Disney, Netflix, and more are fighting FTC's 'click to cancel' proposal
businessinsider.com
businessinsider.com
Though I think it only works for Turkey based companies, sadly.
I'd prefer to see it as a non-government, not-for-profit service.
But the ceding of front end control to services themselves doesn't work. We already learned that with email / unsubscribe.
Hard, because the government has authority, a random company does not.
I'd still trust my government more than a random non profit company, if my trust decreases, I'd vote for different people to manage the country - which is not possible with companies.
Also not possible in Turkey, but at least this service works.
Having said that, I don't think the market for painless cancelling is big enough to do this given the legal overhead that would be needed.
At this point, everything continues as if this system wasn't involved, but now you have proof of intent to cancel. If they don't act on it in 2 work days you are in no obligation to pay for them anymore. And even if you accidentally do pay, you will be refunded.
Has any of the code and infrastructure been open sourced?
And, there's no real incentive to improve, while with private companies, if you don't like them, you just stop paying for them. That profit motive (and threat of its loss) is very powerful - much more powerful than the "I'm helping my fellow citizen by engaging in civil service" (or, perhaps more likely, "I'm accruing power by running for public office").
That's why this "click to cancel" proposal is so important: it keeps companies from becoming embedded, like the incumbent govt that gets lazy and complacent, knowing that they'll never get voted out.
That way users can cancel in our bank app... potentially right next to where we see the line item, and will have the protection of the bank being the one who does so (vs a user clicking something on their site).
Either way, my initial reaction to this is great, now we can prank other people by canceling their subscriptions.
Also, "you can sue them" in this context means "you can use e-Devlet to sue a company online, without having to leave your house". It goes straight to your local Consumer Court, who asks the company to send in their defense and then the Consumer Council gathers together to reach a verdict. This total process normally takes around 3 months and you have to do absolutely nothing once you send the official complaint online, but some companies like to delay this procedure just because they can, by sending in their defense the last day before the deadline.
e-Devlet is awesome in this regard, I am still suprised lots of more developed countries don't have anything similar. It is like a swiss knife for healthcare, financial and legal services. The e-Devlet app is also pretty fast and the webpage does not suck.
Though I wish the signup process was simpler, because you need to go to the nearest government post office to get an account. But I guess it is like that to prevent impersonation.
It's a delightful game.
If you are self-employed, all you have to do is do the regular tax bracket income tax calculation on your net income (total income - work expenses) and add the fixed mandatory health insurance cost. It is very easy and can be done through e-Devlet or your bank's mobile app/website but many people just hire an accountant because mistakes can be costlier than the minuscule cost of hiring one. Another alternative is to get all your payments through a payment processor that handles taxes for you, which is the go-to option for side hustles.
If you are an employer, you do the same as above, but for yourself and all your employees.
For all the other extra taxes (car ownership etc.) you are notified if you owe anything and the payment is again as easy as online banking or e-Devlet. I've never heard anyone complain about the process of paying taxes. The absurd amount of taxes on the other hand...
I try to cancel subscriptions immidiately after signing up when i only want the service for a limited time.
For an Italian newspaper's online subscription, after contacting them for cancellation via web form, my family was informed: you have to call a number and that cancellations will only be accepted 1 day before the end of the subscription.
Let me re-state that: you have to remember, one year after signing up, to call that number within a 24 hour window (maybe less, depending on their office hours), reach somebody, and hope for their honesty in confirming the cancellation, because your have no proof that you did so. Or you are locked in for another year.
Luckily, I had used PayPal as subscription payment method, wich has a separate web interface for cancellation. And also remembered the call after one year, for good measure.
But what a disrespect for consumers! Quite surprised this was apparently legal in Italy (we don't live there, it was an educational subscription).
Still annoying.
John’s refuse in CT
You could also remind them via an online contact form once a day that you think this policy is garbage...
Did you verify that? Because I wouldn't be surprised if it's not actually legal, but that it's just a "we'll try it and no one fines us if we break the law" type of thing. When I lived in the UK (pre-Brexit) quite a few companies broke EU consumer laws all the time, such as mandatory listing of FULL price up front, but no one really seemed to care enough to actually do something about it so loads of companies (small and large) just did illegal stuff.
From what I can find, EU law isn't super-strong on subscriptions, although most countries do seem to have national laws. For example in Netherlands automatic renewals are only allowed month-by-month after the initial contract period, and you need to be able to unsubscribe with the same communication method that you used to subscribe. Simple common-sense no-brainer stuff, really.
Phone call recording app is a great, great idea.
Or, just mention it at some point.
Yea, this has been my strategy also… best approach.
Also, i simply purchase way less in general since “subscription hell” started versus before that.
Maddening: Apple requires iOS devs to allow a trial to run its full course even if the user cancels early. There's an exception, though. Wanna guess what it is?
Yep, Apple's own services. Cancel an Apple Music, TV, etc. trial early, and it ends immediately.
Apple: "Rules for thee, not for me."
