With the recent federal block of click to cancel, states implementing this will be the way to go.
> Both bills passed the House with broad bipartisan support. If the legislation is agreed to by the state Senate and signed by Gov Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania would join several other states that have moved to create such laws over the past year since the FTC began working on its now-defunct rule.
> New York, California, Minnesota, Tennessee, and Virginia have all enacted state-level policies that include provisions similar to Ciresi and Borowski’s bills.
If you live in a state that has not passed such legislation, I would encourage you to hound your reps until they do. 45 states to go.
One of the ways to prevent unauthorized charges is to use a virtual credit card. Many credit cards provide a way to create virtual credit card based on your real credit card, for example, Citibank [1] and Capital One [2]. Then if the merchant makes it hard for you to cancel, just delete your virtual credit card.
You can specify any expiration date for the virtual card (with at least 1 month validity). You can also set per-transaction limits on this credit card, which ensures the merchant can't charge more than the agreed amount.
This sucks that it’s not federal. All these separate state regulations just create more burden on the company side to keep up, and we almost had it federally. :(
I am happy to see states still pushing forward. But it’s just so disappointing how much is being taken away for everyone.
I have a good many subs or monthly plans. Only one sends me an email notifying me that I will be soon be billed and the amount billed. All the others never provide any notification whatsoever. Can PA also consider a bill that requires notification of billing via email?? I'd bet this rule combined with easy-to-cancel would be of great, great, benefit to the good citizens of PA.
The article says this doesn't apply to entities regulated by the state utility commission, the FCC or specifically gym memberships. That would seem to exclude a lot of the worst offenders.
I wonder how hard it would be to generate synthetic credit card numbers for each subscription service and then just cancel that "card".
I feel there is a whole cadre of consumer tech that is defensive against corporate taxes/tolls on our time. Eg: auto phone tree navigator, only allowing calls from double opted in contacts etc.
> The bills would also not cover gyms – notorious for arduous membership cancellation policies – which are controlled by the state Health Club Act. This could be amended into the legislation, which Ciresi said he was open to.
What possible good faith reason could there be for exempting gyms?
What are the most notorious offenders for hard to cancel services? I heard lots of horror stories in the early 2000s (AOL!) but I have not ran into this recently.
Personal anecdote: I had a subscription to the Philly Inquirer. They made it very easy to sign up online, but there was no way to cancel online. The website only said "call the sales team to cancel".
I changed my home address to California, and shortly after, a new "Cancel Subscription" button appeared on the PI website, which worked great.
I think in this case you just need to change your mailing address with them. There is a California law (and from other comments it looks like 4 other states) that requires them to allow easy cancelations to CA residents. And since it is probably too much work for them to prove you are a CA resident, they just have the logic check if your address is in CA to enable the online cancelation (since they have online signup)
Somewhere in the mid-2010s, The Economist lost my trust when I noticed that they did not have a way to cancel their subscription directly, you had to call a number (I was not intending to cancel, but someone pointed that out to me). I called that number on the very same day and cancelled.
Any company which makes entry easy and exit difficult will not have my money. The more difficult the exit, the harder I will try to escape, even if I like their product/service.
21 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 50.5 ms ] thread> Both bills passed the House with broad bipartisan support. If the legislation is agreed to by the state Senate and signed by Gov Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania would join several other states that have moved to create such laws over the past year since the FTC began working on its now-defunct rule.
> New York, California, Minnesota, Tennessee, and Virginia have all enacted state-level policies that include provisions similar to Ciresi and Borowski’s bills.
If you live in a state that has not passed such legislation, I would encourage you to hound your reps until they do. 45 states to go.
US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44504699
If a few more states pass similar legislation, the default would be to make it as easy as possible to unsubscribe/cancel.
You can specify any expiration date for the virtual card (with at least 1 month validity). You can also set per-transaction limits on this credit card, which ensures the merchant can't charge more than the agreed amount.
[1] https://www.cardbenefits.citi.com/Products/Virtual-Account-N...
[2] https://www.capitalone.com/learn-grow/money-management/what-...
I am happy to see states still pushing forward. But it’s just so disappointing how much is being taken away for everyone.
I feel there is a whole cadre of consumer tech that is defensive against corporate taxes/tolls on our time. Eg: auto phone tree navigator, only allowing calls from double opted in contacts etc.
Yeah the gym cancellation thing where you have to drive to the location and sign a paper was annoying me/had to do it
Hope they do something similar with cookies where there has to be an option to say no/reject all
What possible good faith reason could there be for exempting gyms?
I changed my home address to California, and shortly after, a new "Cancel Subscription" button appeared on the PI website, which worked great.
Any company which makes entry easy and exit difficult will not have my money. The more difficult the exit, the harder I will try to escape, even if I like their product/service.