inactive and should not be restricted.
If the account has been restricted then the service is no longer being provided, and you should not be paying for it.
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The nuance being lost here is it was his *management account* that was restricted, *not his store*.
IE Shopify was still providing their service. It was just his ability to modify his store that was restricted.
Also he probably could have gotten it unlocked with either the Forgot password link, or in worst case a simple phone call (unlike Google, Shopify is easy to get on the phone, as it is a B2B company) - so I think there are missing facts in this story.
Re:F Them. (Score:5, Informative)
This. I have an anecdote too. We had a Shopify account for a while that we were toying with for maybe about a year. There was nothing particularly wrong with it, but we decided to go in another direction and cancel it.
So we logged in and.... cancelled it. Just like that. They then stopped billing us. Boring story, I know, but I don't see a villain in that particular company.
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Okay, very good info and perspective. But there's a huge problem that I see all the time, and I think it's eroding the entire concept of contracts: "contracts" that contain a clause saying "we reserve the right to change the terms of this contract at any time, without advance notice, and without customer approval". THAT needs to be 100% illegal, including raising prices.
The way I see OP's story is that, product or service, Shopify didn't deliver what OP thought he was buying into. Yes, I know, this gets
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Ghosting is great, and it feels great when you do. In my country we have mobile phone portability. If I want to switch providers, I just need to call the new provider and within 7 days I'm in their network, as long as I don't have any debt with the previous one. I don't owe the previous provider any explanation, calls, or anything. I can just LEAVE.
For this reason, when I was paying too much for phone
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That's really good. A more balanced approach to business - customer relationship. May I ask what country?
I'm in the US and afaik I can do the same, I'm not really sure. One would hope I would know!
Actually for me "ghosting" doesn't feel good. I feel like I chickened out, couldn't figure out a proper way, etc.
Much more so is the bad feeling about whatever scenario led to the ghosting as a solution.
Because I'm very strongly against all the personal data hoovering, sharing, and selling, I was going to use
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Someone should be in jail for attaching to your new card without consent.
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It's not like they went and got a court order because you owed them.
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When you sign up for a subscription, that IS consent to pay.
Of course you have the right to cancel, but to do that, you have to actually cancel. Until you do that, you're keeping up that consent.
If for some reason you can't log in, send a registered letter, but you somehow HAVE to let them know. (In a way that can in good faith be expected to be noticed)
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When you sign up for a subscription, that IS consent to pay.
I understand your point very well. I can see both sides of this philosophical argument. I'm not sure what the law says, but I'm on the side of it being theft, and if my bank ever did that, I'd move to another bank immediately. In fact, I'd probably start using many banks, and hopefully if I closed an account at one bank, another bank would not make the payments.
People have a legitimate right to withhold payments. The law allows people to put $ in escrow, for instance. If you're a renter, and your heat
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And why things like chargeback and card cancellation work on purchases, but not service contracts.
I'm not sure if this is normal across Europe but my bank allows me to cancel service contracts. They see service contracts as any recurring payment, and I can simply select the payment, click a button, and my bank generates a Power of Attorney form which I sign with my mobile fingerprint and make it officially their problem.
But yes you can't chargeback but you can cancel a card.
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The problem here is that entering into a service contract is not the same thing as buying a product. You actually have to properly inform the other party that you're cancelling the contract. This is why they can go to your bank and inquire about your information and bank will generally be required to give your info. And why things like chargeback and card cancellation work on purchases, but not service contracts. This has been like this for a very long time. The change isn't "shift in balance of power". Power in this instance has been this way for a very long time.
Wow, are you serious?
I am not joking, but genuinely concerned. Here in the EU, it's not like that, at all. If your card becomes invalid (canceled, expired, locked, you-name-it), it's endgame. The subscription is automatically canceled.
