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Repl.it didn't have “cancel” button for subscriptions

111 points by jrd79 ↗ HN
I just signed up for (and later cancelled) the "Hacker" plan on Repl.it. When I was ready to cancel, I went to the "My Account" page. On that page, there was a "Billing" section, but it didn't list any record of my subscription. And there was no button on the page for cancelling my subscription. (I was logged in on the subscribed account and had access to my "private" REPLs, which is what the subscription lets you do.)

I emailed support and they cancelled it for me, and said:

"We are working on cancelling subscriptions being an automated process the user can do on their own."

Support didn't respond to my question as to why my subscription was not listed in the "Billing" section, but it was presumably for the same reason that there was no "Cancel" button.

According to Crunchbase.com, Repl.it has raised $24.6M. That they didn't have a self-serve cancel functionality (and they had a deceptive "Billing" section that omits actual subscriptions) on their Account page deserves community criticism. Please help spread the word so that they do better.

[EDIT]: Someone, seemingly from repl.it writes:

"Hey there, we upgraded our stripe library version and missed a part in our code the relied on the old behavior. That resulted in our billing info not rendering for about a day. Sorry about that! A deceptive "Billing" section is definitely not our intention."

Someone confirmed that they have indeed fixed this. The purpose was to get them to fix the issue (since support just gave me the run around). They appear to have done so, so this issue is closed for me.

63 comments

[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 55.3 ms ] thread
qntty
Has someone made a site yet where you can look up how easy it is to cancel a subscription before subscribing? Maybe there could be an extension that warns you before you sign up for a service without the ability to easily cancel online.
nix0n
The closest service I know of is privacy.com's limited use credit cards, which let you cancel a service by cancelling whatever card they have.
zackkitzmiller
This is becoming more and more common from issuers. BoA, Chase, and even Venmo Credit have this or similar functionality.
ericra
Unfortunately, Bank of America discontinued their "ShopSafe" virtual card service. It was a great resource, and I definitely miss it.

I suspect that major banks/credit card companies don't like this service because it brings in no revenue (at least directly), takes resources to maintain, and arguably encourages some of their customers to engage in fraudulent-adjacent behaviors using virtual card numbers.

I've avoided services like privacy.com because I am weary of giving a third-party access to my credit card for this purpose, so I do wish more banks/credit cards would offer this service directly.

tzs
Capital One, also. They also have a browser extension that lets you generate new virtual card numbers when on a site's checkout page (or reuse one you previously made for that site). It is quite convenient.

Their extension, "Eno", is available for both Chrome and Firefox.

lukevp
FYI, the Costco capital one does not support this.
ryanSrich
The last time I mentioned this on HN everyone was saying how this isn’t legal technically. If you cancel a service simply by not paying (in this case archiving the credit card number) that doesn’t mean you aren’t still liable for the charges.

Having said that. If I can’t find a way to cancel on someone’s site, I will just rotate my card number and be done with it. I’ve never been held liable for those charges in those cases, so I’m not sure what the real answer is here.

vinger
There was a recent story about repl hiring process where they preferred inexperienced developers. Not surprised key things were missed.
whatch
There are chances it is "not a priority" intentionally
Humdeee
> missed

Uh, "deliberately omitted" maybe?

fortran77
Are you in California? If so, sue them.

Here's the law:

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

CharlesW
This law doesn't require companies to provide a self-service mechanism to cancel that I can see. Note that the poster "emailed support and they cancelled it for me", presumably without fuss.

(b) A business that makes automatic renewal or continuous service offers shall provide a toll-free telephone number, ELECTRONIC MAIL ADDRESS, a postal address if the seller directly bills the consumer, or another cost-effective, timely, and easy-to-use mechanism for cancellation that shall be described in the acknowledgment specified in paragraph (3) of subdivision (a).

fortran77
Read it carefully!

