You're too dumb to use click-to-cancel, Big Biz says with straight face The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is considering whether to make it easier for folks to cancel deliveries and subscription services. People should be able to simply click on a page or in an app to exit a subscription, and not have to go through a maze of bureaucracy, it's suggested. Now, in official filings, industry …
1. potential customer signs up for a 4 week trial (say) BUT NO payment details supplied by customer
2. on signing up the customer is notifified that they will receive (in week 3 or 4) an invitation to subscribe
....
3. week 4 client upgrades trial to subscription with payment details or trial ends with customer abandoning service.
....
4. annual renewals the same - a notification period to renew or let lapse.
For an added bonus would be nice if no one stores payment methods.
Admittedly, that would mean a lot of people signing up for free trials all the time, because it's much easier to make new email addresses than new payment methods. Unless they start collecting some other deduplication method, they're likely to have a problem with increased use of free trials by the same people, and if they have a problem with that, only time will tell how they decide to react to it, likely to the user's detriment.
However, you could have the rest of this without having to break anything. You sign up for a free trial, and they can collect a payment method if they want, but they can't make renewal automatic. You have to opt in to that when the trial is ending. All signing up to such things when you're buying something else must also be opt in. Canceling must also be easy, though if they're so concerned about one-click, I'm willing to let it be one click on a prominently located cancel link which leads to a confirmation page where they can put any information they want, as long as the cancel button is located on the top, they show it on the first screen that appears when the page loads and they don't move it later*, and immediately cancels the subscription when pressed without needing to do any other actions.
* And anything else we need to add to prevent them from hiding it. Two clicks is acceptable if both are extremely obvious to the uninformed user. If they find themselves confused by this concept, I'm willing to act as a UI consultant for a reasonable subscription charge which will be no easier to cancel than theirs is.
While that's true it is also pretty easy to acquire new payment methods. Eventually you will stop getting approved for credit cards if you keep applying so I'm guessing a couple dozen or so is probably the practical limit there (or less if you don't want to muck up your credit rating too much) but you can buy an unlimited number of Visa gift cards. So I'm not sure payment methods are all that much better a method of deduplication for someone who is determined to get a lot of free trials.
...and when you click that "End Subscription" button, you get a page saying how sorry they will be too lose you, pointing out all the aspects of the service you'll lose, asking you if you're sure, and at the bottom of the page (off-screen except on the tallest of monitors), a "yes, cancel".
There's then a further page where the highlighted button is "no, lols, I was joking, keep me subscribed", and the pale, barely visible button is the "godsdamnit, just cancel my fscking subscription already".
I do get to see the "Yes, cancel" button in a full-screen browser window on a 16:9 monitor but I'm not going to check if there's a second "are you sure?" screen until one day before the end of the free trial month. But so far it doesn't seem that terrible.
Again, it looks like it depends on how much Amazon think they can get away with it for your country's website.
To expand on Marks reply, I recently accepted the offer of the prime 30 day free trial, for free next day delivery of something they promised would be free without prime, but wasn't.
Immediately after placing the order, I went to the cancel page, and cancelled. It said something like "we are sorry to see you go" etc. and "your prime account will be automatically terminated after the trial is over. You can still make use of the trial up until then".
I had an email reminded a few days before expiry, and then it expired as expected.
I'm sure it's the law making them do it this way, but still, that's the way it's done - feel free to cancel immediately in case you otherwise forget!
Yeah, this is pretty much the heart of the problem, that they think of and spin this as "Yet another check box" when a checkbox won't cut it.
They use a dozen step process that is misleading, and is intentionally so to the point it is tailored to individual countries to present the maximally misleading version in any given jurisdiction.
It's always been terrible, a while back I had to literally dial a phone number and talk to someone for five minutes to get them to stop sending multiple copies of a paper tools catalog to my place of work. They sent them out every few weeks. Same to cancel an account, dig around for hidden links that point you to a form, wait for a response, than find out at then end you have to call a number not listed anywhere on the dozen pages you had to look at after you hit the cancel button.
Stop playing whack a mole with these clowns, slap the entire industry with some basic norms, fine the crap of the worst offenders now, and anyone who steps out of line in the future. And if your juridiction thinks fraud is protected speech, fix that problem first, then jam some standard practices down their throats.
We need to stop playing nice with these A-holes while we still have a vote on it.
