The New York AG just won a lawsuit over a process that 'deliberately' wastes subscribers' time:
A New York judge has determined that SiriusXM's "long and burdensome" cancellation process is illegal. In a ruling on Thursday, Judge Lyle Frank found SiriusXM violates a federal law that requires companies to make it easy to cancel a subscription.
The decision comes nearly one year after New York Attorney General Leticia James sued SiriusXM over claims the company makes subscriptions difficult to cancel. Following an investigation, the Office of the Attorney General found that the company attempts to delay cancellations by having customers call an agent, who then keeps them on the phone for several minutes while "pitching the subscriber as many as five retention offers."
As outlined in the ruling, Judge Frank found that SiriusXM broke the Restore Online Shoppers Confidence Act (ROSCA), which requires companies to implement "simple mechanisms" to cancel a subscription. "Their cancellation procedure is clearly not as easy to use as the initiation method," Judge Frank writes, citing the "inevitable wait times" that come along with talking to a live agent and the subscription offers they promote.
The Federal Trade Commission has started cracking down on hard-to-cancel subscriptions as well, with a new "click to cancel" rule going into effect next year. Under the law, companies must make canceling a subscription as easy as it is to sign up. "This decision found SiriusXM illegally created a complicated cancellation process for its New York customers, forcing them to spend significant amounts of time speaking with agents who refused to take 'no' for an answer," Attorney General James said in a statement.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by anubi on Sunday November 24, @03:35AM (9 children)
As far as any subscription goes, cancellation should be as simple as failure to pay.
Want it back? Pay your bill!
Didn't want it? It's done.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 4, Informative) by hendrikboom on Sunday November 24, @03:43AM (8 children)
Not paying can be difficult when the business has your credit card number.
(Score: 4, Informative) by owl on Sunday November 24, @04:31AM (4 children)
This is exactly the problem. In all these cases the 'subscription' is on an "auto-billing' cycle where it is either auto-charged to one's credit card, or auto-debited from one's bank account.
Which means that to "stop paying" one has to convince a business who's best interest is to continue to take your money to stop taking your money.
And, worse yet, some of them also have "click wrap" contracts that you agree to that, buried deep on page 34 of 62 in 4pt type contains a clause that if you stop payment on your end via bank or credit card, that not only do you now owe them the subscription costs, but also large penalty to pay surcharges too. Whether any of these have been tested in court is a different question, but given the usual costs of a trial, one would spend more on lawyers to win in court and not pay the fines than the fines themselves cost. Which is also a 'feature' of the system these companies rely upon.
(Score: 4, Informative) by hendrikboom on Sunday November 24, @02:46PM (2 children)
My wife once had a one-month trial subscription to a piece of Adobe software.
She cancelled within the month.
Six months later I went through her credit card records and discovered we were still paying for it.
She had very long conversations with Adobe reps to try to cancel, no luck.
What finally ended the payments was when the bank discovered a major leak of credit card data and spontaneously terminated every customer's credit card and issued a new one with a new number.
Of course we got a call from Adobe asking or the new card number. But in this call my wife had the upper hand.
We have never done any business with Adobe since, and advise others not to deal with them either.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday November 25, @03:40AM (1 child)
I have heard of some CC accounts that let us spawn off temporary account numbers for us to fund with an amount of our choosing. We can then fund it with sufficient funds to cover expected charges.
That might be why some businesses won't accept debit cards, as those temporary cards are easily abandoned when they experience rogue charges.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday November 25, @02:06PM
I have the impression that debit cards have a higher level of security than credit cards.
But I have no real evidence for this.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday November 26, @02:37AM
"And, worse yet, some of them also have "click wrap" contracts that you agree to that, buried deep on page 34 of 62 in 4pt type contains a clause that if you stop payment on your end via bank or credit card, that not only do you now owe them the subscription costs, but also large penalty to pay surcharges too. Whether any of these have been tested in court is a different question, but given the usual costs of a trial, one would spend more on lawyers to win in court and not pay the fines than the fines themselves cost. Which is also a 'feature' of the system these companies rely upon."
