'Click-to-Cancel' Rule Would Penalize Companies That Make You Cancel By Phone -...
source link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/03/23/1852233/click-to-cancel-rule-would-penalize-companies-that-make-you-cancel-by-phone
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'Click-to-Cancel' Rule Would Penalize Companies That Make You Cancel By Phone
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The FTC said the proposed rule would be enforced with civil penalties and let the commission return money to harmed consumers. "The proposal states that if consumers can sign up for subscriptions online, they should be able to cancel online, with the same number of steps. If consumers can open an account over the phone, they should be able to cancel it over the phone, without endless delays," FTC Chair Lina Khan wrote. The FTC is seeking public comment on the proposal, which also includes other changes to the commission's 1973 Negative Option Rule. "Some businesses too often trick consumers into paying for subscriptions they no longer want or didn't sign up for in the first place," Khan said.
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Looking at you LA Times.
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...and NY Times.
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"..and NY Times."
And the Catholic church.
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porn is written right there in between the lines. have you have never tried to cancel a porn subscription? at least legit businesses have someone to call no matter how long it takes. try argueing with a chatbot.
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You PAID for porn?? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...
Oh my.
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by Petersko ( 564140 ) on Thursday March 23, 2023 @04:09PM (#63394065)
...and Sirius XM satellite radio. Not only can't you do it online, the first line of people who answer the phone can't do it either. It needs to go a team that specializes in trying to stop you.
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I just let my temp subscription with the car expire. Then during one service visit it was re-enabled for a month or two. This lasted a bit longer than it was first claimed, but eventually it lapsed. However, I was getting spam email from then weekly after this second temp subscription started, when daily for awhile, often telling me the sub is "about to expire". After I let it lapse, and it seemed to be actually lapsed, I would still get email spam asking to subscribe, with _only_ $5 a month. I still ge
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The situation is that every vehicle containing a satellite-enabled device is a sunk cost. It costs them basically nothing to add a subscriber. So a subscription - even a very cheap one - is 100% profit. SO they'll go lower and lower - to a point. If it can be had for $20/year, then everybody will drive their negotiation to that. But I paid as low as $75 for a year.
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I still remember having to cancel that back in the day. They kept offering me free months of service even after I told them I was cancelling because the overcompressed audio quality was absolutely intolerable. I ended up telling the representative I wouldn't even want to use the service even if you gave it to me for free for the rest of my life, there's just too many compression artifacts in the music.
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You should try using Monster antennas. They're made of stretched oxygen-free copper. (The stretching helps counteract compression artifacts.) They're a little pricey, but totally worth it if you want to actually hear music through the distortions. I can get you a discount, but you gotta be cool.
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Also the NYT and any legacy paper. I did not even want to cancel. Just end paper delivery and go digital. My credit card even expired and they kept billing. Filed with a collection agency. Absolute fraud.
But not as bad as Bit.ly. Once you pay, the money is theirs. No matter if they lied about services. As part of this law any service must have at least some grace period, like 14-45 days.
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Obligatory Friends reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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So Friends was actually funny.
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No. No it wasn't. It had it's moments, but my god was it insufferable to watch most of the time.
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Famous for having exactly zero non-white actors. Because everyone in NY is white. Also max unfunny.
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Yeah but if you want to be vengeful you could disrupt their business model and actually use the gym, get ripped and ruin their party at the same time.
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I think you meant I should go there, pretend to work out, remain repulsive, and scare off all of their younger users.
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Also avoid anyone recording themselves at the gym. Bring a tuke and pull it over your eyes to make sure you don't end up a tik tok creep, and always work out with your face at the wall.
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I hear you need a good lawyer to get out of those.
You're probably being sarcastic, but it's actually real.
Often for these you have to send a letter saying you intend to cancel your subscription and it will take place 30 days from the date of receipt of the letter. A real letter with a stamp, sent via the mail system.