Every tried cancelling NowTV? You have to confirm at least 3 times before it actually happens. Then at the last second they usually offer you a deal to stay on.
Like all of these things its predicated around some percentage of people falling through the cracks and continuing to pay for something they don't need/use. The RyanAir business model. The product isn't the service, the product is making it too difficult to choose the right service or to change your mind.
Lots of ways to make this more consumer friendly e.g. any subscription that is introduced by a trial period should be legally limited to no more than X months minimum term. Where X << 12, say 2 or 3. That way if you miss the free window to cancel you're only on the hook for a small amount.
You can still go straight in at the 12/18/24 month level if you really want but there should be at least the same number of confirmation steps required as on the way out. Preferably with the confirmations spaced 24 hours apart and if you miss one then you're not signed up.
Or just make everything rolling monthly, but that would require having to care about retaining customers *all* the time. What sort of a way would that be to run a business???
Says the guy who took the 7 day trial of Paramount+ last night with the intention of cancelling it in 6 days. Sets reminder...
I cancelled Sky a few years ago. They insisted on calling me to "verify" the cancellation. First they tried to persuade me not to cancel, then they insisted I had to complete a viewing habits survey before they could process the cancellation.
And then _they_ had the gall to get annoyed when I answered the first survey question by saying 438 people lived in my household.
When I cancelled Comcast, I had to wait for them to call me. After explaining that yes, I really did want to cancel the finally "let" me cancel. The whole thing was ridiculous. I was not under any contract with them which is another thing the FCC / FTC should take a hard look at. With more competition finally starting to emerge in the broadband market (at least where I live -- I have a choice of 3 providers), the incumbents jack up their regular prices and then offer you a "big discount" if only you agree to stay with them for 1-2 years.
>> the incumbents jack up their regular prices and then offer you a "big discount" if only you agree to stay with them for 1-2 years.
And when you try to cancel and inform them you're going with someone cheaper, they then have the gall to offer prices dropped by 50%.
If they can afford to do that now, they could have done it from the start. Not going to deal with lying scum.
Yep. I never, ever accept any deal offered to me after I decide to cancel or not buy. And, I add them to the list of companies that I will not do business with ever again, even if it costs me money in the future.
It is just the principle: make me your best offer - you get one try only.
Don't get me started on the Amazon Music Unlimited thing, I have no idea what I clicked on the page but suddenly I was signed up with a "click here to pay".
No means of cancelling, only saving grace is that after 3 days it automatically cancelled due to no payment being made....
"So I'm not sure payment methods are all that much better a method of deduplication for someone who is determined to get a lot of free trials."
If abuse of free trials (by customers) is a problem for a vendor the solution is easy: don't offer them. Abuse of free trials by vendor (all eyes turn to Prime) is a different matter.
"Canceling must also be easy, though if they're so concerned about one-click..."
I would say as a rule of thumb that cancelling a service has to be at least as easy as signing up for it. So if it's possible to sign up for a service with one click, it has to be possible to cancel it with one click. And cancellation buttons on the cancellation page have to be as prominent as signup buttons on the signup page.
For an added bonus would be nice if no one stores payment methods.
.. which is literally the only reason left to hang on to my Revolut account: virtual, one-off credit cards - given their many other problems I no longer use them for anything else.
I wish everyone offered virtual CCs so retention (and data theft) would matter less.
If you lose and cancel a regular credit card, all outstanding debit balance transfers automatically to the replacement one. Not sure I'd trust what happens with subscriptions. Pro tip: have all your subs on PayPal. That's how I do mobiles, online newspaper, YouTube, Netflix, Now TV. It's delightfully simple to review all subs in one place, plus get an app notification every time a sub payment goes out. Can also cancel out any payee easily.
"there is little detail provided to guide them to understand its meaning and how to comply with this ambiguous requirement"
You know, could say exactly the same thing about click-to-subscribe, especially things that are relentlessly forced and difficult to avoid (like a certain tat bazaar's gold plated service).
"The NCTA said it is concerned "that rather than benefiting consumers and introducing greater clarity to the market, the overly broad proposed rule will have unintended consequences that would burden, confuse, and harm consumers,..."
Yes, you bastards, we won't actually be your consumers any more if we are able to simply and easily cancel your service. You're right, though, after 30 years of increasingly obtuse cancellation processes, we certainly will be confused by the two-click--one to cancel, one to confirm--process.
