Confirm your email is valid, and then add it to the list of "continue to spam" accounts.
Dailyburn@mylastname.io
When they start spamming I set up a filter to hard block anything going to that address.
Good lord! This is my second "opsec" reply on this - what a statement on how shitty it is to try and engage in commerce when you need to cover your tracks like you're committing a crime...barf.
Also I think HN and the technosphere in general is a little blind to the cost/benefit analysis of privacy for most consumers. People here have intimate knowledge of the technology and what can be done with information, so that's where they focus. Simple fact is there's a lot theoretical damage that could be done, but relatively little damage actually being done on an individual level for most consumers. Unless you're famous/important enough to be targeted by someone with resources, odds are even with zero privacy protections you'll get lost in the noise, or at most suffer trivial damage (having to cancel a stolen credit card or something)
I went through a phase where I tried to lock down my identity as much as possible, installed anti-fingerprinting browser extensions, forbade all cookies I didn't explicitly approve, individually selected sites to approve in NoScript, etc. It chewed up a ton of time, and when life happened and I was forced to re-prioritize my time and stopped maintaining it... nothing happened. It was the digital equivalent of installing steel shutters/doors and reinforced door frames so you can withstand a SWAT team with a no-knock warrant. Simple fact is the odds of encountering a SWAT team with a no-knock warrant are so low that it's statistically not worth the effort unless you're actually an outlaw.
A cable provider sent me a bill for $300 of equipment I had returned three months earlier and I was only lucky I kept the receipt from returning the equipment that I could prove I had done it. Since the items had been scanned into their systems on return I could only assume malice or complete incompetence.
Everything NBC / Universal / Comcast gives me an ick vibe...maybe its just me?
Not an email. Not a phone call to some retention agent in a call center. A signed letter via postage.
From the tales I've read in my local city sub, I got lucky in that the billings did in fact stop quickly; others have had resort to threats of legal action after numerous letters, some even sent via certified mail to get the charges to stop.
Like in the civil war! Did you go acquire stamps and paper so your children and grandchildren could also cancel their gym subscriptions?
(For anyone who can watch content from Netflix and likes comedy, do yourself a favor and watch Happy Face).
/play: soft bluegrass music
/narrate by Peter Coyote:
My Dearest Abigail,
For so long now, I have not seen your sweet face, nor any other at the gymnasium. I have tried mightily to dissolve the union of my membership, but to no avail. My biceps grow skinnier by the day from our long estrangement. Please, I pray for the day I can be released from this torment, this contract.
Most Sincerely Yours, Ephraim Hill
I don't feel that I'm being paranoid.
Services generally have two business models:
- Spread a large cost over monthly payments so that customers will spend more than they otherwise would.
- Trap a customer, either via coercion or convenience into keeping a service they don't really want.
For the business, the benefit to service offerings is clear: regular, reliable income. To the customer, there is often no benefit.
You're being more than a bit hyperbolic & disingenuous. I pay $15/year for a grocery list app that solves several problems for me. That is, I pay money for concurrent access, web-scraping that works, and an organisational system to help me feed my family.
This is a great value to me: the $1.25 a month that I pay for my grocery list app has made my life easier.
If it takes 2 hours to cancel it, it could definitively be a net negative though.
I pay $40/year for Remember the Milk, a SaaS, and it's one of the most valuable ways that I spend my money - I easily get more than $40 a month in increased productivity (assuming a $20/hour personal time rate). Speak for yourself.
I'm definitely not really suggesting that people should never use any services. Just that in general, these should be viewed with suspicion, and you should have an exit plan: you could find out nefarious things about your service, or the service could be modified leaving you high and dry.
This is like saying don't buy food from restaurants because it may have prepared it unsafely or overpriced.
Overpriced is a real problem and the steps to make the price obvious to consumers is very difficult. But we solved the safety by mandating safety standards and labeling backed by real penalties. This law seems a lot like the latter and will make it easier for users to take advantages of services with the safety that they should be able to expect.
Section 4 deals with changes to terms of service.
https://legiscan.com/PA/text/HB2511/id/2569740/Pennsylvania-...
The fact is you don’t really know how gyms would be affected en masse by such a law. The only thing we really know for sure, is that people would have an easier time not using services that they don’t want to use. I don’t really understand who could argue against such a change. Arguing against it is like arguing for some weird mini welfare for gyms on the backs of random members of the population. If we want that, then maybe we should just pass laws giving gyms money from the general municipal/state budget. It would accomplish the same thing and be much more fair and honest.