If a company would go to the bank and request my new card number, that would be illegal (GDPR and legalese stuff). That's the reason I am using throwaway virtual cards for one-month subscriptions/trials for stuff I am not sure about. If I find the subscription of value to me,
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I'm in the US, and your story makes me very happy that EU is so well run and progressive (and I don't mean politically). Sometimes (often) I feel like the US has devolved into a "culture" of short-term cash-grabs. I feel like I'm walking through a large outdoor market somewhere where there are pickpockets everywhere and you're constantly being cleaned out. My local township's trash (refuse) bill went up 33% a few months ago. It's not a lot of total $, but it's the concept that they can force it on you
Re:F Them. (Score:4, Informative)
This is true in some parts of EU to the extent, but devil lies in the details. Data protection would prevent bank from giving your personal data to the other party of the contract. However your personal data is not needed for continued billing, because they're not asking for your personal information. They're instead asking for new billing data. That is completely legal.
In fact, SEPA actually automated a lot of this process a few years ago, which is why major retailers don't even ask for your credit card any more and instead offer a SEPA compliant bank account payment as an option. So they ask for your bank account and bill you through SEPA intermediaries, who are certified GDPR compliant and handle the actual personal data in the transaction. All the end company gets is "this person has signed this contract and we need the accurate billing data". They never actually get any personal information, because that would indeed violate GDPR. So you have intermediaries who handle GDPR requirements who often are a part of a bank (i.e. Denmark and Finland biggest one is MobilePay, which is a subsidiary of Danske Bank).
In fact, that is exactly what is done as a matter of norm when you sign the contract. The first thing they check is if billing data is correct. The process is automated, which is why it's mostly invisible to the customer, which was in fact one of the primary goals of SEPA. And the entire process is GDPR compliant because other party to contract doesn't not handle your personal data. Intermediary does. Which is the one handling privacy requirements of GDPR, and takes a small cut of the transaction to do so.
Now there are ways in which you can "fake cancel" through cancelling payment method. The problem is that this does not in fact terminate the contract, and the contract holder has every right to sue you in the court of a relevant nation. At which point they will have to prove that they have a valid contract that you did not terminate, and you will have to prove that you did in fact terminate it properly. If you admit to what the grandparent post did, you have a good chance of getting your local prosecutor interested should company file criminal report, because in most EU nations this sort of an admission would establish intent to defraud which is covered under criminal law. Would it go this far for a small time cancellation? Probably not in most cases, though the fact that richer women seeking a bit of a thrill get charged for fraud for adding more produce to the bag after they weighed it seems to always come as a surprise to them.
You can break the rules to the extent in many European nations, certainly, more so in the East and South than West and North. But that's only until you actually get caught doing so, and criminal complaint gets filed against you. At which point, depending on the nation it can go nowhere, or you can have French magistrate having a bad day introduce you to a local prison for a while just to make a point of protecting a local French business against fraud, or German police shoot your dog while arresting you, or Finnish lawyer get you for 20000 EUR legal costs on top of that 10 EUR/month subscription costs recovered.
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"fuck the contract I signed"
Companies do this all the time. They just call it EULA, TOS, T&C, or things like that. They can cancel your service for any reason, without any explanation provided, and completely ignore all your calls and emails.
They deliberately make it vague and obscure, so you can't know why it happened. They can unilaterally stop providing service any time they want (as apparently happened to the person you responded to). Sometimes they can even get away with continuing to bill you "acc
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But I'm vehemently against people just going "fuck the contract I signed, I'm just going to change my card and screw you over" actually working.
Horse shit, they are contracts of adhesion, not regular contracts, and most of them are filled with so much unconscionable silliness that most of the free world does not enforce them. In fact, most adhesion contracts offer zero consideration, rendering them completely unenforceable, and the rest in the USA typically include unilateral modification clauses, which
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The problem here is that entering into a service contract is not the same thing as buying a product. You actually have to properly inform the other party that you're cancelling the contract. This is why they can go to your bank and inquire about your information and bank will generally be required to give your info. And why things like chargeback and card cancellation work on purchases, but not service contracts. This has been like this for a very long time. The change isn't "shift in balance of power". Power in this instance has been this way for a very long time.
Erm, Netflix does not "check my bank about me" when I sign up, as long as the payment passes I'm golden.
Unsubscribing should be just as easy. I shouldn't need to call anyone or have any barriers put in my way. I guarantee it if your card stopped paying Netflix, they'd cancel your account right quick.
Re: F Them. (Score:3)
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"Hi. Joe owes me money. Can you give me his CC number so I can start charging it? Thx!"
Wtf.
Re: F Them. (Score:2)
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It's worth noting that as is the case with a lot of these sorts of actions, enforcers do talk to each other.