Some time ago I bought something from amazon.it, giving them credit card details and billing and shipping addresses in the process. As a thank you they enrolled me in Amazon Prime, the first month free - no clicks needed! Out of curiosity I tried to find a movie or a TV series to stream - nothing worked. I figured there was one Prime, so I tried amazon.co.uk, amazon.com, etc, directly and over VPN with presence points in the right countries - still no dice.
I had lived happily without Prime until then, so I figured I'd find the Cancel button before the free month runs out and forget about it. I succeeded, eventually, but OMG was it confusing! In fact, everything that involved me clicking on buttons, either trying to make the service work or cancelling it, was confusing in the extreme. The automatic no-click enrollment was the only exception. Conclusion: the problem lies in clicking buttons. Another possibility: I am too dumb.
See title.
They literally referred to this process internally as "the Illiad" and they are in the process of being sued over it. In the mean time, be careful of engaging with any of the prime media services (including viewing content you bought previously, outside of prime video or music. For a while there accessing the app would auto-renew your subscription without asking out. If it took you into the next month, even if activated on the 31st and you yelled at them on the 1st, they'd bill you for two months and only every refund one.
Their gonna get sued for that one too.
From the Daily Mail "newspaper"...
Canceling Prime through the Amazon App:
● Open the Amazon app. Click on the three lines in the bottom right corner to bring up
● the shortcuts menu.
● Click the Prime button in the upper left corner and then hit the blue Prime icon.
● Click the Prime logo in the top left corner, then click Manage My Membership.
● From the dropdown menu options, click Manage Membership.
● Click End Membership.
● Scroll through the message that tells you how many days are left in your membership.
● Click Continue to cancel.
● On the next page, click the End on [DATE] yellow button to complete the process.
Canceling Prime from your computer:
● On the Amazon homepage, hover over the Account & Lists tab in the top right corner.
● Click on Prime Membership from the dropdown menu to go to your personal
● membership page. Then, select Manage Membership on the right.
● Select End Membership from the dropdown menu.
● On the next page, view how many days are left in your billing cycle. Then, click the yellow Continue button to cancel.
● On the next page, click the End on [DATE] yellow button to complete the process.
The NYT subscription is worse: you can only cancel it via a call (lots of international numbers), where you will naturally face, er, hear a double glazed salesman trying to convince you to stay on. Which I did, because they offered such a solid reduction on the membership fee that it was worth it so not entirely unhappy :).
The ones I loath are those who want full and unfettered access to your bank account like mobile phone companies. Given that I have caught many over the years overbilling (in on case by assigning local calls to EGYPT - yes, seriously) which then takes weeks to sort out I don't think they warrant that agree of trust. Yes, they try to blackmail you with service suspension, but you can pay under protest which means you do not legally accept the bill (another dirty trick in the game of extracting as much money as possible).
Basically I am for any law that levels out the power on both sides. Given that the consumer tends to be on the weak side, that means more obligations on the retail side.
Any company which offers me a discount to stay automatically goes on my "never deal with them again" list. Make me your best offer - if it is good I will go with it, if it is not, I won't and if you improve it you will never get a penny from me again.
As a member of the RAC breakdown service, I always ring them and query the amount when the renewal comes through. Otherwise the cost goes up a lot.
Mind you it was worth having when the alternator and then battery failed 120 miles from home the other weekend….
I am reminded that fifty years ago, large numbers of the British population were noisily opposed to decimal currency because they found working in base 10 much too hard compared to working simultaneously in base 10, 12, 20, and 21.
There have been complaints for years about the difficulty of working in base 10, as opposed to working simultaneously in base 8, 10, 14, and 16 for weighing things.
In spite of this, I am not convinced that the general public are unable to understand a 'cancel this' tick box.
(Though personally, I would like to see automatic continuing mandates by default banned: a useful point is probably at a year. The arguments that people will accidentally fail to renew is at best ingenuous; what they really mean is 'people might have decided they don't really want what we're offering' or 'they might choose to go to a competitor'.)
You see - you agree with them.
Base 10 was simplerer and more efficient.
Never needing** to cancel subscriptions, or choose another vendor ever again is goin to be simplerer still.