I haven't examined their books myself.
Like I wrote, I'm not making a value judgement here, just pointing out the consequences.
The business model may still be the same in Sweden. It's just that people are too lazy to cancel, not that they cannot cancel. I never had trouble canceling any of the several gyms I attended over the years.
If what they said was actually true, they _should_ go out of business. If their business depends on them exploiting the legal system to thwart their users’ clear will, they are immoral actors and deserve the economic difficulties that would be bestowed upon them.
Edit: to you edit
> The business model may still be the same in Sweden. It's just that people are too lazy to cancel, not that they cannot cancel. I never had trouble canceling any of the several gyms I attended over the years.
So basically what you’re tacitly admitting is that a law allowing cancelation might actually be _fine_. It might even turn out fine for your friends. I guess if that’s your position, then I don’t really have any more argument with you.
How could you possibly have concluded we're in agreement? This was his initial post in this thread:
> 10x more expensive. I bet that'd do wonders to the willingness of customers to sign up.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31068220
I fundamentally disagree with this and made it quite clear in the following posts. This disagreement is basically the whole premise on which this exchange was had.
Basically where a lot of education funding comes from. (Lotteries)
While the rest would enjoy the freed up real estate and the money saved.
It'd basically put the industry out of business.
Lots of ways to work it. EG 1/2 price for off hours membership! Act now!
It's kind of weird how liquidity is such a general concept that goes way beyond money.
Am I properly capturing the nuance of your argument? Feel free to re-echo another round of hearsay into the chamber.
Maybe you can dig more into the philosophy you have where securing profitability entitles you to the protection of those profits via legislation.
BUT... when I came back, I noticed a new wall in the hallway. They'd blocked off a hallway, and essentially sold (probably just long term leased?) about 20% of the building to a different entity (health related). They just had too much open space and no use for it. Was a bit of a shame, but it helped them keep their books afloat.
FWIW, I've always heard horror stories of gyms locking people in to unending payments. This place, while an extra few $ compared to some others in the area, is always month to month, and I've cancelled in the past, then came back. Never had an issue with billing/overbilling/etc, which seems... both trivial (of course that's how it should work) and impressive (seems to be in a minority of gyms) at the same time.
long story short I have many Echo Dots (free for “new” customers) lying around in the house now.
1. dumbbells
2. screw a pullup bar into the ceiling joists
3. burpees
I believe for most gymgoers, a primary purpose of going to the gym is to hang out with your gym friends.
If you just want exercise, you can do body weight exercises for free; a couple hundred dollars is overkill.
I've been going to gyms for years. Have never spoken more than a single sentence to anyone there and 99.5% of the other people I see there are also training and not socializing. In fact I can specific remember one pair who were socializing in the gym once; I saw them about 10 months ago, it was very irritating and so unusual that I still remember it now.
Bodyweight workouts can't come close to the effectiveness or satisfaction of a proper set of weights.
Just go out for a jog. Fresh air is far better for you anyway than stinky gym air.
I use the past tense, because getting older means my allergy has abated. It only gets bad if I mow the lawn, so now I wear a mask doing that.
A mask does help, which I’ve been wearing for… obvious reasons but exercising in a N95 is rough.
I'm sure you've already considered it, but move north were there are seasons and no pine trees :-/ The rain in Seattle tends to wash the pollen out of the air, too.
For me its grass. Even walking in grass with shorts on is a no-no.
Luckily none of them are that severe, but it’s just so many things… I got allergy shots for a few years in my teens which helped a lot, so it isn’t normally that much of a problem, but I’m also a bit asthmatic so exercise outdoors is a big trigger.
(The secrets people hide in their garages!)
Also better music, relaxed dress code and light chores in between sets.
Hmm, does one sign up for an automated monthly subscription for health clubs in the US?
If you stop paying without cancelling the contract (which they have ridiculous terms around), they sell you off to a collection agency which then proceeds to harass you until you pay. A friend recently went through this experience and warned anyone against the big-name gyms. (Looking at you myFitness)
Some systems e.g. doctors, banks often still insist on phone calls so if I can present as a phone call on their end but it is chat interface for me, that is ideal.
Sending the charge to collections and having you incur more stress and undue charges would be incredibly foolish on their end.
In fact most contracts I've seen allow for termination by writing.
Apple Card allows you to generate a new card number, but it replaces the existing number. And you either have to tie your bank account to them to pay, or use your card number (which you might change) on payment correspondence.