Hacker News Reader

Comment by zeroonetwothree | Hacker News Reader

Still better than having to call

There is common sense legislation that exists out there that is extremely simple: just require that you must allow users the exact same methodology and as easy to cancel as they did to sign up. Signed up with 3 clicks online? Need to be able to cancel with 3 clicks online. No exceptions.

Or go in person, like many gym memberships.

yes and have to do 2 months before end of plan, and they’ll still bill you for the next full month

Worth noting that in the UK if you say « this is obviously predatory and isn’t going to hold up in small claims court » this requirement almost always disappears and they tell you that just this one time they’ll be nice and cancel from today.

I had to send a registered letter to hq.

Was in my local gym trying to set up a membership and someone was in there screaming that it’d be easier to “burn the gym to fucking ashes” than cancel the sub. Turns out the cancellations person was only there on a Tuesday at 10AM or something useless.

I walked out before I became another victim.

Just tell them you moved, that's why you're canceling, and you live nowhere near any of their other branches therefore it would be physically impossible for you to come in.

This works for me, and I have no qualms lying to circumvent stupid tactics like these. I have turned into a LIAR when speaking to customer service for stuff like this because it just makes me more sympathetic as a customer, even though it's insane and unfair that one has to do this as a sort of social hack instead of the business just doing the right thing.

Fuck onstar to hell for their shit, you HAVE to call and theres no way to digitally cancel.

Unless I had to call to make the order in the first place I'd just chargeback at that point.

Sirus wasn't bad, but it was still a call which is annoying.

The worst I've experienced was equifax. I signed up for a free trial to see where my credit sat and what was up, then cancelled. It was a phone call, 30 minute wait, and SUPER weaselly behavior in the call center script. Something to the effect of Them: "Hey we want to give you this free gift", Me: "Will that gift keep my subscription active?" Them: "yes". Repeated several times as they tried just a bunch of avenues to not cancel my account. I literally had to say "No, I just want you to cancel my account" or "Are you going to cancel my account" like 20 times. It took over an hour.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com