Though, it wouldn't surprise me if the address was somewhere in Timbuktu and it requires hand delivery to someone who is only there for 5 minutes on a blue moon at some random conjunction of the
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Basically any company where people sign up and do not actually use it. They claim you are paying for the right to use it, not actual use.
But no one ever uses them, like gym memberships.
Or credit monitoring
or Disney +
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Disney+ is a critical tool for babysitters of the 5-years-and-under type. It's a business expense.
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That's called outsourcing your contracted job to the TV.
Babysitters are supposed to be fun and imaginative. Otherwise they're just warden posing as babysitter.
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If they don't like interacting with kids, I wouldn't want them watching my kids.
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"Basically any company where people sign up and do not actually use it. They claim you are paying for the right to use it, not actual use.
How is this the company's fault? You could access your paid for service at anytime (within the guidelines provided), but if you have chosen not to do so, that is equally not the company's problem either. Or look at it from the reverse angle, you would expect to be able to use the service you paid for when you want (except for Timeshares, and there is a special place in
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It's a pain, sure, but cancelling my credit cards last year when my wallet was stolen finally ended several subscriptions. Can't get out of your gym membership? Contact your local mugger! (He probably works out at the gym.)
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Why do you need to do that to cancel your credit card? I've cancelled more than one without any major problems.
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I've had trouble canceling credit cards for the same reasons as cancelling anything else, and only reporting it stolen has gotten to at least change numbers. They stll send me a new one.
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I just tell the bank I want a new card and they send me one. If I give them a reason (someone charging me for stuff i don't want to pay for) they waive the expedited shipping fee. Don't even need to get the numbers changed, which they usually do automatically for unauthorized purchases, since the new card's expiration date won't match the old one, which kills the subscriptions.
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You'd think that, but you'd be wrong, at least for American Express. Processing a transaction with an expired card with a still value number, they will approve it. And refuse to reverse it.
I use to live on that card, but I haven't used it in years.
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Not just AmEx. Thereâ(TM)s a whole slew of businesses that qualify to get automated expiration date changes with all the major credit cards.
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I can cancel shit whenever I want... I have a credit card that can generate new numbers specifically to use with subscriptions - and when I don't want the sub anymore, I can just switch it off on my side. 1 click cancelation for me (switch off the virtual number) - I don't even have to talk to or do anything with the company I'm deciding not to pay anymore.
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That only works for subscriptions which operate on a prepaid basis. If you're being billed for any sort of postpaid services, they'll continue to bill you, then tack on late fees, then finally send you to collections when you've run up a sizable enough debt. Not fun.
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outside of your electric or gas bill, wtf do you "subscribe" to that is post-paid?
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Well your cekphone contract for one at least here they are billed the month after the usage happens, well duh hard to bill usage based thing beforehand
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Cable TV / internet service and postpaid cellular services are both billed in a way that cancelling the credit card will just leave you with unpaid bills rather than immediately cancelled service.
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Send them a letter (on paper) to their head office. Send it registered post. Tell them that you are cancelling the subscription from now - today, that you will not change your mind and that they no longer have any authority to take any payment from your bank-account/credit-card/... Then tell your bank. If they then try to take something report them to the police for fraud.
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Not registered, certified. A registered letter has to be kept in a special locked drawer, every time it's moved that has to be logged and, it has to be signed for. It's much slower than regular mail and intended for mailing things with intrinsic value, such as jewelry, gemstones or autographed books. Certified mail is treated the same as regular mail except that you have to sign for it when it's delivered, rather like Special Delivery was.
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I am a Brit - a registered letter is what we call a letter that has proof of delivery for a small cost by the sender. Cheaper is "proof of postage", it does not cost and under law is deemed delivered 2 working days later; this is usually good enough.
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Thank you; I'd forgotten that the terminology might be different in the UK. And, of course, delivery time might be longer in the USofA because we're considerably more spread out than you are.
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depending on the company they can and will let you run a balance and eventually send it to collections. Changes in laws make it much easier/cheaper to collect on smaller "debts", which has created an "industry" around aggregating them and using the courts to collect.