So similar action is being taken elsewhere. In fact, it's quite likely that it's enforcers from other countries that brought the problem to FTC's attention.
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I'm pretty sure the FTC already knew.
What I don't understand is why the FTC doesn't just slap these companies down.
Isn't "consumer protection" in their mandate?
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Who do you think runs the FTC? I'll give you a hint, they need to have impressive qualifications and extensive experience...
Also add a STFU button on lobbyists (Score:2)
Amen! I'm tired of dark-pattern cancelling. You fat corporate cats abused your power too many damned times.
They wouldn't fight it so hard if difficult exits weren't so profitable.
Just Stop Their Payments (Score:2)
I did not hear from them again and no further payments came from my account so I presume it worked...either that or I hav
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The problem with that is you can rack up bad credit scores in some countries.
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You risk taking a credit hit as someone else pointed out. Also most banks/cards won't let you stop a recurring payment authorization, only dispute individual charges. I've even closed a bank account and opened a new one to try to accomplish this and the bank closed the gap for them to keep charging.
Fair Play (Score:5, Insightful)
The Issue (Score:3)
The best argument I've heard against this, as far as Amazon goes, is that you aren't just unsubscribing from a streaming TV service.
- You are disabling one-click shopping and free delivery when buying stuff from amazon
- You are disabling any echo devices you have
- You are disabling any ring devices you have
- You are limiting functionality on any Kindle or Fire devices you have
- You are disabling any linked functionality you have to smart home devices with echo or ring
- You are potentially removing audio boo
Correction (Score:2)
Amazon devices, like Ring and Echo, still work, but some functionality goes away when you don't have prime.
Why Bother (Score:5, Insightful)
Why bother to include the paywall source if you are going to include a alternative source. Just post the article with the alternative source and forget the paywall.
Re:Why Bother (Score:5, Informative)
Actually I prefer the original link and free alternative. That way I know the source of the original article but can still read it if I don't already have a subscription (NY Times, Business Insider, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, etc.)
Knowing the original source allows me to gauge the quality of the reporting and the alternate link allows me to read the article if I think the source is creditable.
The best option is the paywalled sites that allow me to read three articles a month without requiring a subscription. That way the original site still sees which articles are popular but three visits a month means I'm not abusing their "guest" allowance.
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That way I know the source of the original article
Unless published by a media conglomerate the source of the original article is always in the text of the free article. Not doing so is known as copyright infringement, and media outlets don't take kindly to that. If the article is from a conglomerate then the "original" will have the same text.
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Probably because the paywalled source is the original source, or the one the author of the post learned the info from. Or they may assume we subscribed the last time they used that paywalled site.. Can't rule out the possibility /. get a monetary reward for referrals on new subscriptions to the paywall site.
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Not only TFA is paywall (behind a subscription, no less, I wonder how easy it is to cancel it!) but to make it funnier there's a subscription level that's simple and a higher (more expensive one) "without ads" (so presumably for the other one you pay and you still get ads).
My right to free speach (Score:5, Funny)
"The proposal would also severely curtail or, in some cases, even prohibit companies from communicating with their customers, in violation of the First Amendment,"
My right to free speech should include being able to ring the CEO and and convince them that they are being bastards. They should have to listen or pay my monthly subscription.
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This. The quote is disingenuous. The First Amendment does not give you a right to communicate. It gives you a right to speak, no one is ever forced to listen.
Re:My right to free speach (Score:4, Insightful)
The ESA wrote that "most consumers understand autorenewal offers and are knowing and willing participants in the marketplace"...
And in that one statement, the ESA is declaring that it is aware of and condones the fact that its members are misleading some consumers in the name of increased profits.
I just tried cancelling Amazon Prime (Score:5, Informative)
According to their QA:
To cancel your Prime membership, click here or you can follow the easy steps below:
Go to Manage Your Prime membership.
Click End Membership and Benefits on the left-hand side of the page.
In the cancellation page, you can click End my benefits or Continue to cancel.
Paid members who haven't used their Amazon Prime benefits, including FREE Two-Day Shipping, Prime Video, and Prime Music will be eligible for a full refund. Paid members who have used their Amazon Prime benefits may be eligible for a partial refund based on use.
