More dark patterns: Hearst magazines

3 points by jtode ↗ HN
My wife subscribed to a magazine for a year, Country Living I think, and a $62 charge labelled "Hearst Membership" just appeared on this month's bill. She actually remembers saying no to the "membership thing" when she bought the subscription, but it's now months in the past so (I'm sure by design) it's hard for her to remember details. Whatever the case, I'm sure there was an automatically checked box in some later screen that set the bomb for January.

So basically, if you're nostalgically thinking about getting some dead tree in your mailbox to remind you of the good times, be careful out there. She hasn't attempted to call and cancel yet, it being Sunday, but I'm anticipating they will make it very difficult for her. Will report back.

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Hearst is my parent corporation (I'm not in the magazine division) so I'm curious to hear how this turns out for y'all.