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Comment by JusticeJuice | Hacker News Reader

While I'm a bit dubious of how they'll define a 'one click' flow, this is a great move. Maybe auto-subscribing free trials can be banned next?

I live in France, and they do everything possible to make subscriptions hard to cancel - I signed up to my gym online, but if I want to cancel it I need to send their headquarters a physical letter in the post, and expect a 4-6 week processing time haha.

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There are a few services in Germany that you can use to cancel a wide range of things. They use exactly the right wording and channels with each of them. They'll send faxes, snail mail, etc. Take care of escalating, etc. Whatever needs doing. Kind of hilarious and sad at the same time that that is a thing.

I've seen similar services for France, I also find it hilarious haha.

Did you fax a blood sample to prove you are who you are when cancelling the service?

Interesting, I thought that was unique to the US. What I’m hearing is that Gym memberships are universally predatory. I’m a bit of a cynic and honestly I think Gym memberships somehow will find away to weasel out of this requirement.

It is only required if you also have a 1 click sign up which is not that common.

Mostly due to patent issues (at least historically)

Also in France, curious which gym you are talking about.

Went to the three _main_ commercial gym brands, and cancelling did NOT take more than a week including the letter arriving time in one case. The other two were online and with the branch staff.

Cercles de la Forme. To be fair, that's just how the contract I signed describes the cancellation process. I bet if I talked to branch staff they could sort it out.

Heh, this reminded me of the time during high school that I (an American) signed up for an online subscription to "Le Monde" to practice my French. I believe it's different now, but at the time, unsubscribing required sending a letter to their membership department. Cue a very anxious 18 year old sending his first ever international mail and hoping that his command of French was good enough to convey my desire to cancel my subscription.

If they do that I just bounce the bank transfer order, or block/remove the card used

Huh, I thought the regulation that cancelling has to be possible the same way as signing up was EU-wide, but apparently it’s only in Germany then.

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