Hacker News Reader

Comment by rogual | Hacker News Reader

I just expect these tactics from periodicals these days. Last time I signed up to one (The Economist) I used a pre-paid debit card for this very reason.

Sure enough, they eventually gave me a reason to cancel (popup modals over their online articles for paying customers) and I just emptied the card and sent an email to their customer service saying "I hereby cancel my subscription; you are no longer authorized to charge my card".

Can't refuse to cancel me if I have no money taps temple

View on HN

Making them unable to easily collect money from you doesn't magically erase your contractual relationship.

They probably still just canceled your account since it's paid up front and it'd be more hassle to try and collect on your debt.

Yep, if you've signed an agreement to remain a paying customer for a set duration and you pull this, they can send collections after you. In this case, I hadn't.

Good thinking. When I cancelled it (No complaints, I just did one of the 12 week offers as it's too expensive for me in general) they made me go talk to a sales person in their chat room, and they actually put me on hold for ~20 minutes while waiting for the queue to clear. Then they try to sell you on a reduced rate before they'll let you cancel. C'est abusé.

Could they have sued you if they had wanted to?

If, theoretically, there was an unsubscribe button in one's user settings that you hadn't seen, and you sent an email instead and blocked the payment card?

The email is evidence he's let them know of his intention to cancel. Unless there is some major clause in the contract that entitles them to more money such as a minimum commitment, I don't see a problem.

Granted anyone can sue for anything anyway, but I can't see them having a strong case. They'd be paying a lot of money to try and litigate this and demonstrate their bad faith in the process.

No one would sue unless the balance was into thousands, or they're just an individual pursuing a vendetta. What would likely happen is they'd charge it off to a debt collection agency that would hassle you by whatever means of contact they have for a couple years until you paid or they gave up on it. And when they give up on it they usually just sell it downstream to an even more crappy company more willing to use aggressive tactics.

Oops sounds both scary and realistic

Maybe the collector would do a credit check to find out how much money they could get from you

Naw, they wouldn't want to pay for a credit check. They run boiler room style call centers where the folks hassling you work on commission. So they just push whatever leads they have to their staff and make it their problem to squeeze money out of it. The entire industry is really, really, scummy, and barely one step better than those fraudsters that pretend to be the IRS.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com