For places that require a phone call I came up with a trick to cancel via email. If they reply back via email and say I have to call them, I tell them I'm deaf and can't talk on the phone.
This was already required in the Visa Merchant agreement. If you signed up online. The merchant must provide an online way to cancel which could be email, webpage or chat. If they don't just call up your card issuer and file a "canceled recurring" dispute as the merchant doesn't provide a visa acceptable way to cancel the subscription.
I recently had to cancel an ongoing subscription I had with Equifax, which requires you to call by phone. Unbelievably frustrating. I had to dial the service at least 10 times. Each time, the automated responder would make me go through a very slow menu selection process, only to randomly fail to acknowledge either my correct SSN or zipcode or street number, which I entered using a keypad. As a consumer, I've had to enter info via phone keypad for as long as I can remember, and I've never run into a system (not even small local businesses) that was so randomly buggy.
I thought maybe I had the wrong phone number for cancellation. Turns out, when you google "cancel Equifax phone number", there are several phone numbers listed by Equifax itself, on various sections of its "help" pages.
Took me about half an hour to finally reach a human operator. Surprisingly, the cancellation process was quick with her with no haggling. But I imagine the process is so frustrating overall that a good number of people just give up.
I pay for recurring stuff with a CC for this very reason. I had an insurance company refuse to cancel my insurance unless I physically came into their office all the way across town (would have been about two hours of my time when it was all said and done) to show them proof that I had insurance through another agency. I declined that request and explained that they simply weren't getting paid any more. I called the number on my card and explained the situation to them and that I told them to stop billing me and they refused. The rep noted this issue on the account. Sure enough, they didn't stop billing me. I called the card company again to report that the insurance company had billed me again. They immediately reversed the charges and blocked all further charges from the company.
The insurance agent reported me to DMV (the relationship had soured pretty badly before this all happened) for not having insurance. It was a 2 minute call to my new insurance agent to let them to know to send proof of coverage to DMV. Problem solved in ~10 minutes of my time instead of 2 hours.
One of the philosophies at Netflix was that it should be as easy to cancel as it is to sign up, because you should respect your customers enough not to annoy them into keeping your service.
Honestly, it always seemed to me that it was actually easier to cancel than the sign up.
Any company that generates value for a customer doesn't have retention issues. I used to run software engineering at two subscription commerce companies. One company allowed users to cancel and pause/skip online via webpage, chat, email and even social channels. The other forced customers to call up support to cancel. The first company sold for 10 figures, the other company just did a down round and layoffs. Screwing over customers is good for short-term gain, but eventually, you run out of new customers and you burned the bridge for re-aquiring former customers.
And good services also make it possible to put a subscription on hold for 6-12mo or even indefinitely. I did that with Hulu for a while before upgrading to their no-ad service. If they didn't have hold, I would have cancelled and probably not signed up again.
It's too easy to cancel Netflix. Someone called in and gave my first initial + last name @ gmail email address and cancelled for me without any further verification.
Agreed! One thing that impressed me recently is how easy it is to cancel Symantec's (rather useless) LifeLock service. Just write a sentence on their online support page and my service was cancelled in less than 24 hours. They even sent me an email suggesting things I can do to prevent identity theft without using their service.
I know Symantec is unpopular here on HN, because of the certificate authority fiasco and a (quite reasonable) distrust of antivirus software, but really kudos to them for handling the cancellation so well.
I've only used this a couple of times but I think it works:
"I'd like to cancel my service. I'm going to say this really clearly for the recording, in case I have to subpoena this for evidence. I want to cancel my service, effective [date]. When I hang up this phone, I want there to be no financial relationship between myself and your company of any kind. None. I don't want any further communication from you other than a final statement showing a zero balance due. Now we can make this call as long as you'd like. No. Financial. Relationship. We're done." Then go silent, and if they try to pitch you any products of any kind, interrupt and ask "Are you refusing to cancel my service? Speak clearly for the recording."
Honestly, the best way to handle these things is to forget even bothering with the company and file a charge-back with your bank or Visa/Mastercard. You have every right to call up your bank and deny a charge for a service you're not using, and didn't ask to renew.
Plus it's guaranteed to get the charge removed immediately, and you'll be hurting the company by adding to their charge-back tally, increasing payment processing costs for them and potentially completely cutting them off.
I wouldn't advise telling people to do chargebacks often. They're meant to be used when venues of negotiation with the company are exhausted and you still believe they're in the wrong. If your bank suspects you're being too liberal with them, they will cut you off, as they'll suspect you're the fraudster.
