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Comment by cut_un | Hacker News Reader

If customers aren't renewing then they probably don't need the service and forgot they're being charged. It feels unethical to rifle through their online wallet and look for another card to charge.

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That’s a fair concern — we definitely thought about the ethics side. In practice is that most “failed payment” churn isn’t intentional churn. Customers still want the service, but their primary card expired, was replaced, or hit a limit.

When we tested this, refunds and chargebacks were actually lower for the recovered cohort compared to baseline.

For customers who really don’t want the subscription anymore, they can still cancel as usual.

It's hard to believe customers are happy with it. I find it shady if you were to try all the cards I added to the product without my permission.

I'm okay with you sending me an email before you try, as long as explicit consent is given. However, if I don't care to change my primary card after the first attempt, that means I don't really care about continuing the subscription.

Happy to be wrong if you prove it with the data, though.

We do prove it with the data but as mentioned the merchants notify customers before. Thanks

What about cancellation rates? That's another option many may prefer to take when they notice this.

Are customers notified when their payment details are changed unexpectedly by your service?

Sure, we email customers about failed payments. They can always cancel but please remember that those are payments that should have gone through anyway

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