** Is is even legal to cancel subscriptions? I mean why? How does that help business?
Footnote from Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman:
"NOTE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE AND AMERICANS: One shilling = Five Pee. It helps to understand the antique finances of the Witchfinder Army if you know the original British monetary system:
Two farthings = One Ha'penny. Two ha'pennies = One Penny. Three pennies = A Thrupenny Bit. Two Thrupences = A Sixpence. Two Sixpences = One Shilling, or Bob. Two Bob = A Florin. One Florin and one Sixpence = Half a Crown. Four Half Crowns = Ten Bob Note. Two Ten Bob Notes = One Pound (or 240 pennies). One Pound and One Shilling = One Guinea.
The British resisted decimalized currency for a long time because they thought it was too complicated."
The last line is brilliant :)
Three comments: he missed a tanner, there are traces of binary in there and an early attempt at decimalisation that met market resistance is hiding there in plain sight.
I always thought decimalisation was a mistake. We should have gone for a slightly reduced value of penny: 256 to the £, 16 to the new bob and let the rest of the world catch up from using a monetary system which depends on an anatomical accident.
Why praise the decimal system whilst resisting the foot and the cubit as units of length?
Sure, I'll accept that, as long as you also start using hexadecimal or another power of two as your base for every numerical thing. As long as you're comfortable expressing a price as £1F3 and a distance as 67 kibifeet (approximately 20 miles), then we can also divide by the same base. I think the people who complain about switched units are going to have more complaints about new units, even if the names are similar, and a new numerical system.
As for foot and cubit, one obvious problem with them is that they're not at all standardized. Nearly all humans at least started out with ten fingers. Those that did not due to genetic differences are aware that others did. And of course, basically every society that developed a system of mathematics used base 10, on multiple continents, without having it imposed on them. The length of a foot is very person-specific and changes over their life as well. Of course, we did standardize the foot as a specific length, but it doesn't have a connection to the feet at the end of our legs. Had we been deciding to make a new unit system from scratch, there is no reason to prefer a new unit of length to a standardized foot, as long as we started using a common base (maybe that one we've used for millennia) with it. Basically any arbitrary length you want could have been the base unit of length as long as we agreed to use it. And we have an arbitrary base unit which is accepted nearly everywhere in the world, so let's just use that. Other than the theoretical benefit of "The base unit is sort of near the length of your foot if you happen to be an adult male with somewhat larger feet than normal*", what reason do we have to prefer it? You still can't use your feet as a ruler unless you've measured them.
* The average length of a foot of an adult American male was 26.3 cm (approximately 10.3 inches). I don't have the full distribution, but the standard deviation suggests that feet measuring 30.48 cm or larger would be about 10% of the set. If it's supposed to be connected to part of the body, they did it wrong.
My ESD-safe steel toe shoes are twelve and a quarter inches long. The foot is actually a pretty convenient measuring unit for me to use, I can get a reasonable approximation of the size of a room just going heel-to-toe.
I still support the US going completely metric and ditching this silliness - except for temperature. Fahrenheit is a much better scale for normal human operating temperature than centigrade. 0-100 being really cold to really hot makes a lot more sense than 0-100 being pretty cold to dead.
"as opposed to working simultaneously in base 8, 10, 14, and 16 for weighing things"
The 14 was an oddity, especially historically (I've seen references to a stone of 15 pounds) but the 8 & 16 are just good old powers of two. Binary-based units are natural for weighing things. If you doubt it try this thought experiment: given a balance, a one pound weight and a supply of flour, weigh out an ounce* of flour, then repeat with a 1 kg weight and weigh out 10 grams.
* For the younglings this is a unit of weight, a sixteenth of a pound.
Binary-based units are natural for weighing things
Only if you ever need to measure things in ratio of 2. What if you need 5/7 of a pound?
The benefits of metric/decimal system are not so much in the base unit (10 only has factors of 2 and 5, so it doesn't divide as easily as 12 or 60), but in its consistency: you always use the same ratio to move up or down from one unit or sub-unit to the other, whether you measure lengths, weights or volumes.
