People often forget to cancel monthly subscriptions, and the costs add up
text.npr.org
text.npr.org
I usually catch them when I scroll down my usage statements once per month, but having it in-your-face would be beneficial to quite a lot of people I think.
So if they don't show any analysis there's a higher chance they don't analyse it internally for their private use either. I hope.
Then, I either dismiss the message, or deal with it immediately. I find this much easier than going over a statement at the end of the month. Usually the context for the charge is front and center, instead of and puzzling whether "AMZN MKTP US*TO10VLA93" is something I really bought 28 days ago or if someone used my CC.
However, it is also true that when it comes to commercial accounts, pricing for certain options like SMS may still follow the original scheme--i.e. the telecom may charge a fixed amount per individual message. I'm not saying this is definitely the case, nor that it is reasonable, if it is the case (the contention early on was that SMS were part of some other communication that occurred automatically, so people should never have had to pay anything for this "service," which was periodically ongoing by default). I'm just pointing out that this is how it used to be for private accounts, and i wouldn't be surprised if it was still the case for commercial accounts.
As far as banking goes, I tried mightily to use BillPay for everything possible (push) rather than AutoPay (pull) but those services are ruthless and relentless, so I gave up, and I am down to only one monthly BillPay remittance.
Although in true apple fashion this does not apply to their own services trial periods as far as I’ve tried. If you pay for a month of Apple Music and cancel within the free week they’ll just turn it off immediately and never charge you. Not sure if they do that during the actual month
So now I refuse to subscribe to anything unless there’s an intermediary that will allow me to quickly and painlessly cancel. iCloud subscriptions or Amazon account will let me do it with a button click. Whereas in my experience canceling directly with the company in question is often a nightmare
UK here though so YMMV.
Feels kind of like an abuse of their platform to use pro-consumer subscription terms for 3rd party services but not for your own services.
Heck, even trying to pay for something takes forever. I clicked on an in-app purchase button and then it showed a spinner for 30s before the Apple "touch your finger here to confirm purchase" screen appears. After confirming, nothing seems to happen until a minute later.
> Heck, even trying to pay for something takes forever. I clicked on an in-app purchase button and then it showed a spinner for 30s before the Apple "touch your finger here to confirm purchase" screen appears. After confirming, nothing seems to happen until a minute later.
That's not normal for most Internet connections and devices.
Meanwhile their signup process takes 5 seconds online.
The FTC has proposed a rule to require "Click to Cancel" for services that have "Click to signup". I hope it or something like it gets applied.
The debt collector couldn't care less if the debt is disputed. You instruct the rating agency, and then hope they see things your way. If they don't, your credit score will be affected.
I'm surprised at how often people say "just block payment and dispute the charges". Do people really believe getting out of a debt is as simple as saying "trust me bro, I don't owe them anything"?
I've had a completely illegitimate debt "verified" simply because they were able to show a paper trail saying I owed it according to their own internal rules, none of which were written in anything I signed or agreed to. It probably didn't help that it was a government office (DoD), but their idiotic "that's just how it is" justification was good enough for the reporting agency. Years later after an audit they admitted their mistake and refunded me, although they never refunded the late fees they charged me for a debt that they now acknowledge I never owed in the first place.
If you pull the braindead maneuver of not cancelling a service before cutting off payment, they're going to have no problem coming up with the records they need. Is it fucked up that they can deliberately make it difficult to cancel? Yes. But that doesn't mean it won't cost you points on your credit score. That's why there's a demand for a "click to cancel" law.
Additionally, I've taken to using my providers throwaway card generator to make site-specific ones that I can then one-click disable whenever I feel like it.
Granted, they only have this exposed through a fairly buggy browser extension, you can't just "do it" easily on the website, so I won't bother giving them the free marketing of mentioning them.
Ryan Hamilton has some really funny standup about attempting to cancel a gym membership.[2]
[1] Yes, I get the irony of yet another monthly service, but it's worth it [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnKJiixfa00
Few days ago I saw that one gas station offers 10€ monthly subscription for a daily coffee. Brilliant I thought: Cheap. However not every day a person gonna take the coffee. And you ensure the person will for sure fuel up right at your gas station and maybe buy some snacks.