People often complain about the proliferation of streaming services, but thanks to the law mentioned above, I'm able to subscribe and then immediately cancel. If I decide I want more time I can resubscribe later. I get to watch what I want with a minimum of recurring bills.
It would be even better if they added a prompt on the free trial signup "Become a paid subscriber after free trial ends?" so you could just click "No" and not have to go through the few extra clicks to cancel (I sometimes have trouble finding the subscription list where you cancel tbh), but it's still infinitely better than signing up for a free trial with the subscription company directly.
Create a new iOS shortcut and add an Open URLs object. Paste the following URL: https://apps.apple.com/account/subscriptions
Whenever you want to manage subscriptions, run that shortcut and you’ll be taken to the exact spot within the App Store.
> Settings >> Apple ID (profile pic at top) >> Subscriptions
It's probably the same screen, but this one is easier to find the entrypoint.
The point of the shortcut is they don’t have to remember. And it only needs to be set up once, after that it’s a single tap to reach the screen. Building the shortcut takes less time than it took me to type either comment.
You make a valid point though.
I should be able to see on my Bank of America credit card which companies are going to bill me within a month - and either be able to block it or click a link to cancel.
I feel like I've seen some smaller financial services which have this feature, but most people want to use a major credit card.
I think 'privacy.com' is a comparable US service.
https://www.polsinelli.com/publications/subscription-service....
Edit: not saying your lying, just thinking it might be geo related sometimes?
Examples I remembered offhand: elektramat.nl, rvspaleis.nl
Those both list the price with VAT too, but the primary list price is without.
You'll find plenty of more examples e.g. if you think about what the house you're in is made of, and look for those materials in bulk. E.g. I-beams, pallets of wood, insulation etc.
I know that at least a few years ago they were actively and aggressively enforcing these kind of transparent pricing legislation, although I don't know the current situation, or what they do with tips sent to them.
The mental image that produces in someone not fluent in Dutch:
https://cdn10.bigcommerce.com/s-x8dfmo/products/10767/images...
Customer protections for online purchases are also great. The return policy for buying online is so much better than in person, I have friends who will purposefully browse in-store, then place an order on their phone and pick it up at the customer service counter 5 minutes later, solely to take advantage of the extra consumer protections. This is especially true for more expensive purchases like appliances (looking at you Mediamarkt)!
We all know that once profitability/growth drops, all the companies will resort to dark patterns (over time) to keep the numbers looking good, unless prevented from doing that.
Netflix says I must go through Verizon to cancel but Verizon killed my account once I changed providers. I guess I’ll see what happens in November since I currently have no way to cancel.
I think the rule of "sign up online, cancel online using a clearly visible option in the account settings", plus the legalese to cover corner cases, would be a huge improvement. Making it difficult to cancel a subscription is the oldest trick on the book and is tantamount to fraud.
Even if you consider it all to be part of the sign-up, it could be a single form so the match of “as many forms to cancel as to sign-up” still works: this one form for signing up, the “are you sure, this is why you might prefer not to” page being its opposite at the other end.
> Would you like to continue your subscription? "Yes", "Maybe later"
This has actually been the case in Germany (and perhaps even EU) for a while. Mostly because courts have ruled that cancelation must not be harder than signing up.
In Germany they were especially trying to force you to send letters or fax cancellations when you could sign up or upgrade via phone, e-mail or web form. Courts said no to that practice.
As the same time, I would love to see cost build up when the large players grow larger. Maybe some form of enforcement tiers -- you need to do this or that when you have this many of users.
Having read the proposed amendments outlined in the notice, I don't see any mention of this. Outside the proposed amendments, the only mention of this is commentary that several state AGs have urged the commission to amend a different rule (the telephone sales rule) to require recording consent when provided by phone. However, this proposed rule making notice is about the negative option rule, and no such requirement is being proposed.
The requirements the FTC are proposal are refreshingly reasonable. Here is a link to the FTC's page on this, which includes links to the full text of the notice as well as a link to a one-pager summary.
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/03/...
If that were the effect of the FTC's maneuvering, I would not expect Netflix or Disney to oppose it. It would be the government helping them build moats - a wonderful reason for them to pay those lobbyists.
A laudable goal in theory. In practice when was the last time a small player entered the streaming market? This mindset enables the massive entrenched corporations to abuse customers.
- Nebula (content from YouTube creators),
- WoW Presents Plus (RuPaul’s Drag Race and associated shows)
- Taskmaster.tv (the UK taskmaster series)
I’m not sure how independent any of those are (e.g. RuPaul’s Drag Race is linked with MTV, and Taskmaster with the UK channel 4) and they are intentionally niche, sometimes with a single show.
In India, businesses are required to get a consent, at the time of subscription, to charge the customer on a recurring basis. This is called an e-mandate and requires multi-factor authentication to create. The card holder can cancel the mandate online, through their bank, without having to rely on the business doing the right thing. The business cannot charge the customer beyond that point, without obtaining a new mandate.