So I went to "Manage Your Prime membership" and looked around, nothing. Turns out that NoScript allowed basically everything but that section of the page.
So I disabled all JS restrictions and the cancel option shows up on the right (not left).
I click "End membership and benefits" and see "Quantaman you still have 3 days left to enjoy your Prime benefits until the next billing cycle", a pretty clear indication I cancelled.
And at the far bottom two buttons "End my benefits" and "Keep my benefits"... hmmm, guess I'm not cancelled after all.
So I click end membership again, and get another dialogue where I have to end my membership again, and then I see "we're sorry to see you go", leading me to think I've cancelled again... but of course it's still active.
There's yet another three buttons keep membership, pause membership, and cancel membership.
The only way to reliably cancel those services is to take away the credit card.
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My guess is that they haven't updated that page for a while, while the "cancel the subscription" sequence is likely being "optimized" all the time to make cancelling more onerous.
P.S. You cannot cancel contractual subscriptions like prime through cancelling a card being billed. In most developed nations, these companies will simply contact the bank to get customer's billing data and continue billing against new card/bank account. You're thinking of a process that generally makes it easy to terminate purchas
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UK, Virgin Media, same shenanigans, same solution, same result. The worst part was when they claimed that because I owed any particular amount that I couldn't cancel the service until that amount was paid first.
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The only way to reliably cancel those services is to take away the credit card.
That is the only way I have been able to keep my old Amazon Prime truly cancelled.
I learned that if you have even 1 way to buy from Amazon listed in your Amazon profile...Amazon Prime will access that method to charge you the monthly fee.
Re:I just tried cancelling Amazon Prime (Score:4)
And that's how it should be done. I should be able to go to my bank's website, see which services I have subscribed to, and delete any of them without interacting with the service at all. That's what the FTC should mandate.
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Such a practice is already in breach of EU rules. I actually did manage to accidentally cancel my prime membership while trying to transfer from one country account to another. But the page I landed on did provide me a helpful button to reinstate it and a message that I had until the end of my billing cycle to reconsider my cancellation.
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You need to learn how to read.
The reason it is still active is because "you still have 3 days left to enjoy your Prime benefits until the next billing cycle"
When you cancel Prime, you still get to keep using whatever time is left in that month. Because you already paid for it. Duh.
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Paid members who haven't used their Amazon Prime benefits, including FREE Two-Day Shipping, Prime Video, and Prime Music will be eligible for a full refund. Paid members who have used their Amazon Prime benefits may be eligible for a partial refund based on use.
Last fall it became obvious that my two day shipping promise from Prime was worthless. Most items took a week but usually showed up in two days once they decided to get around to shipping it. I discovered that the estimated delivery date was hopeful bullshit as it immediately changed to something else as soon as I completed the purchase. I got tired of the "We're sorry" notifications when they couldn't deliver on time. I learned not to buy from Amazon if I was in a hurry.
I decided to cancel. At that
Re:I just tried cancelling Amazon Prime (Score:4, Informative)
The regulation's goal wants "to make it as easy for consumers to cancel their enrollment as it was to sign up." and it shows. The reality is some pretend that making it hard to cancel is good for business and the economy, but not, it is not. These companies are stealing from customers, and causing them distress, while simultaneously hoarding funds these buyers would take to some other business. They are really not helping anyone. The BIG problem we have is the girfter large shareholders and lobbyists that benefits from these stocks becoming ever bigger. I hope they can implement this regulation and restore sanity with regards to clients wishes to stop these people from taking their money.
These are the same people that fought against TV remote controls having mute buttons because it infringed on their 'free speech' rights.
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How is it the saying goes; you have the freedom to say whatever you want, and I have the freedom to not listen to you.
No Sympathy. None. (Score:4, Informative)
SiriusXM is the worst of the worst. Seriously, fuck those guys. When you call customer service, the person answering doesn't even have the ability to do it - it has to be farmed off to another team of cajolers. You can do it, but you must calmly deflect try after try.
Put a cancel button on your damned webpage, you pricks. It's not that hard.
Re: No Sympathy. None. (Score:2)
Even worse than that, their cancelation team has limited hours, on weekdays only until 7pm PT, whereas you can activate 24/7 over the phone with a human being .
