I'm listening to hold music right now, 30 minutes into my attempt at cancelling 3mbps home DSL service (not a typo), for which the price has crept up to $71 USD/mo.
I first spoke with a customer service agent whose accent I couldn't understand very well. I have him ALL my account information. He mumbled something about being unable to forward me to the actual customer service agent (then what is your role, dude?), then came back on and said he couldn't forward me and so I would have to call them myself.
He gave me the same number I had already called. I pointed this out to him and he gave me some other number, which is where I'm listening to on-hold music now.
Right now the on-hold music is interrupted to sell me shit.
Non US Call centers can't handle cancellations. If they can't convince you to postpone, they have to transfer you to some US Call center specifically for Retention or something like that.
The transfer process impacts the metrics of the agent. You know, like call length, customer survey, customer callbacks, etc
Well transfers are also a metric. That specific agent might prefer a "callback" over a "transfer" that month.
W/e Your best strategy is to open the call with:
"hi, I want to cancel my service" And don't give details about any problem, you just want to cancel. Period.
If the agen't "can't transfer" ask for a supervisor. Could be 5 - 15 more minutes but at least you don't have to call again.
If you ask for "an American" or "someone who can speak english", depending on the call center company, you can get a call drop, a soft retention, a transfer to the agent beside, or a transfer to a call center in the US. YMMV
Sorry, this sucks as someone who has experienced this themselves. As a former customer support person, ask for a supervisor. Also be firm and serious without being rude or berating. Lastly never buy the "our systems are having trouble". That is support speak for "I have no clue, call back and talk to someone else".
Done, and done. 14 + 44 minute phone calls, gave all of my information to 3 redundant people, including explaining to confused agents that I don't recall the account pin, well you have to have the account pin, well actually the previous person accepted my answer to my personal security question and the person before that texted me a temporary pin but now for some reason those alternate methods don't work for you?
> Right now the on-hold music is interrupted to sell me shit.
Jesus Christ, this is like those gasoline pumps that blare ads at you while you pump. On that little screen right above the plaque that says "you better not go in your car or this whole place will fucking explode or something".
Since when is it chill to hold people hostage for ads, let alone LOUD ads? I don't want to hear this!
PS: little tip for gasoline pump ads: one button always mutes them. Think it's a compliance thing. Almost never labeled, so just try all the buttons.
I don't think this is true anymore. I've pushed all 8 buttons on a pump near me, and it didn't mute. Almost purchased a car wash though. Thankfully my primary car is electric.
You know, I actually haven't encountered this at a gas station in a year or two. I hadn't realized until now that my local gas stations just don't have those little TV interludes anymore. I haven't heard the dulcet tones of Maria Menudo or Mario Lopez in so long.
Because without any form of regulation, the ISP has no requirement to honor that letter?
The whole point of "click to cancel" was to deal with the fact that a business, by contract law, can make it almost entirely impossible to stop owing them money through entirely legal means. The courts do not consider being on hold for 18 hours onerous enough to void a contract, so it's perfectly legal to require you to follow the "cancellation process", whatever that is.
Welcome to a world without consumer protections beyond basic contract law! American courts have long held the position that, if you agree to a contract, it really doesn't matter how onerous it is. Fuck you, caveat emptor and all that.
If you want to improve the situation without new regulation, we should push for courts to take a more reasonable stance: That contract law does not protect absurd contracts. This is supposed to be the current situation, but what it takes to get your contract declared null because it's unfair or onerous is just insane right now, because our courts have spent at least 50 years praying at the alter of "let businesses do literally anything they want under contract law"
I wonder what would happen if one sent a cancellation letter via certified mail, then just stopped paying. If they come after you, well - you canceled.
But frustratingly, the AT&T website appeared to allow you to replace your current (auto-pay) billing method with some other billing method, but I didn't see any way to remove all current billing methods, which makes just stopping paying nigh impossible. :-(
Nihilism is useless. We've made enormous progress since the first human stepped on this planet so I would say we've disproven nihilism for good. Modern governments are definitely not purely tools for the owner class to enrich themselves.