They aren't allowed to charge you whenever they please, without customer control, they have to abide by the contract. Unfortunately, most people don't read the contract, and companies put ridiculous terms in there that people happily agree to.
A customer will be well within the bounds of the contract if they cancel their mandate through the bank, as long as they also don't expect to have continued access to Netflix.
Even in the US, there is nothing stopping the customer from closing their credit card account, except that it is an unreasonably inconvenient for the customer. It is far simpler and IMO sensible to be able to revoke consent for specific purposes through my payment instrument. So why doesn't the banking system in the US provide this as an universal option to customers? After all, this is exactly what Apple facilitates albeit at a high cost.
You can ask a US bank to stop future payments to a given merchant, but it doesn't actually absolve you of your contractual agreement to pay the merchant. Most internet based services have decided that it is bad business to pursue accounts where the payment was unsuccessful, but from a legal perspective, you are still on the hook.
I'm not saying I agree with the way the US system handles this, but to say that "the norm in the US to allow companies to charge their customers whenever they please, without the customers having any control" is inaccurate since customers have agreed to the terms of the contract which define when the customer is charged and what control they have.
Unfortunately, we lack laws to mandate easy-to-understand terms of service that highlight the most important information in a way that actually serves the people instead of businesses.
I propose the following: a ToS is accompanied by an audio transcription playing at average speaking speed. A person can only use the service after the whole thing plays. We'd quickly see a race for short ToS.
Or maybe require layers to accept ToS. If lawyers wrote them, maybe it would be helpful for a lawyer to read them to consumers! They could even amend it and negotiate changes with the service provider - maybe the terms are not compatible with their client's Terms of Consuming.
These are just joke scenarios, but they show the power imbalance between service and consumer.
That's it - it's just managing to the metrics gone wrong, writ large.
Annoyingly, a lot of companies try to work around this - I tried to cancel a newspaper subscription a while back and they didn't offer that. So I simply wrote a quick email. Then they requested to call me to discuss this and I had to answer via email quoting that relevant law. Then they accepted it. Annoying.
Cancelling Wow, Amazon Prime, Audible or Netflix is really just a mouse click (with Amazon Prime and Audible using some dark patterns to convince you to stay).
Want to make cancelling more difficult, well then you should make signing up same level difficult
I have a rule and that is, anytime somebody pushes back on something with the rationale, "doing X will confuse our users," it is ALWAYS because they have some ulterior motive that has nothing to do with the users at all. (And furthermore shows how little they think of their users's general intelligence.)
But when they simply are asked to disclose their bad behavior, it's "Oh, no! We can't show our users a complex document! They'll be inundated!!!"
They're not fooling anyone.
Also, why has safari's mobile "request desktop site" not worked for me in over 5 years? It never brings a desktop site anymore... so annoying.
Apple tried to fix this by diverting any in-app subscriptions thru their app store, but because they take such a substantial cut of the sub revenue, companies would rather redirect users to the web to buy a sub and not provide the capability within the app. Despite Apple's efforts here, it has completely backfired and made the end user experience a deplorable state of affairs.
Likely because the site's fingerprinting to determine if you are on a mobile device uses more heuristics than the "Request Desktop Site" functionality leverages. This, IIRC, is just a user agent hack, but browsers send a _lot_ more data about your machine than just a user agent.
In large part because it’s really bad practice to have separate desktop and mobile sites, it’s generally better to just have one responsive site.
However, some badly designed sides achieve “responsiveness” by hiding functionally, which is bad because phones have no way to “zoom out” (emulate a larger screen size) to get the buttons to show up.
Being customer-friendly pays dividends, folks. Not sure why big companies don't get that. Maybe it's because the only stakeholders I have to answer to are myself, my cofounder, and our customers.
(Tangent: there is usually a certain number of years of inaction after which they can’t go after you for the debt, unless you again acknowledge the debt. The details and the ways to reset that clock vary by jurisdiction.)
It's similar with power/water bills. They can't/won't cut utilities, a form of subscription with a fixed cost in addition to the usage cost, right away (there is a process for that), but you owe the money all the way until they are cut.
But that’s kind of beside the point. When you sign up for a subscription, they only commitment you have made is for the chosen billing interval.
If it’s a month you’ve committed for a month, if three years then you’ve committed for three years.
But you have not in any way shape or form committed to a single second beyond that.
Most (all?) have auto renewals clauses that are very convenient for both the seller and buyer, but to enforce it when the buyer wants to quit is basically extortion.
It is entirely possible to sign up for a paid-monthly perpetual subscription that is much harder to cancel than "Just stop paying".
Gyms are kind of famous for doing this.
"If you do not timely cancel your subscription, your subscription will be renewed at the price in effect at the time of the newel, without any additional action by you, and you authorize us to charge your payment method for these amounts...We do not refund or credit for partially used used billing periods."