It clearly says:

(c) In addition to the requirements of subdivision (b), a consumer who accepts an automatic renewal or continuous service offer online shall be allowed to terminate the automatic renewal or continuous service exclusively online, which may include a termination email formatted and provided by the business that a consumer can send to the business without additional information.

WesolyKubeczek
Isn't this something that major card networks can ban and shitlist you for? They have pretty strict rules about such things, given the "trick into subscription" scams and all.

An elevated number of chargebacks could do it, for example.

I mean, what the hell, even products that haven't seen such a sum of money on their accounts ever somehow manage to have a self-serve cancel functionality.

valleyjo
Yea I was going to say, call your credit card and do a chargeback. Pretty easy case to make.
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myth_drannon
Is it not done on purpose as a growth hack, so you have to contact them and they can have a report? I had a subscription to digital version of "The Globe & Mail", largest Canadian newspaper. I had to call them to cancel it because you can only subscribe online not cancel.
ericra
I hope someone from the company will see this and respond.

I found the free version of their service to be compelling and have considered a paid subscription. Making cancellation difficult is an immediate red flag for me, though, and I would never pay to subscribe while this is the case.

astuyvenberg
That is unfortunate, the "call to cancel" dark pattern is so annoying.

I hope they do better.

Semaphor
Also illegal in quite a few jurisdictions if you signed up without calling.
ModernMech
"Call to cancel" is at least preferred to my old gym's method of canceling, which was to send a handwritten notarized letter via certified carrier pigeon through a time portal to the past to warn myself to not sign up in the first place.
johnwheeler
...
madeofpalk
You never considered it unetheical despite knowing you're taking advantage and milking customers? Do you now consider it unethical?
binaryblitz
>I never considered it unethical

I'd say a vast majority of people (as well as all CC companies) will vehemently disagree with you.

ctvo
> I run a subscription site and just recently added a cancel button. I used to make customers file a support ticket. The previous thinking was that if you put up a barrier to cancelling there’s a chance the user will defer it and give you another month or two of revenue. There are a lot of sites that do that (the New York Times, and the Economist), and I never considered it unethical so much as shrewd? Anyway, I decided to add a cancel button, and the only thing I’ve seen drop off is the number of support requests I receive, which is nice. There’s been no difference in the cancel rate at all.

It's shrewd to waste your customer's time and hope they forget?

Wouldn't this energy be better spent making the product better, this way they don't even consider cancelling?

You mentioned two companies that were for a time dealing with the transition from print to digital and the decay of advertising revenue. They were holding on in anyway possible. I wouldn't use them as a model for how to run your own subscription base business.

Karunamon
Speaking as a customer, when I take over the world it will be grounds for summary execution if I have to talk to someone to cancel what I signed up for with a couple of button clicks.

The NYT is a very, very legacy outfit and it's probably not a good idea to take cues from them.

romanovcode
Aren't you shooting yourself in the foot by this logic? If the ticket takes so long to reply and next billing cycle ensures I am sure as hell gonna chargeback the extra transaction.
junke
Wow, cancel culture in action
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davidrusu
These companies should realize they are playing an iterated prisoners dilemma game with their customers. Just because your services aren't right for me today, doesn't mean I won't come back in the future and pay for your services again now that I know what you do.

But I doubt I'd come back if my last experience with a company has been a bad cancellation procedure.

MattGaiser
> Just because your services aren't right for me today, doesn't mean I won't come back in the future and pay for your services again

I suspect that it is quite rare though for someone to actually come back.

ModernMech
What about word-of-mouth recommendations? If a service doesn't work for me and I cancel, I may still recommend it to someone else. Not so much if I know they're going to hate me for it if they try to cancel.
davidrusu
Varies by business, for sure.

I'd say the chance is much higher for B2B businesses. Say my Shopify store fails so I cancel my subscription. But I'll likely come back and try my luck again with Shopify on my next idea since I've learned the platform.

decebalus1
With the risk of generalizing, this is what I do with some streaming services. I subscribe then cancel after 2-3 months after I've finished watching what I was interested in. I do this with HBO, Showtime, Hulu, Netflix, etc..

