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Comment by niklasd | Hacker News Reader

I also just canceled my NYT subscription (or, more accurate: I am in the process of doing that) and it is just terrible.

I am in Germany, and basically they do not accept your cancellation via writing to the customer support, but require you to call a callcenter, which is extremly hard to reach (either they do not pick up, or the connection quality is so bad that they don't understand what you're saying). In short, I did not succeed in that.

Rejecting the written cancellation and requiring to call is both borderline illegal, and an insult to the customer. Everyone involved knows that this is a just a maneuver to nudge you to give up on it, and that this requires me to waste vast amounts of my time trying to call a shady callcenter – that is just an insult to me, and it also destroys the NYT brand.

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German law stipulates that ToS requiring a call (or letter) to cancel when you subscribed online are void (§ 309 Nr. 13 BGB limits what restrictions can be placed on the mode of communications). Cancelling via their contact form, email, or even SMS is totally fine as far as the law is concerned. I don't see how the NYT could refuse your cancellation via their contact form. Maybe nobody's bothered to sue them? (IANAL)

Deepl translation of the law: Even to the extent that a deviation from the statutory provisions is permissible, the following shall be invalid in general terms and conditions: [...] 13. (Form of notices and declarations) A provision by which notices or statements to be given to the user or to a third party are bound a) to a form more stringent than the written form in a contract for which notarization is required by law; or b) to a form more stringent than textual form in contracts other than those referred to in point (a); or c) to special access requirements

I think you're right, that is also my take. However, the issue here is they just don't comply with that. I wrote them via contact form, and they replied from a non-reply email address to call them instead (and after that they even had the audacity to send me another mail asking how I liked the customer support).

Of course you could try to sue them, very propably even threatening does the job. But the idea is to have a hassle free cancellation process, and a court case is not really my idea of such a thing.

Life pro tip: e-mail them your request to cancel and write that you’re deaf so you can’t call costumer service.

As far as I'm concerned, I don't need the company to "accept" my cancellation. I simply need to inform them, in writing, that I have cancelled, and to stop paying.

Life's too short to jump through these hoops with abusive corporations.

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