This can be easily read and argued as: if you do not cancel, you owe them. You can argue this in front of a judge, but it will be really hard to say it's "extortion" if the cancellation process is streamlined.
But the basic reality is that none of these firms would enter into a contract with terms like these because they are outrageous.
Just think about it. The act of doing nothing over a certain short time period is supposed to legally bind you in a new contract and even with unknown pricing?
This is not business between equals and people behaving this way deserve all the crap they can be tossed.
I don't do yearly subscriptions for this very reason, though.
If Netflix chooses to cancel or pause the subscription after the gift card runs out of funds, that’s their business decision. It’s probably wise as a practical matter for them to limit access to unpaid services when it won’t usually be worth their time and money to force the matter judicially.
But other things they could choose to do include continuing the subscription and using any and all legal debt collection methods until you catch up on the accrued debt, imposing reasonable penalties for nonpayment as per any specific contract wording or any applicable legal defaults, and claiming any damages and/or lawyer fees incurred depending the specific circumstances and the rules of the relevant legal jurisdiction.
The details do vary between countries and between some countries’ subdivisions, sure. But the general principles of what I’m saying are typically true in most countries.
It’s probably not worth anyone’s time to go after you more aggressively than that merely for the amount of a gym membership, but if they so choose they’re absolutely allowed to sue you to get a court judgment which appropriate authorities will enforce for them against your assets and income. For larger debts, this is in no way unlikely, if they think you can afford to pay.
To be clear, I support the proposed FTC rule and think it should be as easy to cancel as to sign up. But that procedural question is separate from what commitments may exist. for example, if they give you a discount for a 12-month commitment but still allow you to pay monthly, or if they only offer memberships with a minimum commitment of 12 months, canceling in month 3 would very reasonably still require you to pay the rest of the current 12-month term before your obligation ends.
For some contracts, I can imagine allowing the alternative of repaying the amount of the discount received so far due to the annual commitment, plus interest on that amount. But if you received and used any perks through the annual commitment which would otherwise not have been available to you, or if they incur significant upfront costs for new members which are amortized across the first 12 months of membership, allowing this would not produce a fair outcome.
Maybe you got a rare debt collection agency that doesn’t bother, or one which decides your debt was too small to be worth their bother for that, or maybe your debt collector is actually the accounts receivable department of the gym (which probably isn’t set up to submit credit reports) rather than an external collections agency (which usually would be set up for that).
My earlier replies to you were simply discussing the law as it is and the practices and consequences currently typical in debt collection, aside from when I agreed that changes in the legal rules would be a good thing. Neither your feelings nor my policy preferences change how the world currently works.
Obviously: read the terms of what you’re signing up for, to check.
If you have the time and volition, and aren't terribly concerned with your credit rating, it can actually be quite fun because a lot of debt collectors routinely violate the law in terms of what they're allowed to do, and you can usually make some money off them in that way.
Of course, I'm talking about small debts. If you owe enough money, the collector will probably sue you, and that truly is no fun.
You get a new credit card number for every service, and can put any limit you want on the card.
So my Netflix card is capped at $10 a month
My trial signup cards are capped at $2 for their lifespan
My gym card is capped at $10 per month, and cancelled when I want to leave.
It's just a fantastic service.
What i don't understand is that it is essentially a necessary service for consumers, because corporates have the luxury to can and will not care about problems with automatic (over)charging.
So therefore i'm all for 1-click canceling subscriptions.
Furthermore, if a platform gets cracked that credit card # has a limit with little to no value.
The ease of pulling the plug on one platform is an added bonus.
Bank of America used to do this. It was a flash program that generated the numbers and of course once flash was discontinued they didn’t care enough to port the program over to a modern web app.
How about begging me to stay? 3 confirmations? An input box where I can vent? A discount to stay?
Nothing. It sucks, I want proper closure.
Easy solution: impose crippling fines or maybe a little prison sentence here and there for extortion. Why not? That's what it is. Do it and watch how fast the mobsters, I mean, the companies will change their tune.
How is it extortion? Who is being coerced and how?
yes, that stuff is unimportant to function. however, if you are getting such comments it means that there is an established standard, and willfully (or sloppily) ignoring it is the problem.
there's also the problem of bike-shedding. but then again if you take the time to be meticulous, there won't be nits to pick and your "helpful" colleagues will have to find something more substantive to pick at.
Extortion seems like hyperbole to me. Canceling on Disney+, Netflix, etc. is extremely easy. In fact I cancelled my D+ subscription juts the other day and even though they prompted me whether I’m sure I want to cancel, never did I feel they were trying to trick me with dark UX patterns or making it overly difficult.
So on a spectrum of easy -> misleading -> coerced -> extorted, I am happy to report it was easy.
No one cares that you had an easy time cancelling a service. You telling us that cancelling D+ was easy is only meaningful if you think this is the case in all situations for all companies and you argue that this is so. As it stand it’s a pointless anecdote.
Look, I understand that not all companies are customer centric and I can see you and others feel that you’ve been extorted by some conapnies.