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Very few collection agencies will buy debt in the same state as themselves. This is because very few are mentally capable of a single interaction with a debtor that does not violation the Fair Debt Collections Act, often in multiple ways, and you can sue them for $1,500 per violation. Doesn't take much before they owe you more than you owe them.
One of the side effects of this is that they can't use small claims court to sue you, so they have to hire a real lawyer and use a real court. If you show up for eve
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Because it could just send you to a waiting queue for a single chatbot instance.
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If the rule is: It must be as easy to cancel as it was to sign up, then that would close that particular loophole.
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And it's a lovely, easy-to-understand, simple-to-measure rule. If lawyers can agree that it will be similarly easy to compare in court should there be a dispute, it's pretty near perfect.
It should not take longer, it should not require greater effort, and it should not require you to give up anything you hadn't already - no additional contact information or anything. And no contract clauses where you sign away that right, because they'll try that, too.
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It should not take longer
I think that part was only implied.
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As described by the head of the FCC on NPR this morning, they could do that - but only if they do the same thing when you sign up.
Same number of steps.
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This will never pass. This is too sensible coming from the Gov.
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Instead of passing endless new laws, all of them with loopholes for the privileged, it is far better to enforce the common law rights of the citizens, which includes the right to just compensation. Tacitus wrote that the more laws a country has, the more corrupt it becomes. Common law does not even need to be written down because it is common sense.
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If it isn't written down, then it is some bullshit "unwritten" rule. Those always turn out for the best.
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"Common sense" is how we get redlining, racial profiling, wage discrimination, and a host of other problems that come from those in power saying things like, "Well, it's just common sense that women should get paid less since they ___>____."
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^ women, minorities, gays, other religions, whatever.
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soon, white straight males:)
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We did have a pretty good run.
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I'm pretty sure I called Comcast to cancel after moving out of their service area, and they kept billing me. Fortunately I was a short drive from the area where there's Comcast service. This was pre-Covid, so they had walk in service and when I showed up in person they finally got the message. I think I still lost a month or two though, because they know you're not going to go through the trouble of suing them.
Has Comcast gotten any better in the past 10 years?
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Starting with AOL free trail back in the 90's, I called them weekly to cancel my Sub. They kept charging my checking account every month. Bank told me they could not stop an auto-pay charge. Finally had to close the checking account to stop the auto-pay charges. Then they kept sending me bills for the service, I wrote Canceled and returned the bill. Finally I moved, no more bills.
Had a wireline phone service for two years, decided to cancel. Did everything they wanted to cancel without getting charged for m -
Notoriously problematic to cancel. Always has to be in person and they really try hard to make that not easy either. I'd love to see them suffer for this since 90% of their business model is hoping people just let the auto-debit go through each month and never use the service.
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You should be able to deny future subscription charges through your bank. As it is, you have to cancel your account and get a new number. Which was the only way I could get rid of a gym membership I tried to cancel.
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Apple provides a single place to manage subscriptions, including cancellations, for items bought/subscribed to on their app store. That's A Good Thing.
As a side note, mebbe there's a place for an automated "we'll work through the phone tree to handle your cancellation" service. Sounds like a good job for ChatGPT and its ilk.
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Something mentioned this morning in NPR's interview with the head of the FCC was that the intent is for it to have some teeth:
$50,000 fine per violation, per day. For a big company like Comcast, that could easily add up to enough millions to show up on a shareholder's report.
Of course, the odds of that surviving all the legal challenges intact are minimal.
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I recently tried equafax, they had a free trial but you have to phone in to quit.
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Next, do marriage!
Get two wittnesses, an official, sign something. Going in or going out.
Oh, right, our government never interferes with religion (except when they overtly endorse Christian 'values')
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The real killer is the time share companies. It is almost impossible to cancel one of these. If you are fool enough to sign up you are stuck forever paying service fees and never finding a time when you can actually use your weeks. I dodged a bullet a few years back and came to my senses in time to cancel during the waiting period. Feel sorry for all those people stuck paying and paying and paying.
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