danso 2018-07-05 20:27 UTC link

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.

hermitdev 2018-07-05 20:28 UTC link

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.

harryh 2018-07-05 20:30 UTC link

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.

Works every time.

leekyle333 2018-07-05 20:39 UTC link

The New York Times doesn't allow you to cancel your subscription online.

rdiddly 2018-07-05 20:40 UTC link

OK now here's an excellent use for Google Duplex. Using a robot to fool a person: annoying. Using a robot to fool someone annoying: fine!

martinpw 2018-07-05 20:57 UTC link

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.

Waterluvian 2018-07-05 21:22 UTC link

My trick to avoid the long retentions go around is to tell them I'm leaving their service area.

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.

btrettel 2018-07-05 22:10 UTC link

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.

adrr 2018-07-05 22:28 UTC link

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.

https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/about-visa/15-April-2...

Section: 5.9.8.2

salehhamadeh 2018-07-05 23:06 UTC link

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.

hoveringcto 2018-07-05 23:26 UTC link

Simply telling the merchant I will do a chargeback has worked every time for me (provided it's a credit card charge).

jedberg 2018-07-05 23:54 UTC link

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.

wittjeff 2018-07-06 00:26 UTC link

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."

cj0011001 2018-07-06 01:43 UTC link

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.

aphextron 2018-07-06 01:50 UTC link

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.

downandout 2018-07-06 02:47 UTC link

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.

[1] https://privacy.com

flyGuyOnTheSly 2018-07-06 03:54 UTC link

Thank god for that.

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.

rmc 2018-07-06 11:10 UTC link

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.

codedokode 2018-07-06 13:02 UTC link

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.

FidelCashflow 2018-07-06 13:14 UTC link

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.

jjoonathan 2018-07-05 20:31 UTC link

We really need some kind of consumer protection against IVR gauntlets.

fishbone 2018-07-05 20:41 UTC link

Please listen closely, our menu options have changed

ergothus 2018-07-05 20:46 UTC link

Yes! This what excited me when 8 first heard about it and I was perplexed why people focused on reservations. That's just the door, and companies on the other end are interested in lowering the barrier for customers.

I'm curious what this does for in person issues, and if gyms will take a hit in CA.

goler 2018-07-05 20:49 UTC link

Same with Wall Steet Journal if you don’t live in CA. Even for CA residents, the cancellation option is buried in the interface.

gshulegaard 2018-07-05 20:55 UTC link

Not sure it would hold up in the Supreme Court. Provided the law is worded strictly to apply to CA citizens / only when corporations are serving CA citizens there is little to make an interstate regulation argument on. And there is also international precedence (EU GDPR) which could guide court opinion.

Maybe it's just wishful thinking but that's my $0.02.

rspeer 2018-07-05 21:16 UTC link

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.

13of40 2018-07-05 21:17 UTC link

Half a year back I got a check from American Express for $50-ish because of some accounting issue they had. Bank error in your favor. Unfortunately, the local meth heads stole it out of my mailbox and I only got the check stub when someone found it in the street and turned it in to the post office. So I called them up to ask them to reissue the check. Long story short, they dodged and weaved with their phone automation and outsourced call center until I finally gave up and wrote them a letter. Six weeks passed and right when I'd written it off, I got a check.

mygo 2018-07-05 21:36 UTC link

I actually have a speech impairment (a stutter) and you’d think people would be willing to accommodate. I can speak just fine when I have complete agency over the words I choose to say, but it’s the absolute worst when I have to read out some long specific access code or account number and say it 100% correct. Stutter even once and they think I meant 2 P’s when I just wanted to say a single P. And then it becomes this long drawn out process of “after AF6, it’s just a single P, but the rest of it is right” because I really don’t want to have to read out the entire code again.

But sadly there have been more times than I can count where I told them I have a speech impairment, it’s difficult for me to say certain things in the way they need me to right now, and I’d prefer to send them an email (even offer to send them an email for them to open while we are still talking)... And they said no they cannot do that for one reason or another.

mjcl 2018-07-05 21:40 UTC link

I did something similar when I moved to get rid of my wired phone service. I told AT&T I had signed a contract with Comcast and told Comcast I had signed a contract with AT&T.

bb88 2018-07-05 21:42 UTC link

Google has since changed this. Google Duplex will not "fool" humans any more. They announce that they're the "Google Assistant" calling on behalf of a customer.

I think unfortunately what will happen is that people will just hang up on the google assistant because it's not a real human.

It'll be kind of like what happened to the "glassholes". Maybe not as mean though.

jopsen 2018-07-05 21:52 UTC link

I found this out after I signed up, and realized the offer was time-limited (illegal business practice).

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)

ddoolin 2018-07-05 22:10 UTC link

I started doing this after I came back from living in Korea a couple of times. The only one who ever tried was, I think, Sprint or another carrier, who offered to put a hold on my account but they could only do that for some short number of months, so of course my next reply was "I'm not planning on coming back."

lern_too_spel 2018-07-05 22:26 UTC link

Generally, laws made by the legislature are well thought out. It's that nearly-immutable laws passed through initiative that screw up California law.

Semirhage 2018-07-05 22:46 UTC link

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.

That worked.

brandonbloom 2018-07-05 23:36 UTC link

I've done this several times with Comcast, but it failed with Time Warner when I moved out of NYC. They demand to know why you are canceling and have some sort of way to extract money out of you for every scenario, including moving out of their service area. In that case, they transfer you to another phone system that helps you find a provider at your new address and, presumably, nets them a referral fee of some kind. Meanwhile, if you try any excuse to quit that they haven't accounted for, they tell you "yes sir" and redirect your call to that service as a fallback catch-all. Truly despicable.

wepple 2018-07-06 00:10 UTC link

Anyone who has this business philosophy deserves my money

khc 2018-07-06 00:19 UTC link

so the solution to having to call a merchant to cancel a subscription is to call your card issuer to cancel a subscription?

CamperBob2 2018-07-06 00:32 UTC link

"Well, I don't mean to overshare, but if you must know, I've been convicted of aggravated manslaughter and am scheduled for booking tomorrow afternoon. I won't be needing cable TV service for ten to fifteen years."

toomuchtodo 2018-07-06 00:37 UTC link

Some merchants have it in their contract (for subscriptions) that any chargebacks will go to a collection agency, which dings your credit.

chime 2018-07-06 00:45 UTC link

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.

Of course with Netflix, I've never thought that.

paulie_a 2018-07-06 00:52 UTC link

I've found a different method. Email them and tell them they need to call me or they won't be paid anymore. I've actually used the phrase "give me a holler". Got a call the next morning.

ianai 2018-07-06 01:10 UTC link

All you have to do is say you will report the charge as fraudulent in an email.

mltony 2018-07-06 01:13 UTC link

But recording phone conversations is illegal in most states, so unless you live in a state where it's legal, they might know that you are bluffing.

lotsofpulp 2018-07-06 01:27 UTC link

That works until the merchant you’re dealing with is a monopoly or duopoly and you need them more than they need you.

brunoborges 2018-07-06 01:40 UTC link

You can also say: "Because I was convicted and I am going to prison by next week."

TheSpiceIsLife 2018-07-06 01:52 UTC link

Ultimately the solution is to let the customer manage their subscriptions via their payment service provider.

PayPal does this.

adrr 2018-07-06 01:58 UTC link

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.

wl 2018-07-06 02:15 UTC link

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.

quest88 2018-07-06 02:19 UTC link

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.

kccqzy 2018-07-06 03:13 UTC link

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.

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