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Comment by lloeki | Hacker News Reader

Hmm. They list Microsoft's XBox Live in "Forced Continuity". It's been quite some time (at least six months, maybe even more) that:

- you can disable automatic renewal from the console or the browser

- MS sends you an email upon subscription informing you that you can disable automatic renewal from the console or the browser

- MS sends you a reminder some time before automatic renewal in which they again inform you how to disable automatic renewal

The last time I had to call support to leave Gold was like three years ago.

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Where do you live? In April of this year, I had to change my state to Illinois in order to enable the link to cancel via the browser. Illinois requires companies to provide a cancel link, so MS does. But they didn't offer it where they didn't have to.

I'm guessing New Zealand must be in the same position - I've seen plenty of screenshots showing me where the unsub link is, but it is just plain text for me. I had to call MS and cancel over the phone, which took a lot longer than it really should.

France. I've been getting about 6 months worth of Gold at the promotional 1€ per month this way. Subscribe via ad on console, turn off renewal, wait for it to expire, goto 1.

I believe this was doable in [ed: parts of - it seems] the US well before they got around to implementing it elsewhere, like in the UK.

It wasn't until some time last year that there was even a 'cancel' button on your profile. I think it may have been around the same time they added PayPal support.

I wouldn't trust my card details with them again, considering the liberties they took with that data (that were all buried in the small print).

This used to drive me nuts, since I only play online sporadically -- having to sit on the phone for 15 minutes to cancel was ridiculous. They've changed it now, but there's still the mild trick of re-engaging the auto-renewal every time you sign up again for a month.

I don't mean to be rude but the whole point was that a service that is going to offer monthly subscriptions should make it clear from before you enter the CC details that you are buying a monthly automatically paid subscription.

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