Re: No Sympathy. None. (Score:2)
Needs to go further. (Score:3)
Beyond just making cancelling no more difficult than signing up, I also feel that if I do not use a service for a complete billing cycle, they should not be allowed to charge for the next billing cycle. If they wish to cancel or suspend service, that is up to them.
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Beyond just making cancelling no more difficult than signing up, I also feel that if I do not use a service for a complete billing cycle, they should not be allowed to charge for the next billing cycle. If they wish to cancel or suspend service, that is up to them.
Until I use it, that is.
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I also feel that if I do not use a service for a complete billing cycle, they should not be allowed to charge for the next billing cycle.
But you're still being provided the service. Think about what you said and it's implications for e.g. insurance.
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There is more to "Using" insurance than just filing claims. In that case, if they detect I sold the car/house/whatever, that is when it would cancel.
And yes, you are correct that not all service (e.g. traditional cable TV) have a method to detect usage, so there are times this would not be applicable.
Make it the processor's job. (Score:3)
Another place that "Financial service" companies have dropped the ball.
Subscriptions are things that happen often enough that payment processors should have a process for signing up for them, and for canceling them.
I.e. When I want to cancel, I should be able to talk to VISA, not Comcast.
It doesn't have to be easy, but it shouldn't be up to the producer to decide how hard it is.
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How would that even work in practice? Payment processors don't have an exhaustive list of every service provider, up to date contractual listings and points of contact for negotiation and terminating such contracts. Heck, many such things would be impossible to even provide for small businesses in the first place.
And they really don't want to keep getting sued because yet another moron signed up for a legally binding contract and decided to renege on it. Remember that consumer protections are much stronger
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How would that even work in practice? Payment processors don't have an exhaustive list of every service provider, up to date contractual listings and points of contact for negotiation and terminating such contracts. Heck, many such things would be impossible to even provide for small businesses in the first place.
How do they know it's okay to charge you periodically if they aren't keeping track of that information?
Do they just accepting the word of a random company that someone asked to be charged?
They don't have to know everything about every contract, they already allow you to pay once, they just need to add an option that allows you to make that payment repeatedly, for a fixed amount of time, or until you cancel.
Re: (Score:2)
How do they know it's okay to charge you periodically if they aren't keeping track of that information?
Do they just accepting the word of a random company that someone asked to be charged?
The company needs to be able to show the bank some proof that you gave your OK to be charged. For practical reasons, this needs to be done only on demand, but if the company can't provide that after you dispute a charge, it's chargeback and the fees for it are on the company.
That's usually enough to curb abuse (or to make sure that you don't lose money)
And in this case, the company was able to provide a record of your sign-up and your current, cancellation free subscription history.
Re: Make it the processor's job. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's how all subscription providers do it. You can sign up for subscriptions through Apple App Store or Google Play the same. But they are pretty hefty for that payment handling.
How do I cancel Slashdot??? (Score:5, Funny)
I can't figure out how to cancel Slashdot. It keep showing up in my browser. WHERE is that cancel button???
Re:How do I cancel Slashdot??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot requires you to edit your hosts file to opt out of the site.
Otherwise, as the song goes, you can checkout any time you like, but you can never leave.
Re: (Score:2)
Slashdot requires you to edit your hosts file to opt out of the site.
There used to be a guy here quite helpful with hosts files. I do miss his rants.
Chandler and Ross wanted to quit the gym (Score:2)
It seems like the free market figured this out for gym memberships in the period since Friends made a long joke [imdb.com] about this behavior.
There might be gyms that still do this, but I guess most of them don't. It's pretty easy to choose one that doesn't care to be associated with this meme.
Re: (Score:2)
FTC is too easy on them (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:FTC is too easy on them (Score:4, Interesting)
We have something like that in the EU. To sign up for anything, hell, to BUY anything online, you have to click something that pretty much has to state "clicking this will confirm your order and you will have to PAY for it!". Recurring contracts have additional checkboxes and mandatory "yeah, I have read this and agree with this and I KNOW THAT THIS IS A SUBSCRIPTION" parts, along with a "yes, I'm an adult" (because selling a subscription to a minor is void on principle).
Anything that didn't go through this is pretty much void.