4-5 years ago, Smashburger did their first, “Smash Pass.” Daily (excluding national holidays) free entree burger — via a daily one-day-only expiring coupon - with no additional purchase required, for 100 out of 102 calendar days, for $100 including sales tax. So the theoretical benefit was $800ish worth of food for $100, plus not paying sales/service taxes. Best part of a 90% discount depending on where you lived. I couldn’t make a comparable burger on my own for anywhere near that price.
I lived right near a Smashburger at the time, and it was literally on my walk back from a subway station I would exit on my commute back home. I got 100 of the 100 burgers. Only twice did I ever order something with it, because I was only a 7-minute walk from home and could have something else or a drink at home for much less.
Next year? 30 one-day-only-expiring-coupon burgers for $50. I was apparently far from the only person willing to structure part of their day around a free burger. I guess some of their stores were eaten alive by the promotion.
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one here who uses a calendar.
I wish that was a joke, but the number of posts and comments I've seen from people who forgot to cancel at the end of a free trial, or had a site stop working because they forgot to renew a certificate, or forget to renew a domain, and many other things I'm forgetting is way higher than I would have expected.
Using these virtual cards has been a life-saver.
Want to try a service for a month that doesn't do free trials? Hit that dark pattern with a single-use Privacy card and let the account lapse.
Want to join a gym but avoid their extremely predatory cancellation process? Boom; Privacy card that shit and term the card when you cancel.
Did you see a cool widget on a site that's notorious for getting pwned? Single use Privacy card that shit (or use Ironvest's Blur Virtual Cards if you want to use a credit card behind the scenes. Slightly more expensive and cumbersome though.)
No monthly subscription shall ever see the last four of my actual cards ever again. Gotta fight fire with fire.
Subscriptions are a fixed ongoing expense, and fixed ongoing expenses is the most common way people go broke.
I'll assume that the latter claim is true. But, does anyone actually "go broke" because of Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc, etc subscriptions? I'm skeptical. Obviously, the article asserts that people often forget to cancel subscriptions, and it has certainly happened to me, but I doubt many people get to a point where they're considering bankruptcy or downsizing their home before they realize they have a subscription they should've canceled.
It seems obvious to me that the "fixed ongoing expenses" that cause people to go broke are things like housing and debt payments (car, student loans, credit card, medical bills), and probably not optional monthly subscription fees--however high they may get.
> the "fixed ongoing expenses" that cause people to go broke are things like housing and debt payments
It's not usually the big stuff that gets out of control, it's the little stuff. It's very easy to sign up for a $5/mo subscription without thinking twice. Signing up for a $2000/mo lease gets more thought put into it.
You're unlikely to rack up a whole bunch of the $2k expenses, but lots of people do get into financial trouble by racking up thousands of dollars in expenses, $5-$20 at a time.
The only time virtual cards are particularly useful is if you're giving your CC# to some very shady merchant, probably one without any recourse if you decline payment. But, perhaps, just don't give those people your cc# in the first place.
If it isn't a virtual card your bank will probably cancel your existing card and issue you a new card with a new number. Some merchants where you had the old card on file might get the new number automatically via a credit card update service, but it is likely some will not and then you need to remember to go manually update them if you want them to keep working.
If you had used a virtual card on the site that got breached it should in theory not affect the underlying card or any other virtual cards derived from it.
I guess in America you don't get these nice things because you don't have your politicians voting for your interests but their corporate sponsors' instead. Time to vote for the people that support you :)
Also, cancellation must be offered through all the channels they offer signups on. So no more certified letter scams, if you can call them to sign up you can call them to cancel. And they can't push you around with a "customer loyalty" team. They can offer a deal but if you say no they must cancel.
My "mandatory" subscriptions do work this way --- they send me the invoice and then I pay after reviewing it. I refuse automatically-renewing ones. Then again, I have very few of them anyway, which IMHO is a good thing.
personally, i check every 2 weeks to verify any purchases