I argued in good faith given the article is literally about D+ and Netflix and the person I responded to said “The companies claim that it would impose heavy costs on them.”
Why would I think they’re not referring to the companies in the article?
That's it. Nothing else. You'll see a massive amount of bad behavior from companies instantly stop. When your neck is on the line, you won't do it. Or you'll quit.
However given history, this will never occur. Unfortunately thats now how we think of commerce, and so companies can try to act as they please with socialized risk and all gain.
Think about that and consider the cascading consequences you’d face for years in most states if you let your driver’s license expire and get pulled over.
Then recurse that if that shareholder is also corporate. Don't let them just bankrupt empty shell companies, hold the parent companies responsible too.
You think CEO compensation is out of control now? Think about what you'd have to pay someone to be the CEO of any moderately large corporation if that were the case.
You think your boss is up your ass now? Think about what they'll be like when they are strictly liable for anything you do.
I'm not against more executive responsibility, but you have to consider the externalities of your policies.
The other side of the coin of CEO compensation not being related to real-world concern is that CEO compensation isn't related to any real-world concern.
There is no reason to think it will increase or decrease due to such a change.
I think this puts the incentives in the right place, being able to tell your CEO "no, I'm not willing to risk my career for that" I think would be a powerful self-regulating force and also provide cover from who can't afford to say no from being thrown under the bus. It's essentially professional licensure but reversed.
Are you mandating that as part of the law? Otherwise you've just incentivized "creative" non-standard hierarchies. Again, externalities
So if the fuckup is big enough they now owe 5 years of their pay. Should be motivating enough.
Which is funny because they spend ungodly amounts of money staffing and fielding the phone calls for cancelation.
The actual cost is literally hooking their almost certainly existing "cancel subscription" api up to a UX for the user. They've already done 99% of the work since these companies all support cancelation.
How come I can't cancel through my credit card?
It's great that the FTC is cracking down on this; but it seems like the credit card companies also should have some involvement too in making it easy to see what subscriptions you have, and making it easy to cancel subscriptions in a single location.
The FTC or the govt can force (?. I'm not a US resident and know nothing of US regulatory bodies' powers) card networks and banks to make this possible. This is exactly how things work in India, as I mentioned in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36709947.
The credit cards companies seems to be onboard.
https://fintechmagazine.com/articles/mastercard-enters-subsc...
If we want that, we need laws to make it happen. It seems a lot of people want companies to act in certain ways out of the goodness of their heart, when what we need are good laws that support consumers. Back before credit card reform under Obama, credit card companies were among the most aggressive actors when it came to late charges and fees and just generally ruining people's lives. They still would be, except now there is a law.
It’s a simple thing that shouldn’t even have to be debated.
Corporations just shouldn’t have the power to even have a say in this. Put up for vote or whatever the fuck.
I’m busy working and unfortunately I can’t hire an army of lawyers to fight this full time in my place.
I’m just dumbfounded that we can’t even get little wins.
I'm sure it can't be because of UK law, because we have plenty of other companies here who make cancellations awkward.
Finish Cancellation button is highlighted in Blue and obvious default. Below that is a "downgrade plan" option. There is also a note above Finish Cancellation that says "If you resubscribe within 10 months, your profile and watched shows will remain" or something like that.
A lot of sites geo-restrict online cancellation to certain places where it is required by law.
https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/companies-mu...
T-mobile charged me $7 for being 1d late on payment because my credit card expired. No late payment notice. Just a charge on next bill.
Verizon is even worse. They have 30 day free trial from the time you sign, not when the equipment is delivered. So if they misdeliver to wrong address, you're on hook for $280 even if you don't have the equipment.
US policies and politicians in general are very corporate friendly.
This is your regular reminder to use a temporary credit card to subscribe to things. If they make it too difficult to cancel the regular way, you can cancel the credit card (and of course, don't use the subscription anymore).
If you're really worried about the impact of that on your credit rating (a non-issue, by the way), you can send a registered letter to the company canceling, and then monitor your credit report. If that does show up (which it won't), you have proof that you canceled the service.
But really, credit cards become invalid all the time, for all sorts of innocent reasons.
UPDATE
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36708881 - ReclameAqui is a Brazilian website where customers can file complaints about companies. Netflix seems to be doing that to a lot of customers...
I'm ready to believe that the renewal prompt was heavily geared towards making it easy to renew, and Netflix should be required to make it equally easy to cancel, but unless you know he didn't click a button to confirm the charge (with dollar amount listed), I'd hesitate to label the re-onboarding process as crooked.
the solution proposed in the chat was to logout every device at once and delete my credit card so that wouldn't happen again.
Shouldn't matter, right?! Once I cancelled was not supposed to be charged again unless I agree to it.
If my father wanted to renew the subscription, he should use his card, right?
the renewal process should function as a new subscription, if not done by the same person that subscribed in the first place.
Netflix doesn't auto renew simply by watching. It asks you to renew the subscription. It requires conscious consent.