"owner class" is too outdated and myopic. It's also incorrect, as plenty of people born into low income households go on to become elected representatives.
It's better to think about it in terms of "people who choose to pursue positions of power to benefit themselves financially while cosplaying as wanting to help the average person".
Services have been making it hard to cancel subscriptions for many years, under many parties and administrations. Many things are Trump's fault, this is not one of them.
It would be good if folks actually read the FTC letter rather than having a visceral negative reaction.
The Biden admin had put the May 14 deadline for certain things even though the rule as a whole went into effect in Jan 2025. Trump's commish is defending that by another 60 days.
Visa/Mastercard have enough power to enforce this on their own. Although obviously regulation would've been better.
If a bunch of elected officials wrote letters to execs and a couple of NYT articles were written about the issue, Visa/Mastercard might be motivated to help.
Chargebacks might upset that being a big benefit, and being the firm that takes a stance for customer care could be good advertising fodder. Though I don't see it working unless they both do it in step which minimises the useful effect of that against each other. It could still be a benefit vs other payment methods, what is PayPal's policy on such things?
Those transactions might have a higher than normal chargeback rate which could motivate them to get rid of them. It could also be a perk of the card, they could provide a subscription cancellation portal on their website.
I honestly would use a card that promises me easier subscription cancellation. In fact, I sort of do already: I use Apple's in app payment system to handle as many subscriptions as possible because of how easy they make it to cancel. I know Apple increases the cost to the service provider and they in turn charge me more but the ease of cancellation is worth it to me.
Now if a bank or card came along and provided the same (and maybe easy subscription management in general) they can have all my subscription revenue.
They do have that power, and have abused it in the past. For example, refusing to do business with cannabis distributors or porn creators.
If you take that past into account, and consider the fact that they aren't using that power the way you want, it becomes immediately clear that they never will.
They absolutely don't have the power to excuse debt. Just because a company can't charge your credit card, doesn't mean you don't still owe them money on paper.
"If you can sign up online, you must be able to cancel online, too."
That leaves a lot of room for the "Cancel" option to be buried in an obscure hard to find part of the website. I'd have hoped there was a requirement for it to be as prominent and as easy to find as the "Subscribe" option (and maybe there is, just not mentioned in this piece?)
The one line description, of course, leaves tons of holes the actual rule does patch. The impulse to believe a rule or law has been implemented in the most smooth brained way possible is rarely correct. The actual rule includes language that say it should be as easy as the original sign up.
The solution my country had to this is to simply have a unified government website for contract cancellations, where you provide your contract details and they're forwarded to the provider.
Would you want a "click to subscribe" function that works like that?
I wouldn't, I would like some form of confirmation before buying a subscription.
I don't see the problem in a unsubscribe function having a symmetrical confirmation in any service that doesn't try to trick me into a subscription. And actually, even more so for services that try to trick me...
It's ok that you don't need something. That's fine. That said, we don't define policies based on your need. So, I won't disqualify your need. I would ask you to think more than you.
> Do you actually want there to be a big "Cancel" button in the top right corner of every subscribed service?
Yes, since the alternative is what you have now: impossible to find and if you find it highly annoying. Even if you have the law which says "canceling must be as easy as subscribing" like where I live it still isn't even close due to efforts of government creating a law but failing (by design) to fund the agency tasked with keeping the companies in check.
I would like that, as would many here, but let's consider an alternative:
What if the subscription was just as difficult as your ideal cancellation UX flow? I would like that, too. Let the homepage just describe your product, and maybe some pricing.
I want to see a candidate run largely on a consumer protection platform. We've been letting companies get away with more and more bullshit and it needs to stop.
I have seen the results of these A/B tests closely on a major consumer site and I can tell you it definitely hurts the business to make cancelation really easy.
