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Comment by IAmGraydon | Hacker News Reader

Shady? You signed up for a trial, didn't ready the terms, didn't cancel, and they charged you as they said they would. How is that shady? They did exactly what they said they would.

When you sign up for the free trial, it literally says right there on the checkout page "Total after free trial: ($99.95 x 12 months) $1,199.40". Beyond that, they email you 7 days before the trial ends to warn you.

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the shady part was that they charged him for a full year after he forgot to cancel, despite quoting the price on a monthly basis when he signed up.

(Also, "free" auto-renew trials like this without refunds are by themselves shady imo)

He says they didn't quote him the yearly price. All you have to do is go through the beginning of their trial signup process to see that they clearly disclose it in a completely open and visible way.

The whole practice of free trials which seamlessly blend into paid service is shady imo. Not counting that they billed him for a whole year.

What's annoying is that it's difficult to be a 'good' company in this environment. Ours offers a completely free trial of our service, no obligation or sneaky practises whatsoever. It is what it says it is: a trial. Customers find it difficult to believe we're not going to stealth-charge them, even though we take no payment details, so there's no way we possibly could.

A trial that automatically turns into a paid subscription isn't a trial, it's a deferred subscription with an initial free period. Stop calling that a "trial".

In Germany most print subscriptions are "good", i.e. if your free trial expires you can just cancel after one month.

Some (all?) EU countries say you can't use the word "free" for this type of shenanigans. My employer went through meticulously removing the word "free" and surprise, surprise once you tell customers what the real situation is the flow of new sign ups slows considerably.

I love EU consumer protection efforts...

There are so many shady business practices, and I love it when the EU fights back :)

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