It's annoying as all hell since the default value on all these things of course has to be "no" and you have to actively and manually consent.
And since obscuring the cancel option may well entitle you to not only cancel at any time but also to get your fees (all of them) back, they pretty much go out of their way now to make absolutely CERTAIN you find that cancel button. I now get a "want to cancel? Click here!" link on every phone bill, in the same damn font as their upsell spiel.
It's annoying. But I can't really say that they try to hide my ability to get rid of them...
Re: (Score:3)
It's only "click to cancel" if you insist on "click to subscribe"
Forever subscriptions (Score:2)
Had a service once that would not stop billing me, no matter how many times I told them to stop and jumped through their hoops.
I finally canceled the card, and specifically told them when re-issuing the new one, that under zero circumstance was any charge from the old card to be honored.
You, of course, know what happened next.
Closed that account at that bank, went to another bank, they tried the same thing, but were at least willing to charge back and make sure it didn't happen ever again.
Right here (Score:2)
I'm stupid, and when they changed things around on their site, I signed up for it. Thanks for the reminder to cancel that, btw.
"Infringement on free speech?" LOL, No. (Score:4, Insightful)
The proposal would also severely curtail or, in some cases, even prohibit companies from communicating with their customers, in violation of the First
No. You are free to communicate with your customer as much as they are willing to listen AFTER you have processed their Cancelation order. If you persuade them to withdraw their cancellation, then you provide them a new agreement and obtain their affirmative confirmation.
This is why (Score:2)
This is why I don't sign up for anything subscription based. Screw them.
Phone Records are not new (Score:2)
"Sirius XM wrote in its comments that one proposed requirement -- that companies maintain records of phone calls with customers -- would cost the company "several million" dollars a year to comply with."
Don't they do this already? Sounds like they are complaining about having to do something they already do.
Re: (Score:2)
They already do it. At least if they do any business in the EU because the law that it must be as easy to quit a service as it is to sign up for it IS already a law there.
Re: (Score:2)
SiriusXM is one of the worst services to cancel. They force you to do it by phone, where you get a high pressure sales pitch to keep your service for a discounted rate. If you don't accept that, they'll basically offer you a free 3 months of service to keep your account active, in the hopes that you'll forget to cancel it again 3 months later so they can start billing you again at full price.
If you don't accept THAT, they'll cancel your account but continue to send you e-mails and snail mails every month fo
Putting can sell (Score:2)
It's a bit of a pain but Google is your friend. Just as you use it to figure out Microsoft products, just Google "How do I cancel xyz?" and that should give you the steps.
I find it highly disturbing that they CAN (Score:5, Interesting)
What do you mean "fight it"? A government entity said that's how it is, STFU and pound sand! If anyone normal got up and said that it costs them a fortune to comply with a law, we don't exactly give a fuck either, so why should we now?
Alternative proposal ... (Score:2)
They can only make it hard to leave the service, if they have made it at least as hard to sign up.
Re: (Score:2)
Pain of rejection (Score:2)
Lots of noise not wanting to follow the EU (Score:2)
All these companies are complaining a lot that they will need to follow similar rules which are already in place in Europe which they already follow. Presumably they realised that customers tell them to sod off more frequently when it is easy for them to do so.
Reference: The EC Unfair Commercial Practices Directive
PORN (Score:2)
Literally no one is gonna mention porn sites, I see. They are the actual worst.
You Can Check Out Any Time You Like (Score:2)
It is in the nature of free markets that over (Score:2)
This is the reason we need rules to curb incentives to get it by all the other means.
Some will wring their hands over these rules and bleat "the economy", but this is just code for wanting a system that favors extraction over production; which, without rules, is the natural state of any economic system.
None of the arguments make any sense (Score:2)
the proposed reg is so vague, it would lead marketers to be excessive in their disclosures, leaving consumers "inundated" and "confused."
Are they actually claiming people are going to be confused by a large amount of text before hitting "Cancel Subscription", when they have an even larger mass of dense legalese you have to accept when clicking "Subscribe"?
And "lead{ing} marketers to be excessive in their disclosures, leaving consumers 'inundated' and 'confused' " perfectly describes what they are currently doing when someone attempts to cancel, this claim lacks even a tenuous link to reality. Exactly how are these out-of-control marketers hi