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Comment by caconym_ | Hacker News Reader

This happened to me too with NYT. 20 minutes on the phone with some poor woman whose compensation I'm sure depended in part on convincing me not to cancel.

I was really surprised because they generally have a good reputation as an organization. I'll never let them get their hands on my payment details again.

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When I cancelled NYTimes last year, I gave an explanation of my reason for doing so. Once the hard sell came, I simply repeated "cancel" every 5 seconds until she gave up. It saved us both a lot of time, but I still probably had to say it 6 or more times before she gave up.

Thanks for sharing, I will avoid them for sure. I periodically get tempted.

I found canceling MIT tech and the Atlantic to be painless btw

There should be a way to cancel this sort of thing with your bank. On a recurring basis.

I suppose you could use something like Privacy.com and just revoke the card.

Thats a good way to get 100 calls from a collection agency.

Unless the contract bound you to a specific term, I don’t think they will attempt to send you to collections. What do you owe if you haven’t contractually agreed to a subscription term?

If you agree to pay someone $X every month, then unless you tell them you don't want the service any more, you are still liable for the payment.

Not if they don’t give you a way to contact them.

Except they do give you a way to contact them. They ALWAYS give you a way to contact them. The fact that you can't follow their cancelation process all the way through is on you, not them, and that's exactly how the courts treat it after your account becomes delinquent and is sent to collections.

Hmm, legally you phone, verify your identity and say you're cancelling. Sure, they want to speak for 20 minutes to wear you down to say you'll accept a deal or try a couple more months ... but you're surely not obligated to listen. Once you've id-ed yourself and said "I'm cancelling" then you're done. Hang up. Sue them if they charge you again.

Companies rely on us feeling the pressure of social conformity.

Indeed legally I expect you can cancel by any reasonable means?

I just tried one place. They didn’t want to “verify” me as they had an old or different address on file for me. Tried to play cute with my name too. I recorded the interaction though.

They usually do, it's just that most people don't think of sending physical mail, nor do they consider it a reasonable way of dealing with such things (and they're right).

They could do something sneaky and keep your account access valid for a year even though they couldn't charge your card. Then just send you off to collections.

I’ve had that happen to me once in all the years I’ve been doing this sort of thing. A BBB complaint sorted that out pretty quickly.

Any advice on the BBB complaint? I’ve never considered it before now.

The BBB is an absolute joke; you buy your ratings. As someone who's had direct contact with the BBB in a corporate context, I can say with absolute honesty and surety that the ONLY criteria that decides a corporation's BBB score is whether or not they paid the annual BBB administration fee. Ask around, talk to your friends who have had direct access- they'll confirm what I'm saying 100%. Filing a complaint with the BBB does precisely dick and angrily saying "well, I guess I'll go file a complaint with the BBB as soon as I'm off the phone with you" when on the phone trying to cancel a service serves only to make the rep you're talking to mute their microphone so they can laugh out loud at you. You think the rep you're talking to gives a flying lawnmower about your little BBB complaint? If you do, I own a bridge in California that I'd love to sell you.

Stopping payment is not the same as canceling a contract. You are basically acting on the premise that it's not worth going after you. That might even be true in all cases, but it's still disingenuous and probably unlawful.

What are the consequences of a BBB complaint? AFAIK it’s just like an older Yelp with a more confusing reputation.

If they try to ask me any questions about cancellation I just say "that's none of your business." It almost always gets the questioning to stop.

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