If Netflix is going to charge me money, they need to prove that I incurred the charge. They could do this by making a record of the date, device and profile that renewed. But they can't.
In my case they refunded the erroneously renewed subscription as a "one time courtesy". Like they're doing me a favor. Yeah, it's "one time" because I'd have to be a fool to do business with a company that treats me this way.
Most likely they do, and decided it wasn't worth fighting over this issue.
OP's dad, using OP's account, consented to billing. There's really no other option, unless we're just going to say things non-technies think, like the computer decided on it's own or something.
Netflix cannot just randomly decide to charge people for things. That would obviously be fraud, and Netflix wouldn't still be a company today if they depended on fraud for billings. Think about it...
And you'd never find a bank like Wells Fargo committing fraud for money, right? Because surely they wouldn't be a bank?
And you'd never find a company violating its own user privacy rules, like Facebook, because they'd surely be out of business, right?
And you'd never find a major phone company billing people for things they didn't have the right to do, because surely AT&T would be out of business, right?
The fact is: "most likely" and "probably" and your uninformed best guess about what happened is not knowing.
I'm not sure why you would think that the only reason that I would think that Netflix restarted my subscription in error is that I'm a "non-techie" (and ugh, what an odious way to try to dismiss someone) who thinks "the computer decided on it's [sic] own." It tells me a lot about your understanding that you can't imagine many scenarios where the interaction of a complex, mostly non-technical system of product design, business decisionmakers, microservice integrations, several apps on hundreds of distinct platforms might behave in an unexpected way that treats consumers unfairly, with varying levels of intention or neglect at different layers.
As the consumer, I'm getting charged the money and I'm the one who needs the justification to indicate that it was authorized. I disagree with your perspective that "Well, they're a 'company', therefore they must have a good reason to charge me, I better pay it".
I do, in fact, think it's "most likely" that someone did... something... on a logged-in device that restarted the subscription. However, I think it's very unlikely that that involved presenting a new billing agreement that they agreed to, or providing the password to my account (remember, this is a subscription that was cancelled, not suspended or paused or frozen or any other kind of seemingly-temporary measure--since Netflix doesn't offer a way to remove accounts, it's the strongest thing I can do to sever my business relationship with them). If the logic is unintentional: an edge case of a logged-in device where that particular app on that platform sent the wrong cookie when starting a stream, etc., then Netflix not caring to investigate and solve it is because they're happy to collect revenue from erroneous and unjustified subscriptions in the hope that consumers won't notice or fight it; which is gross. If the logic is intentional: to obscure the fact that whatever action the user takes results in a re-subscription; then it's gross and possibly illegal (dunno, not a lawyer, and my definition of "crooked" might include things that aren't yet against the law). Either way, they are likely to keep doing it until forced to stop, because your naïve perspective that companies can never do anything wrong is absolutely incorrect.
I do want to correct something I said. You said that Netflix doesn't really know it's you. My response was that you gave your dad access but I realize I was wrong about that because people in your own house have access to logged in devices which is allowed normally.
---------
The difference between authentication (your account) and authorization (your streaming plan) is the first issue here they are separate and for good reason. There actually is a way is a way to delete your account [2]. Even if you don't do this it is automatically deleted after 10 months. Why don't they delete your account when you cancel the subscription?
Think of how annoying it would be if your subscription and account were one in the same, considering your account holds viewer data, watchlists, profiles, etc. Here's some scenarios:
1. Payment fails because you went over the limit on your credit card or it expired.
2. You want to cancel for two months and then reactivate (I knew someone who did this every few months to save money)
3. You change your mind after canceling
4. Canceled by accident
5. Someone else who has access cancels
Why not lock the account?
How do you unlock it? Calling them is time consuming and expensive for everyone. They could require the password to be reentered but many people who share Netflix accounts give out the password as well so that's not really a global solution (I assume you didn't). Maybe a support email? or chat support system? Both are time consuming and also money for them.
------
The fault is 40% you, 50% your dad, and 10% Netflix keeping it easy for business reasons.
- You should have told your family that you were canceling Netflix, wouldn't they have bothered you anyway if it suddenly didn't work? (assuming Netflix did wipe everything)
- Your dad should have contacted you when he was prompted. I know mine would if he saw something about a subscription being reactivated.
- You could have changed the password of the account
- You could have invalidated all the existing sessions (assuming he didn't have the password)
- Finally, delete the account as well per their instructions
Those last three are all stated in their FAQ about preventing reactivation of accounts and how to delete your account.
Is it fraud on their part? No, nor is it deception just because they only asked your dad to reactivate a subscription instead of also saying "This will incur costs of $19.99 a month.." I will agree with you they could have automatically invalidated all the sessions when you cancel a subscription but you had options.
Finally you were refunded after contacting them. Did they hassle you? How long did it take? You said "...then Netflix not caring to investigate " was the reason they refunded you quickly. They didn't investigate it because they have good customer service. As a subscription service they want you to be happy and, even if you cancel, you might consider coming back. Starting an investigation for one months fee isn't worth it.
