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Comment by stavros | Hacker News Reader

This isn't a solution and doesn't excuse Adobe's shitty behavior, but I use privacy.com which gives you single-purpose cards. That way, I can just pause the card and subsequent charges will fail. Then let them try to get their money.

Pull-based payments are such a bad idea, implemented even worse. Privacy.com at least gives you per-merchant controls and limits, even though this really should have been a Visa default.

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This is why last year India's policy for auto debit rules for credit debit card makes very good sense.

Under the new norms, banks will be required to inform customers in advance about recurring payment due and transaction would be carried following nod from the customer (will need additional factor authentication from 1 April). This rule is likely to impact your monthly subscription charges for different streaming platforms including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+...

https://www.livemint.com/industry/banking/debit-card-credit-...

Love that. I wonder how much money is flowing from consumers on forgotten subscriptions. My bank should have a separate highlighted section for any recurring charge.

You're right here, they won't be able to charge you automatically via the credit card, but you're still legally obligated to pay for the subscription since you have agreed to the terms of service during sign up. Depending on the action that they would take, you could easily end up paying a higher amount than the original subscription price if they put additional charges on you...

The problem is only that they can throw lawyers at you. Normally a contract is invalid if one side can show to have been deceived.

They can sue joe fartnoggin all the want. I’m not sure they will get very far. Virtual cards only require a valid zip code nothing else has to match

How were they deceived? The workflow clearly states "Annual plan, billed monthly." This wasn't something hidden from the user.

> you're still legally obligated to pay for the subscription since you have agreed to the terms of service during sign up

Except they didn't agree to them, because they didn't know about them, and they might not be legally obligated to pay, depending on the jurisdiction.

It's pretty clear that there wasn't a "meeting of the minds" in most of these situations.

I don't use Adobe but if I got bit by this I'd definitely take them to small claims.

> because they didn't know about them

I want to agree with this, but can't in strict terms. "Annual plan, paid monthly" item description next to the price is hard to defend as something unreadable. Maybe it's just me, but anytime I see "annual plan", I know I'm signing up for a year, and that commitment pretty much always comes with advantages (less total price) and disadvantages (cancellation fees) compared to shorter commitments.

It's hard to deny the pileup of dark patterns in this and many other subscription services is disgusting and I wish the legal precedent was clear that customer clarity and control always trumps service clauses. Over a decade ago I established as a rule for myself that anything "free" that requires me to enter my credit card is in fact not free. Anytime I consider sidestepping the rule, I know I have to be REALLY sure and read everything. Yep, "limited trial with pre-accepted subscription but hey you can cancel anytime!" which is common in mobile, is always a no no from me.

I think this is a question of fact, but isn't consistent with OP. Either Adobe tricked them and they genuinely didn't know and it's a dark pattern.... or it isn't a trick/dark pattern and they did know.

But if the part of the agreement that talks about canceling is above the fold and the part that says there are liquidated damages of half the remaining annual payments is hidden behind invisible scroll bars, I know which way I would be likely to rule if I were the judge.

Technically but enforcement’s another matter. Many subscription services are just going to cancel your plan and paywall you

Can they report you to a credit bureau and get your credit score lowered? I recently had my credit score lowered, I think because I canceled a Chase / Amazon credit card after only 1 month. Apparently that is a credit faux paus. No balance owed, but I did hit the measly $500 limit once - another thing bad for credit scores.

When my car + homeowner insurance renewed, it had a special section about how Lexus Nexus had lowered my insurance score, which is partially based on my credit score. Cost me several hundred dollars extra in insurance premiums.

In general, they can and do send this sort of stuff to collections since you did sign up for the terms and it's a non-trivial amount of money owed. Gyms do it for far less, so I don't see why Adobe wouldn't.

We had Time Warner send us to collections which then reported my wife to the bureaus, alleging that we had never returned our cable modem (this was just for $60, and it was 5+ years ago!!). First of all, I’m incredibly sure that we did. We had fiber after that, what would I want with an old DOCSIS modem anyway? And second of all, they were unable to offer any proof that we had not returned it. The company that was collecting tried to strongarm us, but after a few documented phone calls, it all went away. But why are companies allowed to report a fraudulent payment to collections, when they have no proof (if they had some proof surely they wouldn’t have dropped it) and there is literally no follow-up or accountability required of them? I’m glad we have the financial literacy and confidence to tell them to stuff it, but how many people get scammed by stuff like this?

We also spent a bunch of time on the phone with TWC directly, and they had no account in our name or any history of our account.

I had similar encounters with a shitty ISP where their salesperson signed me up on a yearly contract despite explaining very clearly that not only did I only want a 30-day rolling contract but that the reason I'm doing so is because of a temporary issue with the new ISP. Even if they somehow misheard the "30-day rolling" part, a yearly contract just wouldn't make sense given my planned use-case. I can only assume that the idiot simply wanted some commission and I guess they don't give any for monthly rolling contracts.

When it was time to cancel I learnt that I was actually on a yearly contract - this was a month later so past the cancellation period. The support advisor claimed that I not only received an email but actually opened it, at which point I knew they sent it to the wrong address or were outright lying as my email client never loads remote resources, making it impossible for them to see that I "opened" it. He also refused an IMO reasonable demand of reviewing the call recording (it was just a month ago so they should still have it) to determine who was in the right.

In the end, I simply blocked further payments. When collections reached out, I explained the story above and they went away immediately. Collections ended up having significantly better user experience than the original company.

> We also spent a bunch of time on the phone with TWC directly, and they had no account in our name or any history of our account

Best part of this story

Not your fault but the easiest way to prevent this is to return equipment at a corporate store, you'll get a receipt for the return.

They can send it to collections all they want, but ultimately if the debt isn't valid as per the law then you're all good. If the merchant is using bad-faith tactics to trick you into a contract (or outright lies as in my case) it is very unlikely to fly in court.

Until when you go apply for a mortgage and the underwriter makes you resolve all outstanding credit issues, which in many cases results in you paying the collection agency otherwise it could hold up your home purchase.

Theses systems were built by the creditors not the consumers.

I'm surprised gyms don't do it... It is my understanding that credit reference agencies pay money for this kind of information, and pay even more if they get to guarantee that the same debts won't be reflected on competing credit reporting mechanisms.

No. The worst they can do is send you to collections, which they won’t do, or charge you for back charges if you sign up again.

Canceling a credit card as you did may hurt your score though.

> privacy.com

Not for those of us who don't live in the US unfortunately.

Where are you located? Privacy.com were first to bring this feature to the mainstream as a product but it exists as an add-on in various places. For example, in the UK it’s offered by Monzo and offered by Revolut in the many countries they operate in. If you want to use virtual cards, it should be possible where you live.

Wise (formerly Transferwise) also offers virtual debit cards. I don't think you can limit the amount or merchant, but it still works if all you need is to be able to cancel a card on-demand.

While virtual cards are technically a thing in Canada (e.g. you get a virtual cards if you add a card to Apple Pay), I’m not aware of any services that let you generate more than one at a time in a useful way.

Their "free" plan says you can

> Create up to 12 cards per month

Does that mean you can create 12 in January, 12 more in February, etc? Or is it capped at 12 total?

AFAIK it's 12 every month (I have hundreds by now) but I've never reached the limit. They're vendor-locked so you need one per vendor.

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