Yep... I've been in a meeting where we were shown the result of moving a cancel button's position on the page to a more crowded place so it would be noticed less. It actually works people click on it less. I couldn't believe it. Thankfully, the feature got vetoed and cancelled (the end result was really visually horrendous).
Reminds me of that one time I ordered a super shuttle to the airport, and the website had an offer to get 15% off if I subscribed to that random thing (first month free, cancel anytime). I’m good at immediately marking my calendar to cancel as soon as I got what I want, so I thought this would be a walk in the park. And surely enough, as soon as I was out of the shuttle and got my discount, I immediately cancelled that subscription.
Fast forward to 18 months later when I notice a $16.99 charge I do not recognize. I look at my previous statement, it’s there too, the one before, it’s there. I go back 18 months and I see I have been charged $16.99 per month ever since. Bonkers. I try to look up the merchant but I don’t find anything in my emails that match.
I forgot how I made the connection but at some point I find that subscription. I call the guys and I ask what’s going on since I cancelled 18 months ago. They say “oh, but actually when you accepted the terms, you also agreed to sign up to that completely unrelated subscription, so yes, you cancelled with us, but you did not cancel that other business”.
I call that second business and tell them I’ve never used whatever service they offer, and that sneaky scheme is unacceptable. They say “ok, we can refund the last 3 months”, I say “no, you refund me the entire 18 months”, they say “no”, I say “let me talk to a manager”. Manager picks up, I say “refund the entire 18 months or I report you to the FTC”. And finally they refunded the whole thing.
Would not recommend.
Don’t shut yourself in with a less healthy body because you’re worried about one of the Internet’s meme topics. It would take less than an hour to google/call/visit a few local gyms to learn which have better customer service. I recommend the local YMCA if you’re in the US. Your membership is reciprocal nationwide now, too.
What’s with this rising trend of authoritative comments on HN thinking their individual rationale/experience generalizes. It wasn’t this bad just a few years ago, but now I’m seeing just outright absurd generalizations like this.
I picked my gym based on their cancellation procedure. 200 pounds is 200 pounds, customer service is pretty much where gyms differentiate themselves afaic
Most, if not all of these service are billed before you get access. Ergo, if they cannot bill you, they can immediately revoke access.
The system is built in such a way that they get a lot of information about you (e.g. SSN for internet access) subsequently used to ensure cancellation is extremely painful.
If they didn't have this information, failure to bill would be immediate service pausing/termination, so it's not even that non-payment results in money lost for the company.
For email accounts I create burners. I wish I could do the same in real life.
Readit News
I first spoke with a customer service agent whose accent I couldn't understand very well. I have him ALL my account information. He mumbled something about being unable to forward me to the actual customer service agent (then what is your role, dude?), then came back on and said he couldn't forward me and so I would have to call them myself.
He gave me the same number I had already called. I pointed this out to him and he gave me some other number, which is where I'm listening to on-hold music now.
Right now the on-hold music is interrupted to sell me shit.
The transfer process impacts the metrics of the agent. You know, like call length, customer survey, customer callbacks, etc
Well transfers are also a metric. That specific agent might prefer a "callback" over a "transfer" that month.
W/e Your best strategy is to open the call with: "hi, I want to cancel my service" And don't give details about any problem, you just want to cancel. Period.
If the agen't "can't transfer" ask for a supervisor. Could be 5 - 15 more minutes but at least you don't have to call again.
If you ask for "an American" or "someone who can speak english", depending on the call center company, you can get a call drop, a soft retention, a transfer to the agent beside, or a transfer to a call center in the US. YMMV
my two cents
Jesus Christ, this is like those gasoline pumps that blare ads at you while you pump. On that little screen right above the plaque that says "you better not go in your car or this whole place will fucking explode or something".
Since when is it chill to hold people hostage for ads, let alone LOUD ads? I don't want to hear this!
PS: little tip for gasoline pump ads: one button always mutes them. Think it's a compliance thing. Almost never labeled, so just try all the buttons.
I don't think this is true anymore. I've pushed all 8 buttons on a pump near me, and it didn't mute. Almost purchased a car wash though. Thankfully my primary car is electric.