On Hackernews we often discuss services where it's difficult to cancel. There are even some where you have to call like the NY times. This isn't the case for both the Netflix subscription AND the Netflix account. Both can be deleted using the app without interacting with a person.
[1] https://help.netflix.com/en/node/407 [2]https://help.netflix.com/en/node/126558
Did you think you were replying to OP? I'm not OP, my dad is not involved.
I'm not saying your dad was lying—it's very possible for someone to click on a button like that (or even two—renew and confirm) and not remember it at all. My dad had a freaky call with what he believed to be Paypal customer support about a scam email, in which they wanted him to give them remote access to his computer. He swore up and down that he didn't call the number in the sketchy email, that he'd looked up the number, but on further investigation he definitely did call the scam number. My dad is a perfectly healthy middle-aged adult, but still misremembered what happened.
https://www.reclameaqui.com.br/netflix/conta-reativada-sem-a...
https://www.reclameaqui.com.br/netflix/cancelar-assinatura_R...
https://www.reclameaqui.com.br/netflix/cancelei-a-minha-assi...
https://www.reclameaqui.com.br/netflix/cobranca-no-cartao-me...
I mean, sorry about the topics being in PT-BR, but they seem to be doing that with a lot of customers...
Of course their cancellation numbers are low after the password sharing change - it's very easy to keep that revenue flowing if you're willing to borderline commit fraud to keep your customers.
Indeed. This really is asking for a lawsuit.
Yeah if I stay in my apartment after my lease expires my landlord is gonna charge me rent. Obviously, Netflix shouldn’t have let you in, but…
> I have talked to my father, he did not clicked anything.
I learned long ago not to trust technological recollections coming from my parents.
Ironically, Netflix was actually right about password sharing: someone else with your login credentials can do whatever they want. For all you know your dad is mad that he’s losing Netflix and hit the renew button.
Of course, it would be nice if Netflix would create a family sharing mechanism like Apple and Google have.
If you stay a day past your lease your landlord can charge you the next month’s rent.
If you take a wrong turn and accidentally enter a toll highway you’ll get charged a toll, automatically in many places.
If you forget to turn your faucet off you’ll pay for water and sewer usage even if you said you didn’t need the water.
I’m not defending Netflix for willingly making the process this way, but at the same time individuals also have the responsibility to follow some basic instructions and stop using things that they want to cancel.
If I say “that’s so hot” I can be talking about sexual intercourse or my microwaved hot pocket.
Same words, different intent, different meaning.
Netflix being wrong and the customer being wrong are not mutually exclusive. At some point it has to be acknowledged that adults are responsible for navigating the world and paying attention.
The most ridiculous thing is that about a year ago I specifically bumped up my plan to the more expensive one because we were sharing with some family members. As a result of them enforcing this sharing rule, we ended up canceling and they get nothing from us now.
"I didn't click anything!" usually means 1) They're embarrassed to admit they clicked something or 2) They are embarrasses to admit they didn't read some prompt before clicking through it.
Even if the user doesn't remember clicking something, or doesn't remember what that something said before they clicked it - they still clicked it.
Think about it for a second. Think about how software works, how billing works, and how the law works. What you propose, a hidden re-billing mechanism, would invite so many lawsuits it wouldn't be worth it. Not to mention the fraud allegations, bad PR, etc.
Your dad signed in, was prompted with something saying he needed to re-activate billing to use Netflix, and he agreed. It's that simple.
To make the story more relevant for your point my father payed the bill at the checkout and I denied watching porn at all. He got mad at the hotel and wrote legal complaints to the HQ to get the porn money back ... dunno if he succeeded.
You were certainly warned what would happen, and likely had some sort of parental advisory warning you clicked through. IDK German law regarding these things, but in the US you usually have to manually opt-into "adult" channels when at a hotel.
The fact that you denied watching it at all really serves to make my point, though. Users deny deny deny... but they still did it, didn't they?
I remember that I knew it was a pay channel, but I thought it would go dark after a sneak peak unless I called some pay number for a code or something, like the pay TV channels on the satellite TV at home.
I've logged into a cancelled Netflix account before, and while they definitely want you to renew, there's a very clearly marked button that includes the renewal price. If OP's dad absent-mindedly clicked that button, that's a very different story than if simply logging in and navigating to a movie issued a new charge.
For one I don’t want to spend my life dealing with every underhanded attempt to take my money and two kids elderly and the vulnerable are the ones who fall prey to it and usually the least able to absorb the financial cost.
I went through the cancellation process got a cancellation confirmation email and then still got billed at the end of the month. I called and they did reverse the charges and told me it had happened because a behind the scenes box was checked for automatic payments - I scoured the page to see if that was a user facing option and it was nowhere. Cancelling but continuing payments simply makes no sense.