And this would be why people manufactured weights in multiple increments. For example, when people wanted to start dividing things by 3, they didn't tend to try to make a simple one-weight balance do it for them, but found something that weighed a third of a pound and used that. Anyone with a balance could even do that on their own: collect a large number of smallish rocks, see how they affect the balance, put them in useful clusters and label what weight they represented. This wasn't necessary even in early history, because if you could get someone to cut chunks of metal, you could manufacture more convenient weights. Of course, that's not too much of a problem today. A lot of things that might have caused a problem for our centuries-old ancestors no longer cause one for us today, so we can have the luxury of something that's more convenient even if it would add some relatively minor inconvenience if we were teleported back to the 6th century. If we ever get teleported back, we'll probably die of disease anyway, so even the possibility of time travel doesn't require us to use old units.
I explained two ways to do this. The long way where you try several things and do some calculations, or the short way where you find something that weighs a pound and can be molded into a shape where you can accurately cut it, from clay to metal. Both were possible four thousand years ago. The latter is really easy today. Hence, this is not a problem for us.
I despair, partly because none of you thought about what used to be called the steelyard.
Weights and measures depend on standards - there is only one standard kilogram, one standard metre and so on. If you have a set of weights for your balance not only does someone have to duplicate the standard kg (or duplicate a duplicate of a duplicate of the standard) they also have to create the proper fractional weights and with a simple balance ratios of 2 are the natural subunits. The rick, of course, is to use a balance that's asymmetric. If your kg weight is on the short arm the weight that balances it is on an arm 10 times the length is 100g. Constructing arms of integer ratios can be done additively so you don't have to worry about making correct subdivisions.
Lever balances and, even worse, electronic balances have detached people from thinking about what underlies their accuracy, what the accuracy is or even if it exists. It's just numbers from a machine accepted uncritically in much the same way as so many social media users accept conspiracy theories.
And nobody seems to notice the irony that most of us are from a background that uses the binary system (icon) and yet are enthusiastic about the decimal system whose existence depends entirely on the fact that evolution has left us with two limbs and 5 digits per limb - and not as an adaptation to decimals. That's also disappointing.
Multiple people, including me, have explained why we're in favor of the decimal system. Basically, because it's already a global standard that everyone understands and we've seen what a comparatively minor change, like changing some units, brings up. If we told the entire world that they now had to use binary for everything, they would refuse. I also find it disappointing that a suggestion to use binary always seems to crop up when someone is defending the imperial unit system, which fails to use binary. I'm not sure if you are supporting it, but even if you're not, that's how we got here in the first place, with someone trying to explain how the imperial weight system was better because it was binary, while ignoring that only one of the parts happened to be.
This isn't really that ironic. Most of us are also from a system where we have various standards that we don't intend to change. In many cases, something that is functional and works everywhere is better than something that's nicer and works in only one place. Do we like C-type languages because it's the best way of writing code that could ever be envisioned? No, we like it because it works and is commonly recognized. Do we like Linux because it is the perfect kernel, which couldn't possibly be improved, atop which runs perfect software? No, we like it because it can run on most computers and it provides a stable and consistent operating system. If I built a new OS from scratch, written in a new language of my own design, and I tell you that they are the epitome of logic and elegance and you must now use it everywhere, it's unlikely that will get adoption. For example, I know several researchers in programming language design who have a few languages they are particularly enthusiastic about because the mathematics are so nice when they write their proofs, and the one common feature of all these languages is that nobody uses them in production.
I'm sure you're jesting, but it proves my point. People like Rust, and it's starting to become more popular and used in more places. However, there have been articles posted here which suggest that people should stop using C and start using Rust instead, and the comments on those are not so positive. If we're going to adopt a new system and completely replace an old one, we should have some pretty good benefits over the one that's being replaced because we're going to have to overcome the costs of annoyance from those who are used to and like the old version. Rust versus C has some benefits with memory safety and attendant security benefits. So far, the benefits from binary or other powers of two are just that it would be nicer, with nary a practical benefit nor a convincing problem with decimal provided.
Lever balances and, even worse, electronic balances have detached people from thinking about what underlies their accuracy, what the accuracy is or even if it exists. It's just numbers from a machine accepted uncritically in much the same way as so many social media users accept conspiracy theories.
Thanks for helping me realize that I was falling victim to conspiracy theories every time I use my calculator or my electronic balance. Of course I would blindly accept that 24x78=1.234E94, or would never suspect that I've messed up the tare if my 2 spoons of olive oil weigh 512 g.
I use these tools not out of detachment from reality, but because they're convenient, reliable and save me time. This is why people have been inventing things for millennia.