The whole point of "click to cancel" was to deal with the fact that a business, by contract law, can make it almost entirely impossible to stop owing them money through entirely legal means. The courts do not consider being on hold for 18 hours onerous enough to void a contract, so it's perfectly legal to require you to follow the "cancellation process", whatever that is.
Welcome to a world without consumer protections beyond basic contract law! American courts have long held the position that, if you agree to a contract, it really doesn't matter how onerous it is. Fuck you, caveat emptor and all that.
If you want to improve the situation without new regulation, we should push for courts to take a more reasonable stance: That contract law does not protect absurd contracts. This is supposed to be the current situation, but what it takes to get your contract declared null because it's unfair or onerous is just insane right now, because our courts have spent at least 50 years praying at the alter of "let businesses do literally anything they want under contract law"
But frustratingly, the AT&T website appeared to allow you to replace your current (auto-pay) billing method with some other billing method, but I didn't see any way to remove all current billing methods, which makes just stopping paying nigh impossible. :-(
Then you have to go court to decide which of you is right, much easier to sit on the phone for a couple hours.
If you see government as a way to enhance the ability of the owner class to enrich themselves, it makes perfect sense.
I guess you get the government you vote for.
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It's better to think about it in terms of "people who choose to pursue positions of power to benefit themselves financially while cosplaying as wanting to help the average person".
Dead Comment
Services have been making it hard to cancel subscriptions for many years, under many parties and administrations. Many things are Trump's fault, this is not one of them.
The Biden admin had put the May 14 deadline for certain things even though the rule as a whole went into effect in Jan 2025. Trump's commish is defending that by another 60 days.
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/negative-option...
With no consideration given to how consumers may be harmed by non-enforcement meanwhile.
Disable the easy sign-up button and force customers to call to sign up.
Seems like no burden at all to implement.
If a bunch of elected officials wrote letters to execs and a couple of NYT articles were written about the issue, Visa/Mastercard might be motivated to help.
Now if a bank or card came along and provided the same (and maybe easy subscription management in general) they can have all my subscription revenue.
If you take that past into account, and consider the fact that they aren't using that power the way you want, it becomes immediately clear that they never will.
No consumer business can operate without access to those card networks.
That leaves a lot of room for the "Cancel" option to be buried in an obscure hard to find part of the website. I'd have hoped there was a requirement for it to be as prominent and as easy to find as the "Subscribe" option (and maybe there is, just not mentioned in this piece?)
https://www.swlaw.com/publication/ftc-click-to-cancel-rule/#...
Dead Comment
I personally don't want that. Click to cancel? Sure. But perfectly symmetrical is not something I need and in many cases not something I want.
I wouldn't, I would like some form of confirmation before buying a subscription. I don't see the problem in a unsubscribe function having a symmetrical confirmation in any service that doesn't try to trick me into a subscription. And actually, even more so for services that try to trick me...
ABSOLUTELY YES
Yes, since the alternative is what you have now: impossible to find and if you find it highly annoying. Even if you have the law which says "canceling must be as easy as subscribing" like where I live it still isn't even close due to efforts of government creating a law but failing (by design) to fund the agency tasked with keeping the companies in check.
Yes.
What if the subscription was just as difficult as your ideal cancellation UX flow? I would like that, too. Let the homepage just describe your product, and maybe some pricing.
I’ve put off joining a gym for years because I don’t want the hassle of I want to cancel.
Also I never do free trials assuming they’ll be hard to cancel.
Deleted Comment
I'm definitely in the newer-touch-something-if-it-seems-hard-to-cancel camp. How do you measure that I didn't sign up?
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The system is built in such a way that they get a lot of information about you (e.g. SSN for internet access) subsequently used to ensure cancellation is extremely painful.
If they didn't have this information, failure to bill would be immediate service pausing/termination, so it's not even that non-payment results in money lost for the company.
For email accounts I create burners. I wish I could do the same in real life.