I always thought the law should be really simple. It should take an average person (independent from the case and a large enough sample) about the same time to pay for something than to refund/return/cancel it. That's it.
I gladly am in Germany and companies are more scared of implementing dark patterns here for canceling products. When I was in the US I dreaded cancelling services because I knew they would make me jump around several hoops and even sometimes require contacting customer support.
> The church tax is only paid by members of the respective church, although the concept of "membership" is far from clear, and it may be asked what right the secular state has to tell the faithful what contribution they should make to their own denomination. People who are not members of a church tax-collecting denomination do not have to pay it. Members of a religious community may formally cease to be considered members by making a declaration to state (not religious) authorities, ending liability to pay church taxes. Some religious communities refuse religious marriages and funerals to members who leave.
Is it harder than implied to make that declaration?
Yes, but you'll usually have to make an appointment for that and especially in larger cities or communities this might take quite a time. So, yeah, 8% on the hand, waiting for weeks for an appointment on the other hand...
The US was sooo close! This was exactly how the proposed Click-to-Cancel rule worked from the Biden FTC under Lina Khan. The Trump administration came in and killed it before it went into effect, though, because of course they did (technically: they stopped a mandatory impact study and let the judiciary kill it, same same).
> I always thought the law should be really simple. It should take an average person (independent from the case and a large enough sample) about the same time to pay for something than to refund/return/cancel it. That's it.
Can't be too hard. It's already there for email subs - US CAN-SPAM Act and UK PECR.
It seems to me like it ought to be possible for the consumer to cancel a payment arrangement via their card provider.
Yet my banking app (here in Singapore) doesn't let me block any prior authorizations. It feels like the payment networks don't want to make it too easy to cancel periodic payments? Which isn't surprising, of course, but it feels like something I'd change banks for.
We can already through PayPal, making it easy to unsub. But, guess what, service providers don't like that. Equally they'd not like a bank's solution.
However the payment card companies could handle this by facilitating subscriber to generate a new virtual card for each sub, then to cancel sub, cancel card. They'd need to qualify the current T&Cs which pass a charge through regardless.
"If you'd like to block a merchant and their recurring payments — please go directly to the merchant and ask them to stop recurring charges to your Wise card.
If you can't reach the merchant, or they haven't cancelled your subscription after you've asked, you can block future recurring charges to your Wise card through your Wise account."
I don't think that's standardized, it probably only has some heuristic to detect a subscription's associated payments and rejects them. It will not integrate in any way with merchants to cancel the subscription on their side, and in fact they suggest to first trying to cancel the subscription on the merchant side.
Is "not paying" effectively the same thing as unsubscribing?
I guess they could keep providing you the service and keep track of the debt you "owe" them. Once it becomes high enough they would find ways to claim the money.
Indeed. I tried once with a particularly shady company that required phone calls to unsubscribe. The service after 1 month unpaid, but the money was still owed and ultimately they sold the "debt" to one of those companies that will try to scare you into paying via threatening emails.
I’ve been doing a lot cancellations recently and almost 80% of the services a completely scammy on unsubscription, from simply making it complicated to making a call that takes 30 minutes to cancel. It’s a travesty, and it’s one of those things they should just get penalized and to pay fees under current consumer rights now in addition to clarifying the regulation. It’s clearly hostile, intentional and acts like a scam. There are enough components for consumer rights bodies to act on in many countries
The thing is, it's so incredibly easy to make legislation that completely solves this. You just make a law that says "it must be as easy to cancel a service as it is to sign up for that service". Handles basically all edge cases, doesn't create misaligned incentives, and is very easily enforceable.
I'm worried that this regulation is overreaching and will kill innovation in dark patterns. Yet another example of how Europe trails behind the US by allowing their busybody lawmakers to get in the way of progress. If you can't trick your subscribers into being unable to unsubscribe any more, how will companies survive?
Listen, they're the ones holding our society up. Without the money trickling down to us from all the chefs and cleaners they employ, we'd have to scavenge in the wilderness for voles.
We really should think twice before messing with the lifeblood of our economy.
I set up a new throwaway virtual card on Revolut every time I sign up for a free trial or rolling subscription. After that card is used to verify payment method or to pay an initial subscription fee, I just freeze or delete the card. Freezing works well because you see the failed transactions coming through later, and it's a good reminder to delete the app if you're no longer using it.
The virtual card trick is underrated as a consumer solution. Create a new card per subscription, delete it when you want to cancel. No dark patterns can survive that. The problem is it puts the burden on consumers to be technically sophisticated, which most aren't. And the average person shouldn't need a fintech workaround to cancel a gym membership.
In Blighty, the worst case scenario simply involves sending a snail mail letter to the company secretary (address from Companies House) saying "I cancel".
When sending it, don't forget to collect your(free) proof of posting certificate from the post office counter just in case of legal shenanigans.
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I gladly am in Germany and companies are more scared of implementing dark patterns here for canceling products. When I was in the US I dreaded cancelling services because I knew they would make me jump around several hoops and even sometimes require contacting customer support.
But besides that it's really okay.
> The church tax is only paid by members of the respective church, although the concept of "membership" is far from clear, and it may be asked what right the secular state has to tell the faithful what contribution they should make to their own denomination. People who are not members of a church tax-collecting denomination do not have to pay it. Members of a religious community may formally cease to be considered members by making a declaration to state (not religious) authorities, ending liability to pay church taxes. Some religious communities refuse religious marriages and funerals to members who leave.
Is it harder than implied to make that declaration?
> Is it harder than implied to make that declaration?
It involves going in person to a court or to a notary public. Pretty high friction which, I believe, is largely intentional.
There's more friction than needed...
> I always thought the law should be really simple. It should take an average person (independent from the case and a large enough sample) about the same time to pay for something than to refund/return/cancel it. That's it.
Can't be too hard. It's already there for email subs - US CAN-SPAM Act and UK PECR.
Yet my banking app (here in Singapore) doesn't let me block any prior authorizations. It feels like the payment networks don't want to make it too easy to cancel periodic payments? Which isn't surprising, of course, but it feels like something I'd change banks for.
This also would prevent any dirty trick from companies trying to obfuscate unsubscribing.
However the payment card companies could handle this by facilitating subscriber to generate a new virtual card for each sub, then to cancel sub, cancel card. They'd need to qualify the current T&Cs which pass a charge through regardless.
"If you'd like to block a merchant and their recurring payments — please go directly to the merchant and ask them to stop recurring charges to your Wise card.
If you can't reach the merchant, or they haven't cancelled your subscription after you've asked, you can block future recurring charges to your Wise card through your Wise account."
I guess they could keep providing you the service and keep track of the debt you "owe" them. Once it becomes high enough they would find ways to claim the money.
We really should think twice before messing with the lifeblood of our economy.
Far better to allow predators to take them to the cleaners.
(/s for if the idiom doesn't translate to your local language!)
People get really peeved when we tell them that, believe it or not, we can't do it on our end.
In Blighty, the worst case scenario simply involves sending a snail mail letter to the company secretary (address from Companies House) saying "I cancel".
When sending it, don't forget to collect your(free) proof of posting certificate from the post office counter just in case of legal shenanigans.
Job jobbed.