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Comment by ChumpGPT | Hacker News Reader

Always use a virtual CC to pay for these types of services. You will also want to make sure you never give anyone access to direct withdrawal from your Bank Accounts. No auto payments either.

When you want to cancel, tell them you are moving to Canada and have to cancel. they stop trying to sell you on keeping the service. Settle up and cancel your Virtual CC.

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That doesn't fix the issue, just tries to bypass the symptoms (and you're still on the hook, a CC isn't some magic "get out of a contract" card; even if the other party just gives up trying to collect).

Following this advice with cable/internet/phone service in the USA would be a great way to ruin your own credit score.

I am in France and use Direct Debit everywhere. This is the most ised and useful mechanism we have.

No virtual CC or similar tricks: the companies get the money from your account and you never see the bills .

One major point which may not exist in the US is that you have a button on your bank web site which you click to suspend or delete the DD authorization. From there on the bank will refuse to pay and the discussion is between you and the company.

When I want yo cancel something it is either straightforward on their site, or I send an email requesting the account to be removed and block DD

Practical advice. But we need to address the underlying problem. I mean, if people were getting mugged 50% of the time, it would be practical to take hand combat lessons. But in that case, too, you'd want to address the underlying cause most of all.

Yeah. We need to address the problem and the problem is customer hostile practices like this that try to trap customers. This is exactly what the FTC fixes.

You're on the hook for charges regardless of whether they successfully charge your CC.

Interestingly, I don't think a court would look kindly on intentionally obfuscated or difficult cancellation procedures imposed on a contract unilaterally. And I don't think the cost/benefit ratio favors a firm taking someone to court on this. (Collections may be an option for them, and I'm not sure how you challenge the validity of a charge or who decides.)

They don't have to take you to court at all, they will just send your bills to collections and nuke your credit score.

Yes, but you can challenge the bill. Otherwise anyone could send anyone to collections for anything.

I feel like challenging the bill and fixing your credit score would be much harder than jitsu cancelling the thing in thy first place?

It’s not about the money, it’s about sending a message.

how? do you have some paper trail of attempts to cancel?

I imagine that would do. I've never done it but I suspect there is a dispute process, even if it is corrupt (for example, administered by the collections agency).

Always wondered why there are no large scale protests against credit score. I wouldn't live in a country where corporations got such power. Not entirely sure why there is not more outrage about it; it doesn't benefit anyone but big corporations, so why does the average or even any citizen (rich people just probably pay their cable or gym even if they don't want to, but it's not benefitting them either?) just take it? It's a debilitating thing which china happily copied from you and 'improved' on.

A lot of things in USA benefit nobody but -big- corpos, it is kinda "by design". In many countries, if one gym is annoying and doing weird things, you move to another one the next month. But when all the gyms are owned by the same company or two, they can go away with such behaviour. We can see it in this article too.

The better line is to tell them you are about to go to prison for a long while. That will shut them up.

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