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Comment by calmbonsai | Hacker News Reader

Agreed.

With any such service, I budget 1 hour. If I can't get cancellation within that time-frame I have a standard form letter that gets sent out.

Once the letter is sent, after the current billing cycle ends any additional charges from said service are disputed (either on the card or on bank account) as fraud.

On three occasions, I've been asked to provide proof of fraud.

I've emailed a scan of the cancellation letter. The fraud has never been further disputed even from a gym in Chicago that (via their contract's language) demanded an in-person cancellation.

Life is too short and time is far too precious.

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Exactly, except one hour is way too generous. If they don't provide a better solution (five minutes tops) then they can deal with paperwork.

Companies like to pretend that they can set the rules for all interactions with them when that's just not the case.

Nice I might do this method too

Honestly, if it works, why not send the letter first and not waste an hour on the phone?

Or even more importantly, why aren't lawyers and consumer protection organizations promoting and spreading this knowledge?

The lawyer field is captured and they know they'd get taken to court by other lawyers if they "recommended" such a thing, because their industry has made them liable for things they "recommend".

Probably indeed a US liability thing. The FTC-like agency in my country publishes standard letters for this and a tool on their website to find the right letter or generate it based on some input.

We still get the same consumer-hostile practices from companies, but usually they give up if you send them one of those letters.

You're correct. I've lived in Germany and the UK where this sort of thing just doesn't exist and the sheer cost-of-doing-business in those countries obviates away this sort of stuff into "noise".

One thing about the U.S. is this sort of liability also has a huge gamut depending almost entirely on which actual U.S. state the transaction is done.

However, there's also likewise a huge gamut between what's technically actionable versus what's practicable with jurisprudence. Europe has an entirely different notion of "legal fees".

English rule thrives.

Because I've been "on the other side" of things too.

Genuinely, sometimes calls simply get transferred to the "wrong people", the CSR rep is brand new, the system itself gets backed-up (Poisson distributions can be a bitch), the company is going through a transition to a completely new CSR interface, or the general counsel just shoved an entirely new set of operating agreements up everyone's ass. Companies are made of people.

I consider 1 hour my botd (benefit of the doubt) tax for cancellation of consumer services.

Also note, that's not one continuous hour of time*attention.

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