I do the same with Leetcode, cancelling my subscription after I'm done prepping then resurrecting it if needed.

dumbfounder
Wrong attitude, and wrong. If I am trying out a few things that don't pan out, I may want to cancel. Then I may want to come back in a few months. Also, this space is moving quickly, so if they aren't improving the product quickly then they will die quickly, so I am sure the people using these tools are trying things out every now and then. Also, you are tainting your word of mouth. Just because I cancel doesn't mean I can't recommend it to someone else who may have different needs. But if it's a pain to cancel I won't be doing that.
ironmagma
Someone will be much more likely to come back though given that they want to, if they know they won’t be held hostage.
bombcar
I have cancelled and come back on a number of services, both personal and for work.

I have NEVER come back to ANY service I had to call to cancel.

helloguillecl
I've been in and out of so many services! The fact that it is easy makes me come back again to many of them.

And still, you don't want to spend your support team's time helping customers cancel their subscriptions.

On top of that, you don't want them complaining that they cannot easily stop the service in online forums nor to their co-workers.

raiyu
Let’s not make this overly complicated, if it was important enough for them to charge you they should give you a way to cancel the only reason any company doesn’t is because they are f*ing customers.
kevinmchugh
It is my understanding that Illinois and California both require that any subscription you can create online be cancellable online as well. People creating subscription services should be familiar with the relevant laws.
fortran77
Yes. The relevant part of the CA law:

c) In addition to the requirements of subdivision (b), a consumer who accepts an automatic renewal or continuous service offer online shall be allowed to terminate the automatic renewal or continuous service exclusively online, which may include a termination email formatted and provided by the business that a consumer can send to the business without additional information.

moudy
Hey there, we upgraded our stripe library version and missed a part in our code the relied on the old behavior. That resulted in our billing info not rendering for about a day. Sorry about that! A deceptive "Billing" section is definitely not our intention.
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ericra
Just to clarify:

Are you saying that you have and will always have the ability for customers to cancel their subscriptions online without contacting customer service? And the only reason OP was not able to do so was because of a temporary technical issue lasting about a day?

I just want to be sure that is clear.

moudy
Yup! We've always had it have no plans on changing that.
ericra
Excellent, thank you.
jrd79
I am the original poster. The purpose of the post was to get the issue fixed (since support gave me the run around). Now that it has been fixed (and confirmed), I have updated the post to reflect that and have hidden it (as it is no longer relevant).
nitrogen
If you are referring to the "hide" link that an ordinary HN user sees (I have no idea what the non-ordinary HN is like for mods et al), I believe that just hides it for you, not everyone else.
minikites
Weird how there never seem to be any code errors relating to billing that prevents customers from giving the company money, only the other way around.
tumblewit
Not really. If you think about it charging a customer is naturally going to be the most tested feature. You can’t really test ‘not charging’ unless there is a high volume of customer calls saying they are being charged when they don’t want to be. A very low to no volume of customers would call if they used a service and were not charged for it on the other hand.
minikites
"Our service is so great, nobody will want to cancel it, so we don't need to test the cancellation feature."

This is what your comment boils down to and why we need regulations in this area. Difficulty in canceling services affects many industries, not just technology.

jakub_g
This is bad, but FYI, the solution is to find a bank which offers virtual credit cards (ideally, virtual disposable credit cards) and use virtual CC for new subs.

You use virtual CC, and if it's too painful to unsub, you cancel the CC. They will call you themselves when they notice the $ is not there. And then you can tell them what you think about 'em.

merwanedr
I don't understand how this post made it to top 10. Ironically, it even mentions that the company just raised their series A. I have a lot of respect for repl.it as a company and amjad/haya as founders. Surely there's a lot of jealousy and envy in the air.
dvfjsdhgfv
That's why we should use only prepaid cards.