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Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

So many subscription-based things in Germany are outright scams that would be criminal elsewhere.

Mobile phone contracts, internet service contracts principally among them. Two year contracts that auto renew and can only be cancelled in small windows a long time before auto-renew.

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> Two year contracts that auto renew and can only be cancelled in small windows a long time before auto-renew.

This is not the case anymore due to an EU law. It can only renew for 1 month at a time after the 24 months now.

Japan was like that with mobile contracts until about 5-10 years ago, when the government finally put an end to it.

Vote with your wallet and get one that's month-by-month. There are so many of these available by now.

> and can only be cancelled in small windows a long time before auto-renew

any examples?

Parship used to do this (not sure about their current practices, this was years ago): I once had a six-month subscription that would automatically extend by a year if you didn't cancel at least three months in advance (by letter or fax!). Especially dodgy in that line of business, because if you get lucky shortly before subscription runs out, you're literally giving away a year's worth of subscription that you're not going to use at all.

Many commercial leases run in 5-year increments with 2 5 year auto-renewals and a 90-180 day window in which to exercise the opt-out of auto-renewal. That window is often not set to end coincident with the end of the lease term for obvious reasons.

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