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Comment by dtech | Hacker News Reader

In the EU consumer protection law mandate this. You have to be able to cancel in all the same ways that you can sign up. The most common way to pay subscriptions is with SEPA direct debit, and banks have to let you revoke those authorizations even retro-actively for 90 days.

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SEPA direct debit? First time I hear that anyone is using this for subscriptions, aren't you from Germany? :-) SEPA direct debit is also used here (Slovakia) but usually to pay for internet/phone/electricity/ and other bills, you basically give them a mandate to draw up to a certain amount and you can revoke it anytime. Debit (or less common credit) cards are I think pretty common for subscriptions but I haven't heard about any shady tactics of preventing you from unsubscribing, I guess that's because all of that is regulated. And in worst case I guess I could call my bank.

Netherlands. Internet/phone etc are also subscriptions, as least in Dutch the word for a Netflix and a phone subscription is the same.

US consumer laws have been woefully inadequate for decades, and this is another instance where they’re lacking. You can issue an individual chargeback if you happened to use a credit card, but that can have adverse effects on both you and the merchant. If you used an ATM/bank card, your bank may go to bat for you, but there’s no guarantee.

I’m in the same boat re: Apple/Google subscription options. They don’t have a vested interest in keeping you attached to a single subscription, so they’ll keep the cancellation option easy in favor of keeping you in their ecosystem.

I think a biggissue in this space is how dated the US banking industry is. They trail behind in so many ways that are anti-consumer and then they're used to justify draconion mafia moves like this one from Apple.

As a consumer, I really like(d) my US bank accounts besides some technological limitations. If you can afford to pay your bill every month (worth emphasizing), credit cards have far better benefits and are more consumer-friendly than in seemingly any other country I've been to or looked into, and are even more advantageous abroad than any domestic credit card where I live.

This applies to checking accounts as well. I pay no fees on my account with no minimum balance or usage restrictions and still have free unlimited ATM use worldwide (i.e. my bank doesn't charge a fee for the use or currency conversion and they actually refund me the foreign ATM's fees) and fee-free overdrafting on my account (paying a very nominal margin trading interest rate). I actually still use it even though I don't live in the US because it's cheaper to use here than my domestic bank account...

Good luck cancelling pretty much any service in Germany without literally sending them a letter in the mail, regardless of how you signed up.

Germany is very specific in many of these things and the rest of EU is different :-).

Right, but that contradicts the parent assertion that it's outright illegal. FWIW I'm not sure I buy that - there are way too many services and companies, large and small, that don't have this symmetry of subscription.

It's an EU directive.

It's a recent EU directive (2017 I think) and might not be implemented in every national law yet, I don't know. A lot of companies haven't caught up yet and enforcement might vary.

By now it’s law (unless I’m misremembering badly) that you need to be able to cancel the same way you signed up. So unless you signed up via a letter, you’ll be able to cancel without one, even in Germany.

I don't know when you last tried to cancel anything, but if you cite the court case from 2017 on this, pretty much every service is very quick to accept your cancellation via email ;)

I don’t think stopping automatic payments automatically cancels the subscription. It just stops the money flow, but keeps you liable for the payments.

It means the company has to make an effort to get money flowing again, though. Many will know that’s not worth it and stop the service instead.

(Corrections welcome)

That's correct. However, it's useful for situations where you tried to unsubscribe, and have proof, and the company is still charging.

But there are some who will let you accrue your debt over the years and then send you to collections.

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