What's so challenging about receiving unsolicited emails? It's very very slightly annoying to receive another "solar panels" email. - click - Add to spam. Very very very slightly annoying. And why are you so worried about being spammed by legitimate emailers? You used Amazon - they drop you an email every now and then. They p**s you off - you don't buy from them ever again. You blacklist them. It's not difficult.
The spam I particularly object to is the inevitable survey afterwards. I have now added a clause to my email sig that explicitly forbids the use of my details for any surveys, and fully intend to complain (templeta is ready) if any of the companies I deal with does it regardless.
That's the one advantage of everyone trying to foist AI and chatbots on you: written evidence..
In my case it's the survey on behalf of SW Trains in the middle of a period of strike action... especially when there is no obvious place to put "stop screwing with the timetables just because you think you MIGHT have a shortage of drivers" and "stop screwing with the connecting trains AFTER I have checked the timetables and am now half way through my journey". Oh, and it will only take 15mins of your time!
I recently received an email asking to take part in an employee survey which I declined to take part in as I'm being made redundant in a couple of months ("we're reorganising and creating a single 'centre of excellence'... and you're not it!")
Make it a requirement that a supplier of subscription services has to make their cancellation process use no more clicks than their sign-up process. If they can make it a one-click sign up to get hooked into their premium service then it'd be a one-click to get out.
Dropped out by mistake? Then it'll be one click to get suckered opt back in. Simple.
Shirley, if whatever it was that you were subscribing up to was really good then making cancellation difficult would be pointless because very few would want to do it.
On the other hand, if the product or service was crap then what better way to keep as many suckers as possible stumping up.
Shit cancellation process = shit product or service. Simples.
Those who argue against single click cancellation are likely the same folks that implement "cookie popups", blocking full access to content until we've been forced to make ill explained privacy choices in the hope we'll click through to permit them unbridled snooping.
Yep, it's unfair to burden businesses with the complex task of doing something very easy.
It reminds me of the Alan Partidge episode where he's complaining about the "adult channel" charges on his hotel bill, and his excuse is that the "Do you want to watch this channel, choose Yes or No" message was too confusing.
Subscription cancellation is actually a situation where it might be useful to revive one of the worst user interface design abominations of all : the Windows dialog box options. As in, "Are you sure you want to cancel your subscription? Yes, No, Cancel".
I'm sorry to say Gwenview in KDE* has fallen victim to this. If you made a change but don't' want to keep it and closed the application it would throw up a dialog for close without saving, save and close or cancel. Now it simply tells you that closing without saving will lose your changes, no question but just Yes, No, Cancel. Will Yes lose your change but you want to keep it? Will Yes overwrite the old version but you don't want to do that? And vice versa.
Don't provide answers to a question you haven't asked.
* As of Plasma 5.20
Why are three choices needed here? Yes initiates the cancellation. No returns you to the previous page without cancelling. What does the cancel button do here? Although the labels could have been clearer, the options in Microsoft's save box were required and made sense: you had asked to close, it asked you about saving and allowed you to cancel the previous command to close.
They were required for an admittedly lame attempt at a joke. Although now I've thought about it, they would of course use a dark pattern of UI design, and Cancel in this instance would actually be taken as meaning mean cancel the cancellation of the subscription and keep collecting the money.
So the trade watchdog put out a call for "real comments from real people" [...]
Regardless, the trade groups will simply fire up ChatGPT to create as many thousands of individual "comments" as they think they need to poison the well. Does anyone here believe that the FTC, even with the best of intentions, will be able to filter out the bullshit from the industry groups?
Single-click cancel might be a bit susceptible to accidental clicks, and I think most people would accept a single, simple, "are you sure".
However this bit:
"Without understanding why they are being asked to check another box, consumers may either not check the boxes or abandon the purchase altogether due to confusion."
Like the "I have read the terms and conditions" check box, the "I have read the privacy policy" check boxes nonsense we have to go through these days?
(I may have overlooked comments that said the same as mine.)
The way to "enter" and the way to "exit" should be the same. Whether mere clicking or going through some red tape. - My preference would be a two-click process, with the first click summarizing the consequences, the second click starting the action. Those "consequences" should then be like "you win [this], you lose [that]", with likely some amount of money being [that] on "enter" and [this] on "exit".
