Cancelling Dropbox Pro is hard(useloom.com)
useloom.com
Cancelling Dropbox Pro is hard
https://www.useloom.com/share/8d148b2be54444909e8408398ab07f83
411 comments
This is a dark pattern usually dying companies like to follow. Why? Because, if you are confident of the value you provide to your customer, you don't need to be so aggressive about not letting them go. Yes, retention is an important KPI, but trust and transparency are even more important than anything else, so companies that offer little value and can't keep up with competition usually do this because they know they are dying.
A little while ago, I noticed the dark pattern that dropbox uses and showed it to my friend while talking about dark patterns. Turns out he was in charge of his university for selecting a good vendor for file storage. He saw it and immediately said 'fuck that' and went for another vendor instead. You see, this is how dark patterns shoot you in the foot - the cost of trust and transparency is even higher. In this case, dropbox lost significant money that they could have otherwise won.
Besides, In this day and age, there is literally no value that dropbox offers to its users. Their competitors offer way more value for similar price points and the experience with dropbox isn't even that good. All they have is their brand name, which will also be gone soon after they've tortured their customers with these dark patterns.
A little while ago, I noticed the dark pattern that dropbox uses and showed it to my friend while talking about dark patterns. Turns out he was in charge of his university for selecting a good vendor for file storage. He saw it and immediately said 'fuck that' and went for another vendor instead. You see, this is how dark patterns shoot you in the foot - the cost of trust and transparency is even higher. In this case, dropbox lost significant money that they could have otherwise won.
Besides, In this day and age, there is literally no value that dropbox offers to its users. Their competitors offer way more value for similar price points and the experience with dropbox isn't even that good. All they have is their brand name, which will also be gone soon after they've tortured their customers with these dark patterns.
The insidious thing about this from their side is that retained revenue from dark patterns shows up in a report someone can use to justify a promotion but your friend’s situation will forever remain anecdotal (in their reporting). Growth teams run amok.
The NYT at least lets you use PayPal. When I wanted to cancel I couldn't even get through to a rep, so I just switched my payment method to PayPal and then deauthorized the recurring payment from PayPal.
So much this. I LOVE paypal as a user because of it. All my subscriptions go through it and if it isn't offered via paypal, I'll reconsider.
I love to see a list of all my subscriptions with the ability to unilaterally cancel my subscription at any time via PayPal... I never even contact the companies I 'unsubscribe' from... I simply remove their access to my paypal.
I love to see a list of all my subscriptions with the ability to unilaterally cancel my subscription at any time via PayPal... I never even contact the companies I 'unsubscribe' from... I simply remove their access to my paypal.
Just be careful with this. Some companies will treat this as if it were a bounced check and keep your debt going.
I wouldn't put it past they NYT to do it. They could say that for privacy reasons the billing department can't view the last time you were logged into your account, and boom, they can argue that if they didn't pursue payment, you could be getting features from your paid account for free.
Most recurring billing APIs provide some sort of notification or query about the status. They could reasonably do "for each payment we got yesterday, extend the expiration date of the associated account."
Sure. They could also let you easily cancel online. But they don't want to. And if you refuse to pay for a subscription contract you entered, but didn't cancel, you owe them.
That sounds pretty unlikely to me.
I've done it to 40-50 internet companies.
My experience is internet companies don't collect debt the way you describe. It's the offline companies that do (ISPs, gyms, utilities, banks, etc)
Edit: they also need to inform you before sending your debt for collections, giving you time to get it right with them before any credit score issues. Seriously, people are so worried about keeping their promises to companies that don't reciprocate that concern. Most companies just deal with the consequences of breaking the rules. Why shouldn't we apply the same to them as their users?
My experience is internet companies don't collect debt the way you describe. It's the offline companies that do (ISPs, gyms, utilities, banks, etc)
Edit: they also need to inform you before sending your debt for collections, giving you time to get it right with them before any credit score issues. Seriously, people are so worried about keeping their promises to companies that don't reciprocate that concern. Most companies just deal with the consequences of breaking the rules. Why shouldn't we apply the same to them as their users?
From a legal perspective, would it be enough to send them an e-mail telling them that you no longer want to subscribe to the services before pulling the plug?
Probably depends on whether you email an appropriate address?
It really doesn’t. You wouldn’t even need the email. If this ever went to court the NYT wouldn’t win. Judges are human beings, not computers, and they consider circumstances. All you have to do is demonstrate intent, and not use the service so they can’t argue you received benefit without making an attempt to cancel.
Do you have an example of this?