It is not guaranteed. The company has a chance to respond with the paperwork proving that you in fact received the item you paid for. It's then up to you to prove that you did not.
I am not a lawyer, but this is what happened to me.
I made the mistake of joining a Goodlife gym in Canada many moons ago...
The place was disgusting. Always crowded. Mould growing in the bathrooms. Stunk very badly, etc...
So I stopped going regularly... and one day I was in the area I decided to stop in and cancel my membership.
"Oh sorry, you'll need to make an appointment with management in order to cancel."
"OK, is a manager in right now?"
"Yes, the manager is in but I was told not to disturb her right now."
"OK, well can you tell her a customer is waiting paitiently to cancel his account?"
"No, sorry, I am not allowed to disturb her. You're going to need to make an appointment and come back."
So I did that...
And about 3 weeks later I went in at the agreed upon time to cancel my subscription and I was just sitting... waiting... for over 1 hour...
Right beside a poor old lady that was trying to cancel her subscription as well!!!
She was overly polite and was dealing with this overagressive meathead trying to keep her locked into the service...
"I hate coming here... I never come... I never should have signed up... I just want to cancel..."
"But do you have any friends that might want to take on your subscription? It's at a discounted rate and you might be able to help them out by transferring it over to them."
"No, I do know know anyone who wants to come here."
"Ok, let me go talk to my manager about this."
And he left for like 20 minutes and came back and gave her the gears again.
When my turn came... I just said "I'm moving to england and I don't know a single person here who might want to absorb my contract".
It was a total lie... but it was the only answer that would get me out of there in under 10 minutes.
Companies abusing politeness really are terrible to society.
The best thing to do is issue a chargeback. You tell the credit card company that you 1) tried to cancel, and they wouldn't do it; and 2) you did not get any service from them since you tried to cancel.
They have to pay you back AND THEY GET CHARGED an additional $20-$30 that your credit card company takes from them as punishment.
Please don't abuse chargebacks unless the merchant deserves it, though.
> When my turn came... I just said "I'm moving to england and I don't know a single person here who might want to absorb my contract".
I actually came here to say the same thing. I realized “I’m moving” was the best way to get results in these situations when I was actually moving out of the country for a bit. It’s like a magical incantation that immediately gets them to stop trying to upsell or retain you, no questions asked.
You seem like a patient person. That first visit should have ended with the cancellation or an unambiguous announcement of your intention to issue chargebacks for any future charges by said gym as far as I'm concerned.
There's no way I'd be relying on a manager's schedule to cancel their services.
I had the same experience. I was straight up lied to by the salesmen. I talked about it to my bank, they were aware of the problem as it happens to a lot of people. BMO offered to open a new bank account, and move all my funds to it and close my account that goodlife tricked me into using.
I was told that I could cancel any time after a free trial. It turns out I was lied to. I went to see the salesman again as it was on my way. Telling him that I switched my accounts made shut up and look defeated. Felt so good.
The abuse of politeness appears to be the cornerstone of our society.
My name is MEGACORP. I am a member of the polite society that contains us both. A polite person follows the rules with a smile. The rules say that I get to eat you.
Gyms are a whole other level of insanity for unwanted charges. Planet Fitness's entire business model is essentially counting on people to forget they entered their checking account number, and missing the bill. They wont even allow you to sign up with a credit card.
Yeah, this is the sleaziest tricks by gyms, especially in Canada/US
No thanks, no bank details. I'll pay by cash, every month. I don't care if I'm paying "double" because that "half price" is accounting for crap like this.
I'd probably call the police. That's what they would presumably do if a customer was repeatedly trying to sneak in without an account, so it doesn't feel like overkill to me.
Not only do they not allow you to cancel online, they autorenew your annual subscription to the tune of HUNDREDS of dollars. This happened to me and I'm certain I didn't explicitly opt-in to autorenewal, as I would never consciously opt-in to autorenewal of such a costly service. The told me the following: "by choosing to pay by credit card, you opted into autorenewal." !!??
I moved out out of the country, they autorenewed, I called them, and they refused to cancel the rest of my year's subscription! They insisted upon continuing to send papers to my old address for an entire year.
Completely scammy, I will never do business with them again.
As with someone else's report about the LA Times: they say they don't, but you don't have to care what they say.
I did it this way. I went to their live help chat. The moment I said "cancel", I was redirected to another representative, who was clearly trained in customer retention. I held my ground (which is so much easier for me in chat than on a phone call!) and cancelled.