But when I had my customer service interaction, they said they could not tell me that that's what happened, or if it did, when and on what device. That to me is inexcusable. If you're going to charge me money you need to be able to justify why and for what.
Secondly, I could not use Netflix's interface to remove or deauthorize my payment method. Also unconscionable. The customer service agent needed to "block" my card (how do I know that they even did it? I have no way to verify as the payment method remains associated with the account).
It's not on me to "know" someone "didn't" do something--it's incumbent on Netflix to actually know and have a record that that's what happened. If they don't do that--then yeah, crooked.
How come Netflix would allow anyone other than me use my credit card to subscribe (or renew the subscription) without even asking that?
My father don't have access to my card, neither other members of my family. If Netflix was being honest they would ask at least that. The security code of your card to prove it is the card holder making a purchase.
Password sharing means that they assume everyone using your account is you. I notice you ignored my question about whether your father had a separate account, so I'm assuming he did not.
Netflix should make it easy to cancel your subscription, but using an issuer token isn't card fraud, it's good business and an overall benefit to 99% of customers.
[0] https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/improving-cards-under...
Edit, source for my claim that Netflix uses tokens: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181018005247/en/Vis...
What you're on about acting like I don't know what I'm talking about is absolute nonsense.
Besides, regardless of the means by which card updates are handled, it isn't fraud. You authorized Netflix to charge an account, not a particular physical card. If you want to revoke that authorization, you need to revoke the authorization, not get mad at them when they work with Visa to streamline the process of charging the authorized account.
We absolutely do need to improve transparency and require companies like this to make canceling easy, but hyperbole but like yours isn't helping us get there—it makes those of us fighting bad behavior seem irrational and uninformed.
[0] https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181018005247/en/Vis...
What ever this service of providing a token that you seem to feel superior for knowing the details is just a way for these SaaS type systems to continue to drain money from people. Netflix or any streaming platform is not a life or death service that users need. if they fail (intentionally or not) to keep the service updated with payment information, suspending the service is not going to cause anything but a bit of inconvenience. if you're so spoiled that you get upset at the suspension, then that's on you (royal you not lolinder). instead, we've built this system that makes it easier for the SaaS providers to continue using their dark patterns to siphon money which ensures the card companies their monthly fees as well. so while you may disagree with me calling it fraud, it does feel a lot like collusion between these parties rather than being a service for the consumer.
So since we cannot win against the dark patterns, they've now removed the sure fire way people had to protect themselves. But hey, it sure makes it convenient for them
https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/merchants/visa-accoun...
https://www.creditcards.com/education/recurring-charges-upda...
And regardless of the mechanism for the credit card updates, it's not fraud. Customers, Visa, banks, and merchants all benefit from removing the arbitrary hassle of keeping track of expiration dates and stolen card numbers.
Contrast to when I was a happy user of XM radio... I had sold one of my cars, and just wanted to remove one of 4 radios on the account. I get placed in a 40 minute hold queue, and when the rep couldn't talk me out of it, I was suddenly dropped from the call... mysterious eh. Well, the third time I was so pissed off I cancelled everything. I've had rather visceral feelings towards them ever since. If you ever deal with them, my own suggestion would be to use a one-time only card to setup the account. Of course, you're better off if you have good cell coverage just using spotify, youtube music or similar.
After not being able to find any email or conversation with the support I was able to log back in Netflix and get a history of charges to my credit cards, which is still stored in their system.
Dates are in DD/MM/YYYY format
A simple test would be to see what happens if you try to, today, try to watch something on Netflix. Does it allow you to start watching shows? Or does it ask you to do something like restart a subscription? What do you see today?
If you want something different, don't yell at some company that is only acting the way all companies act. Yell at your government for failing to make laws that protoize us, actual people, over business interests. Most businesses follow the laws most of the time, so if they are acting shitty it is because your government has shitty laws.
Can companies be held accountable for lying like this, on record? They're already tracking.
Instead, they use legal borderline-fraud to chase profits.
I hadnt even logged in for a month after the pogrom
It’s 1 click cancel on subscriptions.
It’s enforced and they have no say or cannot make it difficult for me to cancel.
HBO go is same price. Prime video is same price.
The only one I can’t pay for is Netflix.
So your point is moot.
Point is moot
They cancelled my brittanica and refunded me! I wanted the emails to stop. Now to sign up I’d need to enter my payment info again; I just stayed unsubscribed.
I will sometimes check how cancellation works by looking at the cancel area. Would not expect a single click to terminate my account.
Easy cancelling is a great idea. “Click” to cancel sounds abrupt.
I can’t read the article due to the paywall. Precisely how easy and instant is the cancellation process required to be under this proposal: a button that says cancel, you click it, and you are cancelled?
I suspect that would surprise a lot of people and make them frustrated. Cancelling shouldn’t be easier to do accidentally than signup.
Simple cancellation is a good idea. Banning complicated cancellation is a good idea.
I’m just wary of too minutely regulation how cancellation happens. It is possible to make it too seamless.