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Comment by JonLim | Hacker News Reader

Am curious: what made it so difficult to cancel / unsubscribe?

If you subscribed with a credit card, did the option of chargebacks ever come up? (Asking because these sorts of situations seem perfectly in line for disputing with your credit card provider.)

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Chargebacks are way harder in real life than people think. It took me multiple calls, emailing evidence/screenshots, and months to get a $300 charge back processed. That was for a completely fraudulent charge at a bar. The way it was explained to me, banks will only process a chargeback when you have provided evidence of trying to contact the merchant and they refused to provide a refund and couldn’t show a valid contract supporting the charge. So in this case you couldn’t just charge back NYT just because their cancelation policy is slightly burdensome. And they don’t stop that business from charging you again, so even if you can charge back a charge, it doesn’t solve the issue of canceling the subscription.

I've only made a few chargebacks but each time it was really easy. I've never had to provide any sort of documentation and have gotten the money back quickly each time.

The most recent time was with a company that wouldn't honor their refund policy. They were awfully rude over email so I made sure to take screenshots of the policy on their website in case they disputed the chargeback and/or changed the wording on their site. Turns out, there wasn't even an option to upload that information when I filed with my credit card, and I won the case without doing anything further.

Where did you get your credit card? Name-and-shame is important when dealing with corporations, but so is name-and-praise for the few that actually work correctly.

USAA credit cards have been fantastic for me over a 31 year period. In that time, I can only recall 3 chargebacks and all were decided in my favor quickly and easily. Other service is also great; cash back levels are just “okay” but I’m not giving up convenience and USAA service for 50bps more cash back.

Good idea. The card is through Chase. I've had the card for years and overall I haven't had any big problems.

U-haul charged me three times for the same thing. I spent several hours on the phone with u-haul trying to get them to reverse it. Ultimately they said the agreed I was triple charged but they couldn't reverse it and I had to contact my bank

It took EIGHT MONTHS and SEVEN phone calls with my bank to get them to charge back. And haul fought me every step of the process when they're the ones that told me to go to my bank. U-haul went as far as to straight up lie to my bank. I'm surprised they didn't forge documents with all the shit they were trying

Maybe it depends on your bank? I’ve had to do a couple chargebacks on Chase CC’s in the $200-300 range and I just had to click a button in their web portal.

It was more difficult for me to get reimbursed when I tried depositing $300 in a Chase ATM and then it crashed halfway through. But that just involved a 2 minute phone call to resolve

Chargebacks only delay the inevitable. If the card is still in use they'll simply try again at the next billing cycle.

I had an Amazon subscription charge I could not track down for a year. Every month I would call Amazon, who's CSR couldn't find it, and then my bank to reverse the charge.

Found out I had Amazon Premier still signed up on Amazon IT. The card worked globally but subscriptions displayed locally.

IIRC, each chargeback charges the merchant a nonrefundable $35 fee. So even if you get your $10 back, the person who took your money is out $45. If someone were to keep charging me after a chargeback was won in my favor, I’d just keep issuing more chargebacks to spite them. They also can only lose disputes so many times before Visa or MasterCard looks closer at them.

Had similar problem with The Times in the UK, but it seems it's pretty common for newspapers.

The online subscription could only be cancelled by telephone, on a phone line with small and inconvenient windows of opportunity, with long waits. When you get through, you have the normal retention/upsell attempts, and then are told that it will take at least two months to process your cancellation, and that you will continue to be charged in the meantime.

It was easier to cancel my card, at which point they somehow managed to withdraw access as soon as the first billing failed.

Usually I respond with where is that in your contract? If it isn't there with my signature I will be charging those two months back.

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