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Comment by turdprincess | Hacker News Reader

Virtual credit card numbers are a great way to combat this.

For example, the Wall Street journal pricing is pretty wild (8 dollars a month for the first 3 months then jumps to much higher) so I use a virtual card which expires right before the planned price hike.

For other services I like to either use a virtual card with a single transaction limit, or just buy the service and cancel right away which typically is equivalent to just paying for a month

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I tried to cancel a virtual card to cancel a service (that only allowed me to change anything by phone call, so this would have been far more convenient and less confrontational) and they tallied up a "delinquent balance" and threatened to sue if I didn't pay everything I owed in order to cancel.

Canceling the card does not work for predatory companies. Maybe for well-meaning ones that automatically cancel when a charge declines.

I switched home insurance away from liberty mutual after my term was up and did not renew. Three weeks after my coverage with them lapsed I received a notice from a collection agency for a late fee for coverage I never purchased. FUCK automatic billing and non-consensual subscriptions.

Take them to small claims court. You would win

It's too late for that now, but maybe if this happens again I will.

Agreed! I'm a long time privacy.com customer. It completely flips the script on subscriptions. I'll create a new card with only a budget for 1 month of the subscription. If I actually care about it I'll see the 2nd month's charge fail and quickly fix it. Also great for making sure free trials don't become forever subscriptions.

That's actually a great tip. Unfortunately I can't set them to expire at will, but using a 24 hours one (the usually available option here) is enough to get one month subscription without worries about the price hike.

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