I'd imagine this is in the Paypal terms when the company chooses to integrate with them and that 'debt' isn't enforceable
I'd imagine this is in the Paypal terms when the company chooses to integrate with them and that 'debt' isn't enforceable
Does PayPal allow that? If they are smart, they'd put into their ToS that in order to use PayPals subscription feature to receive money, you have to agree to let people cancel through it and honor this.
Other than PayPal monetizing your payment history, sure it’s great. Apple makes it even easier.
This is tangential, but on the topic of PayPal and privacy, this article is interesting about PayPal and HIPAA: https://simple.icouch.me/blog/is-paypal-hipaa-compliant-revi...
Short answer: if privacy matters, PayPal is a non-starter. I don’t want news publishers to have my information either. I know publishers like to howl and whine about “owning the customer relationship,” but unless they allow Apple for subscriptions, I won’t subscribe. I don’t need to be constantly reminder if their “special offers.”
This is tangential, but on the topic of PayPal and privacy, this article is interesting about PayPal and HIPAA: https://simple.icouch.me/blog/is-paypal-hipaa-compliant-revi...
Short answer: if privacy matters, PayPal is a non-starter. I don’t want news publishers to have my information either. I know publishers like to howl and whine about “owning the customer relationship,” but unless they allow Apple for subscriptions, I won’t subscribe. I don’t need to be constantly reminder if their “special offers.”
If privacy matters, any credit card is a non-starter: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/google-an...
Pretty much any credit card mines your purchases. PayPal isn't special in this regard.
What is the alternative? Is, what do informed people do instead of using credit cards or PayPal to buy things? (I assume stripe is the same)
Checks, ACH, wire transfers. Bank to bank, for free or very low fee (compared to transferred amount, like 20 bucks to transfer $$$$ with 1 day settlement for a wire transfer)
iDeal- basically money from my bank account to the bank account of the person I'm doing business with. Instant, free and no Sillicon Valley dipshit middle men parasites.
cash?
Pretty sure Chase and banks do the same.
I'd also like to add that despite the negative publicity PayPal gets from the merchant side, it's also preferred over credit cards by merchants for better handling of "disputes".
Some consider paypal to be archaic, but it's bleeding edge payment tech when placed alongside traditional credit cards.
Some consider paypal to be archaic, but it's bleeding edge payment tech when placed alongside traditional credit cards.
As someone who did millions of $ via PP as merchant, I can say the experience is great as a consumer usually but really stinks as a merchant. We had a far higher fraud rate on PP than CC and it was a high price to pay really. Especially because after enough users chargeback or dispute, even though it was very clear they were just scamming us for free product (you could very clearly see it as they did not even tried to hide it; they knew PP would side with them), they would not go in discussion but just block our funds for 30-90 days. Lovely as a startup to have 400k usd blocked for 3 months...
To be fair the manner in which you were defrauded for product sounds like it can also be easily done with credit cards. That being said, I'm pretty sure PayPal can also be hit with a chargeback from credit cards, which they pass to you.
Had it happened with a credit you'd not only have your funds immediately blocked for 90 days, you also get hit with processing fees regardless of if the customer was scamming you or not.
Had it happened with a credit you'd not only have your funds immediately blocked for 90 days, you also get hit with processing fees regardless of if the customer was scamming you or not.
But the blocking of the funds, unlike with Cc, were the non chargebacked funds so our rolling cashflow. With Cc we only lose that one customer payment and that is it. PayPal blocks the entire account. That is very different.
Regular cc merchant accounts will do the same if they believe their risk threshold has been met and this will vary depending on your merchant bank. But I do think that PayPal's threshold is much lower than most due to the higher level of fraud and the fact that no human being seems to work in their customer service and risk management departments. It's all bots, all the way down.
Years ago I used PayPal to pay for an on demand server that was advertised to be ready within an hour. Twenty four hours and zero servers later, I had already gone to a competitor and asked for a refund. The company refused and PayPal sided with them. American Express sided with me. I closed my PayPal account forever that day.
Now we have even better tools available for subscriptions. Check out privacy card.
Now we have even better tools available for subscriptions. Check out privacy card.
The privacy card privacy policy isn't very comforting. I assume its partially boilerplate but it did keep me from signing up a while ago
In my experience with credit cards they almost always side with the customer for small charges, and for extremely large charges (and if you're a big enough company) they side with the merchant. I had case where free credits were offered for a cloud provider, but they decided to bill me anyways. Chase decided to validate the charges, and it was clear through multiple calls each agent was making things up about why it was validated (They would give different reasons anytime, from how I worded "free credits"). In the end the cloud provider admitted to the mistake and ended up siding with me, despite chase siding against me (they're supposed to be on the consumer's behalf). So I think in your case Amex probably didn't even consider or evaluate the terms of the sale—they just refunded you because it was within some parameters. This of course can work for or against you depending on the situation.
