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Comment by adrr | Hacker News Reader

This was already required in the Visa Merchant agreement. If you signed up online. The merchant must provide an online way to cancel which could be email, webpage or chat. If they don't just call up your card issuer and file a "canceled recurring" dispute as the merchant doesn't provide a visa acceptable way to cancel the subscription.

https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/about-visa/15-April-2...

Section: 5.9.8.2

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so the solution to having to call a merchant to cancel a subscription is to call your card issuer to cancel a subscription?

My bank doesn't make me sit on hold for 20 minutes and isn't staffed by min wage employees who are incentivized to retain you including lying to you or hanging up on you. I don't blame the employees, they are just trying to make rent.

Also chargebacks penalize the merchants both in fines/fees but if they rack of enough, they'll pay higher processing fees.

> My bank doesn't make me sit on hold for 20 minutes and isn't staffed by min wage employees

Lucky you.

There are literally thousands of banks and credit unions in the United States. If your bank sucks, then you have no reason not to take your business to a different one.

Banks seem to occupy a weird space in the minds of consumers. You can open as many accounts as you want at as many banks as you want. If you're paying fees, switch to a bank that doesn't have those fees. If you can't get somebody on the phone, switch to a bank that staffs its call centers. If their website sucks, switch to a bank with a good website.

Try a few out. See what you like. It's just like any other consumer product.

Get a better bank.

I think the implication is that your card issuer won't fight you on the cancellation, whereas the service provider that is trying to make your life difficult has additional, phone-based hoops for you to jump through.

If your vindictive this is a great way to increase their card processing costs.

You seriously believe this will increase processing costs to say Verizon or Comcast?

They are not the only ones using this dark pattern, and it does get escalated to more expensive employees even at Comcast.

Of course it does. With a provider as large as that they surely engage in negotiations with credit card providers, and you can bet that the fraudulent charge rate is a huge part of that discussion.

Verizon/Comcast's handling of recurring cancellations is directly tied to Visa's cost of doing business with them.

if you/lots of people have call a merchant a lot to cancel, then it doesn't matter. If the bank/credit card companies get lots of calls about one merchant, they might tell the merchant to get it's act together or risk higher fees. "Fix your cancellation process or we'll turn off your ability to charge anyone next month" tends to get more powerful people to take note.

Sometimes you can file the dispute entirely online.

Would this work for Comcast/Xfinity?

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