I had this issue with a water delivery service when I lived on the East Coast US. In the end I sent an email saying that I was moving back to Italy, stopping any further charges from them on my CC, blocking them by email, and they could do whatever the hell they wanted with my account.
This is exactly why I changed my payment method with them to a virtual credit card. When I want to stop my sub I'll just block the VCC via my online banking. There is no way I'm spending time and money calling internationally to unsubscribe.
I am surprised. I have a current subscription and my online account allows me to cancel. I also paid via PayPal so canceling the recurring payments would also cancel the subscription. Edit: looked it up and saw the link to cancel in Account->Subscription - https://myaccount.nytimes.com/seg/cancel .
Interesting. I had subscribed via Amazon for Kindle and did it automatically. I wonder if the same thing would be true if you bought your subscription through the app.
There have been a few times where I didn't sign up for a service because I anticipated cancelling would be a pain. The fact that trials often autorenew makes me reluctant to even do a trial. I wonder how much business is lost this way vs. how much is gained from making cancelling hard.
Cable TV is a classic example. If you ask how much it'll cost after the promotion ends, they'll go on repeat, "It'll be $20 for the first three months".
There's this company that offers internet service on flights also claims to offer secure hotspots, (it's a gimmick) around cities all over the US they're based in Los Angeles: Boingo Wireless. The only way to cancel the service is to call in, that's their whole scheme. When you call in they treat that as if you were doing something extremely complicated and that takes time. One of the customer service representative told me that he would have to contact the engineering department to cancel my account...Like that would be necessary. I was getting impatient, on the phone for about 40 minutes. This new law will be the end of them.
I canceled my LA Times subscription online last week. The website says you have to call to cancel. I thought I'd just give it a try online, fully expecting to fail, but to my surprise it all went through easily. They asked for the reason, and when I gave it (excessive ads+tracking) they canceled.
Last week I spent 1 hour and 20 minutes waiting for a Zipcar rep to answer my call. Creating my account was as simple as taking a photo of my license within the app and getting into a car. Companies that make signing up easy and cancellation difficult are the worst.
While I like the spirit of this law (rare for me with CA laws), I expect it to be ruled unconstitutional as attempting to regulate interstate commerce, whose so jurisdiction is under US Congress.
Recurring payments are implemented in the worst way possible. You cannot see a list of your subscriptions online, cannot see how much you have spent, cannot stop or cancel them. And even if you don't use some service anymore, they still can charge you. That is because systems like Visa earn money only when you spend and have no motivation to make cancelling easier.
Why not just use Privacy [1] when you sign up? It allows you to generate virtual cards on a per-merchant basis anytime you want. You can simply shutoff the card(s) when you want to cancel. No phone calls, emails, or faking deafness required. I’ve been a big fan of it ever since I discovered them.
The EU's new data privacy law (GDPR) allows you to withdraw consent, and "it must be as easy to withdraw consent as to give it". A perfectly clear and powerful way to describe what is wanted.
"It must be as easy to cancel a subscription as to subscribe" would a similar, effective way to do it here.
[+] [-] harryh|7 years ago|reply
Works every time.
[+] [-] adrr|7 years ago|reply
https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/about-visa/15-April-2...
Section: 5.9.8.2
[+] [-] danso|7 years ago|reply
I thought maybe I had the wrong phone number for cancellation. Turns out, when you google "cancel Equifax phone number", there are several phone numbers listed by Equifax itself, on various sections of its "help" pages.
Took me about half an hour to finally reach a human operator. Surprisingly, the cancellation process was quick with her with no haggling. But I imagine the process is so frustrating overall that a good number of people just give up.
[+] [-] FidelCashflow|7 years ago|reply
The insurance agent reported me to DMV (the relationship had soured pretty badly before this all happened) for not having insurance. It was a 2 minute call to my new insurance agent to let them to know to send proof of coverage to DMV. Problem solved in ~10 minutes of my time instead of 2 hours.
[+] [-] jedberg|7 years ago|reply
Honestly, it always seemed to me that it was actually easier to cancel than the sign up.
[+] [-] adrr|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chime|7 years ago|reply
Of course with Netflix, I've never thought that.
[+] [-] wl|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kccqzy|7 years ago|reply
I know Symantec is unpopular here on HN, because of the certificate authority fiasco and a (quite reasonable) distrust of antivirus software, but really kudos to them for handling the cancellation so well.
[+] [-] wepple|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thatthatis|7 years ago|reply
People who cancel frequently come back, unless you make canceling hard and you burn the relationship.