You are probably right. It was a small amount. I would be surprised if the charge back approval wasn't completely automated. But at least they side with the consumer some of the time. PayPal was just straight up "nope, we don't care that they didn't deliver the product at all".
The OP’s conplaint is actually that paypal sides with the consumer too much, enabling fraud. If I wanted it’s fairly easy to do since paypal pretty much refunds on request if you show you return something, and by something it literally means anything, including an empty box.
The disputes system is horribly inefficient. Reqarding fraudsters is worse than simply losing the money to mitigation efforts, as reqarding them incentivizes them too!
Right now payment processors are fairly detached from the negative repercussions, so they basically encourage customers to do chargebacks or disputes.
The disputes system is horribly inefficient. Reqarding fraudsters is worse than simply losing the money to mitigation efforts, as reqarding them incentivizes them too!
Right now payment processors are fairly detached from the negative repercussions, so they basically encourage customers to do chargebacks or disputes.
I've recently paid for a VPN subscription using BitCoin. When you do BitCoin there is no auto renewal and I consider it to be a good thing.
EDIT: s/now/no
EDIT: s/now/no
It's a pita for the service provider who is implementing the subscription logic, but as the customer it's pretty sweet.
Isn't the logic the same as a gift subscription? Just at the payment stage you send them to BitPay instead of Paypal?
The main difference is customers will send the BTC a few minutes too late, and then it turns into this situation where it has to be refunded. This used to be an extra step when using Stripe for BTC payments (they have since stopped supporting BTC payments completely)
Which provider?
It was PIA - PrivateInternetAccess. I first tried ExpressVPN and for privacy I'd recommend ExpressVPN because they located in a place with no data retention laws. However PIA has port forwarding support and that is crucial for my case.
Both support payment via Bitpay. ExpressVPN returned the money no problem after I've discovered that they don't do port forwarding.
Both support payment via Bitpay. ExpressVPN returned the money no problem after I've discovered that they don't do port forwarding.
I'm using IPredator. They give you a dynamic IPv4+v6 address and you can pay with Bitcoin.
I'm sure there are many more, but Mullvad is one VPN provider accepting bitcoin payments (as well as cash).
Mullvad has been great. Very easy to setup and they do not take any of your personal details. Instead of a user/email and password, you get a random account number that is used to track your payments and authenticate you.
This reminds me of a service I signed up for once years ago, can't even remember what it was, but I had no idea how to cancel it and it was direct to my card instead of PayPal.
What ended up happening was I went to the "Edit payment info" page and just entered my card number as 4242 4242 4242 4242, which is a Visa testing card number.
It authorized it as valid and I never dealt with the company again.
What ended up happening was I went to the "Edit payment info" page and just entered my card number as 4242 4242 4242 4242, which is a Visa testing card number.
It authorized it as valid and I never dealt with the company again.
You realize this can constitute fraud, right?
Can you explain that, surely fraud requires you to gain something by deception; stopping paying for a service you are no longer using is neither acquisition nor deception.
Agree. I wasn't using the product and nobody's identity was being stolen. If a court ruled it as fraud (nobody has tried suing me yet) I would be surprised. The business is at fault for using dark patterns to try and social engineer away my money.
By the way, your karma just reached 12345 so that means you've achieved HN Gold status. Congrats! Now never post again and stop receiving votes so it can stay that way.
By the way, your karma just reached 12345 so that means you've achieved HN Gold status. Congrats! Now never post again and stop receiving votes so it can stay that way.
number of people that will go to jail for doing this: 0
the only fraud here is your advice
the only fraud here is your advice
This is the same reason I pay bills via my bank bill pay rather than giving EFT access to the folks who send me bills. One point of control, and the bank is invented to help me with payment issues rather than throw up roadblocks.
Yeah, it's not all peachy there either. I made the same assumption till I went to the bank to "block" a service-provider that kept insisting on billing me. They "blocked" the service-provider from charging me for 3 months, then they were apparently obligated to let it through because they could only do it for 3 months. At which point, the service-provider just back-charged me for those three months and continued anyways.
I mean I actually have the bank send checks. Is that how you had that set up?
Do you not need to worry about the mail getting lost?
No, mail service is pretty good.
That's what I thought too, but then I got Informed Delivery and saw some envelopes never arrive...
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Yeah this is why I'm quick to use paypal. If I can't cancel it online I'm just going to deauthorize that shit.