I went to the same kickboxing gym for years, and then one day I lost my job and wasn't going to that location anymore. Cancelled membership. And that's the day I learned that the original agreement stipulated that whereas customers were indeed allowed to cancel their membership, they were unfortunately obligated to pay for one more month at full price for the gym's benefit.
(It was easier to just cancel the credit card and let them figure it out...)
It has nothing to do with buttons or even online forms. It is about business attitudes and methods. About 15 years ago I cancelled my Vodafone cellphone contract because I was sick of a lack of coverage at home and of their "technical support" peoples attitudes that I should be grateful for a sh!t service and be happy to buy a microcell to fix the coverage issue that THEY caused by moving their cell towers.
Anyways, first I emailed them informing them I wished to cancel my contract,..... nothing. No reply, no acknowledgement, nothing. So, I called them and spent over 1 hour on the phone whilst various people in various departments tried to convince me to not leave. In the end I told them that if I didn't have my PAK code within 10 minutes then I was going to hang up and call OFCOM. I also told them that I had already cancelled the Direct Debit (the moron on the other end of the phone tried to tell me that that was illegal <LOL>) so they were not getting another penny from me regardless. They got me the PAK code in 9 mins 30 secs and the second the moron confirmed that I had the correct number I hung up. What all those people did was make certain that I will never ever use any product that has Vodafone involved in it ever again. They also made certain that I would advise others against using Vodafone for the rest of my life. Yes, I am sure that others can be just as bad, but my personal experience was with Vodafone.
One thing I would like on the cancellation screen is the date the subscription ends if I click cancel now.
It would avoid the annoying bit where I want to cancel on day one but want the rest of the month that I paid for. The text used is generally so ambiguous that you can't tell if the service is going to stop now or tater.
"including when any trial period ends, the deadline to cancel, the frequency of charges, the date of payments, and cancellation information – before collecting any billing information from the customer,",
Surely, in a land where the "contract is king", existing contract law ought to cover this. Or does the USA not have a legal concept of an "unfair contract"? Only providing the above information AFTER providing billing details and effectively starting the contract and payments would be unlawful in most civilised jurisdictions.
Bought a FitBit and paid for one year's service. It was a present for my wife. She connected her phone to it, and it said something about a 6-month free trial ... Meh, I'll sort it out closer to the end of the trial period. Six months later, without warning, her dad gets a $90 charge from FitBit on his credit card - because the app had automatically signed up for an annual autorenewal via the iPhone's payment method.
Would FitBit cancel the autorenewal? Nope, no, never, all subscriptions are final, no matter what, period. Can they at least give her credit for the year I paid for? No, no possible way to do that, nobody has the ability to do it, nope.
Apple let us dispute the transaction just fine, so we got our money back. Will we ever buy another FitBit product? Nope, no, never, not happening...
I do use Amazon occasionally, but only when all other avenues are impossible.
I might use Amazon more but for their insistence at storing my credit card details, meaning I have to go into My Account, navigate the labyrinth, find where said card details are stored and delete them
Each. And. Every. Sodding. Time.
Unutterable barstewards.
Like most people, I've had horror stories about the difficulty, and sometimes near impossibility, of cancelling a service. Bell Canada stands out as one where their stores, phone support, and web site all pointed to each other as being responsible for cancellations. Despite their contracts clearly stating that the consumer "contact Bell" to terminate the contract, no one could actually clearly explain how to contact and how a cancellation could be achieved.
Despite no one in Bell having a clue how to cancel an account, once I did successfully manage to do it, I received a phone call from their retentions department less than 20 minutes later, and three followup calls within a week trying to get me to sign backup.
Of course, that's nothing compared to the guy who spent 20 minutes on the phone with his phone company repeatedly saying "cancel the account, cancel the account, cancel the account" to a service rep who simply refused to cancel it. Once he posted it to the internet and it went viral, he was able to cancel it, but the company had to be publicly bullied into cancelling an account. That's absurd.
Ever since my dealings with Bell, I've made a point of checking out cancellation procedures when I've considered signing up for any recurring service. I do a search for "cancel $SERVICE Canada", and it's surprising how many of those searches link to long lists of horror stories. I'm sure it's saved me money, as I've skipped signing up for a lot of things.
There are definitely reasons to not make it too easy to terminate an account, because it could be done accidentally (any service rep can tell you customer horror stories), but it should be no more difficult to terminate than it was to sign up for in the first place.
This post has been deleted by its author
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