This is my prime concern when confronted with subscription contracts. As far as I am concerned, long winded contracts full of legalese are a clear warning I should abandon any relationship with that company lest I snarl myself in legal matters.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 4, Informative) by Spamalope on Sunday November 24, @12:55PM (1 child)
WOW MMO, within a few years of release...
Cancel service, and changed credit cards a few months later as I changed banks.
Nearly a year later, WOW starts drafting money from the card I never gave them for the service I canceled.
Visa representative said they instituted a new policy to 'help' you maintain your subscriptions and they turn over your financial information to subscription services for that purpose.
Pro-consumer I'm told...
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday November 26, @10:04PM
Spotify customer service told me that as well, when somebody got my CC details and signed up for Spotify Premium or whatever they call it, but I wasn't sure whether they were lying. After they had "fixed" it twice, and Chase had reversed another charge after that, I eventually got Chase to issue me a new card and I don't believe it's been a problem since.
I should probably double-check though.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 29, @04:55PM
I set up a privacy.com account years ago.
I generate a virtual credit card number for every every business/purchase.
If I want to cancel Netflix, I just click the Netflix card and click "close". No more charges will go through. Period.
I can even set limits like "The Netflix card can only charge $15/mo". If they hike their price yet again, it will get declined until I decide to raise the limit or tell them to fuck off.
When Netflix released their pedo movie Cuties, I just closed the card and never looked back.
Another nice feature of privacy.com is that it links with your bank account to do all the charging. When a charge comes through, it looks at your bank balance...and if there's not enough money to cover the charge, it declines it. No $35 overdraft fee.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Snotnose on Sunday November 24, @04:48AM (1 child)
Last Jan I subscribed to a 30 day trial via Prime so I could watch a football game. When the game was over I cancelled the trial. Next month I noticed a charge on my bill. Went to Paramont+ to cancel, they pointed me to Prime. Went to Prime, they pointed me to Paramount+. Lather rinse repeat.
Worse, I couldn't watch Paramount+ because I was unsubscribed. So I'm paying for something I can't use and everyone is pointing fingers at the other guy.
Fortunately my credit card expired so the charges stopped. Guess how long it's gonna be before I sign up for another streaming channel. Go ahead, guess. If you guessed anything less than the heat death of the universe then you're wrong.
It's just a fact of life that people with brains the size of grapes have mouths the size of watermelons. -- Aunty Acid
(Score: 2) by Deep Blue on Sunday November 24, @07:44PM
My story here in GDPR land is different. I got an offer for a month free trial for a 3d party sports channel from my phone company. I wanted to watch some NFL games, so i took it. The day before the trial ended, i ended the subscription and i was still able to watch a game on the same day the service ended. All i had to do was login to the phone company site and click to end the subscription. But yes, i was suspicios too, that's why i ended it the day before.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Sunday November 24, @05:42AM (1 child)
In other news: Ajit Pai to be nominated as the head of Trump's FTC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 24, @09:07PM
bUt ThAt'S wHaT tHe PeOPle VotEd FoR
(Score: 2) by srobert on Monday November 25, @04:07PM
To join click here. To cancel at anytime simply mail a 3-inch by 5.5-inch postcard with CANCEL printed in block capital letters in blue ink, except for the letters C and N which must be printed in block capital letters in green ink, to P.O. Box Somewhere in Kazakhstan. Sign the postcard legibly in cursive writing in black ink beneath the word CANCEL and vertically separated by 1/4th of an inch. Do not write in the 1-inch margin around the perimeter of the postcard or your request will be voided. There will be a waiting period of up to 6 months or more while we evaluate your request.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday November 26, @10:01PM
What, you mean they didn't call it the Jealous Untermensch Solicit To Ignore Commodity Enshittification Act, or maybe the Commodify Underserved Mainstream Shoppers' Hunt Over Trust Act? These guys are supposed to be great at acronyms.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"