[+] [-] wittjeff|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] softawre|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mltony|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aphextron|7 years ago|reply
Plus it's guaranteed to get the charge removed immediately, and you'll be hurting the company by adding to their charge-back tally, increasing payment processing costs for them and potentially completely cutting them off.
[+] [-] Matheus28|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quest88|7 years ago|reply
I am not a lawyer, but this is what happened to me.
[+] [-] TheSpiceIsLife|7 years ago|reply
PayPal does this.
[+] [-] Waterluvian|7 years ago|reply
Why are you looking to cancel your phone plan?
Leaving the country.
They know they can't win me over and so they don't even try.
[+] [-] flyGuyOnTheSly|7 years ago|reply
I made the mistake of joining a Goodlife gym in Canada many moons ago...
The place was disgusting. Always crowded. Mould growing in the bathrooms. Stunk very badly, etc...
So I stopped going regularly... and one day I was in the area I decided to stop in and cancel my membership.
"Oh sorry, you'll need to make an appointment with management in order to cancel."
"OK, is a manager in right now?"
"Yes, the manager is in but I was told not to disturb her right now."
"OK, well can you tell her a customer is waiting paitiently to cancel his account?"
"No, sorry, I am not allowed to disturb her. You're going to need to make an appointment and come back."
So I did that...
And about 3 weeks later I went in at the agreed upon time to cancel my subscription and I was just sitting... waiting... for over 1 hour...
Right beside a poor old lady that was trying to cancel her subscription as well!!!
She was overly polite and was dealing with this overagressive meathead trying to keep her locked into the service...
"I hate coming here... I never come... I never should have signed up... I just want to cancel..."
"But do you have any friends that might want to take on your subscription? It's at a discounted rate and you might be able to help them out by transferring it over to them."
"No, I do know know anyone who wants to come here."
"Ok, let me go talk to my manager about this."
And he left for like 20 minutes and came back and gave her the gears again.
When my turn came... I just said "I'm moving to england and I don't know a single person here who might want to absorb my contract".
It was a total lie... but it was the only answer that would get me out of there in under 10 minutes.
Companies abusing politeness really are terrible to society.
[+] [-] fragsworth|7 years ago|reply
They have to pay you back AND THEY GET CHARGED an additional $20-$30 that your credit card company takes from them as punishment.
Please don't abuse chargebacks unless the merchant deserves it, though.
[+] [-] pandler|7 years ago|reply
I actually came here to say the same thing. I realized “I’m moving” was the best way to get results in these situations when I was actually moving out of the country for a bit. It’s like a magical incantation that immediately gets them to stop trying to upsell or retain you, no questions asked.
[+] [-] thirdsun|7 years ago|reply
There's no way I'd be relying on a manager's schedule to cancel their services.
[+] [-] ybrah|7 years ago|reply
I was told that I could cancel any time after a free trial. It turns out I was lied to. I went to see the salesman again as it was on my way. Telling him that I switched my accounts made shut up and look defeated. Felt so good.
[+] [-] swayvil|7 years ago|reply
My name is MEGACORP. I am a member of the polite society that contains us both. A polite person follows the rules with a smile. The rules say that I get to eat you.
[+] [-] aphextron|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raverbashing|7 years ago|reply
No thanks, no bank details. I'll pay by cash, every month. I don't care if I'm paying "double" because that "half price" is accounting for crap like this.
[+] [-] aczerepinski|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leekyle333|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sequoia|7 years ago|reply
I moved out out of the country, they autorenewed, I called them, and they refused to cancel the rest of my year's subscription! They insisted upon continuing to send papers to my old address for an entire year.
Completely scammy, I will never do business with them again.
[+] [-] jopsen|7 years ago|reply
But I managed to cancel through online chat..
It surprised me that a supposedly reputable news outlet is so quick to sell out its credibility. (guess I'll stick with the guardian)
[+] [-] rspeer|7 years ago|reply
I did it this way. I went to their live help chat. The moment I said "cancel", I was redirected to another representative, who was clearly trained in customer retention. I held my ground (which is so much easier for me in chat than on a phone call!) and cancelled.
[+] [-] goler|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Semirhage|7 years ago|reply
That worked.
[+] [-] mb_72|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abawany|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unethical_ban|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pbarnes_1|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] btrettel|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] VLM|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cj0011001|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] martinpw|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hoveringcto|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] salehhamadeh|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdiddly|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hermitdev|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codedokode|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] downandout|7 years ago|reply
[1] https://privacy.com
[+] [-] rmc|7 years ago|reply
"It must be as easy to cancel a subscription as to subscribe" would a similar, effective way to do it here.