That's all kinds of stupid. You might retain some cash in the meantime and feel better about "sticking it to the man," but the reality is you entered into an agreement and from both legal and corporate perspectives, you're defaulting and committing fraud. Is it right? No, not at all. Do I hate that it works this way? Absolutely. But sticking your head in the sand and pretending everything is fine is a great way to get screwed. Enjoy it while it lasts; it's only a matter of time before you defraud the wrong corporation who will bend you over a barrel and show you the 50 states. I've worked in my fair share of customer service and customer loyalty departments before and I've talked to enough people who had no idea their debt had been sold to a collections agency to even pretend that your approach is the right approach.
If a company wants to face the worst Streisand effect they've ever experienced they can go ahead and try to put me over a barrel because their shitty sales tactics make it incredibly difficult to cancel their service.
It should be illegal.
It should be illegal.
This happened to me too with NYT. 20 minutes on the phone with some poor woman whose compensation I'm sure depended in part on convincing me not to cancel.
I was really surprised because they generally have a good reputation as an organization. I'll never let them get their hands on my payment details again.
I was really surprised because they generally have a good reputation as an organization. I'll never let them get their hands on my payment details again.
When I cancelled NYTimes last year, I gave an explanation of my reason for doing so. Once the hard sell came, I simply repeated "cancel" every 5 seconds until she gave up. It saved us both a lot of time, but I still probably had to say it 6 or more times before she gave up.
Thanks for sharing, I will avoid them for sure. I periodically get tempted.
I found canceling MIT tech and the Atlantic to be painless btw
I found canceling MIT tech and the Atlantic to be painless btw
There should be a way to cancel this sort of thing with your bank. On a recurring basis.
I suppose you could use something like Privacy.com and just revoke the card.
Thats a good way to get 100 calls from a collection agency.
I’ve had that happen to me once in all the years I’ve been doing this sort of thing. A BBB complaint sorted that out pretty quickly.
What are the consequences of a BBB complaint? AFAIK it’s just like an older Yelp with a more confusing reputation.
Any advice on the BBB complaint? I’ve never considered it before now.
The BBB is an absolute joke; you buy your ratings. As someone who's had direct contact with the BBB in a corporate context, I can say with absolute honesty and surety that the ONLY criteria that decides a corporation's BBB score is whether or not they paid the annual BBB administration fee. Ask around, talk to your friends who have had direct access- they'll confirm what I'm saying 100%. Filing a complaint with the BBB does precisely dick and angrily saying "well, I guess I'll go file a complaint with the BBB as soon as I'm off the phone with you" when on the phone trying to cancel a service serves only to make the rep you're talking to mute their microphone so they can laugh out loud at you. You think the rep you're talking to gives a flying lawnmower about your little BBB complaint? If you do, I own a bridge in California that I'd love to sell you.
Stopping payment is not the same as canceling a contract. You are basically acting on the premise that it's not worth going after you. That might even be true in all cases, but it's still disingenuous and probably unlawful.
Unless the contract bound you to a specific term, I don’t think they will attempt to send you to collections. What do you owe if you haven’t contractually agreed to a subscription term?
If you agree to pay someone $X every month, then unless you tell them you don't want the service any more, you are still liable for the payment.
Not if they don’t give you a way to contact them.
Except they do give you a way to contact them. They ALWAYS give you a way to contact them. The fact that you can't follow their cancelation process all the way through is on you, not them, and that's exactly how the courts treat it after your account becomes delinquent and is sent to collections.
Hmm, legally you phone, verify your identity and say you're cancelling. Sure, they want to speak for 20 minutes to wear you down to say you'll accept a deal or try a couple more months ... but you're surely not obligated to listen. Once you've id-ed yourself and said "I'm cancelling" then you're done. Hang up. Sue them if they charge you again.
Companies rely on us feeling the pressure of social conformity.
Indeed legally I expect you can cancel by any reasonable means?
Companies rely on us feeling the pressure of social conformity.
Indeed legally I expect you can cancel by any reasonable means?
I just tried one place. They didn’t want to “verify” me as they had an old or different address on file for me. Tried to play cute with my name too. I recorded the interaction though.
They usually do, it's just that most people don't think of sending physical mail, nor do they consider it a reasonable way of dealing with such things (and they're right).
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They could do something sneaky and keep your account access valid for a year even though they couldn't charge your card. Then just send you off to collections.
If they try to ask me any questions about cancellation I just say "that's none of your business." It almost always gets the questioning to stop.
Happened to me too. Guy actually laughed at me when I refused a six-months-for-free-if-you-stay option. In that instant I committed to never giving the NYT another dime of my money.
Another one is the ACLU. Easy to start, damn near impossible to stop without just canceling your card. All I wanted to do is change to a different card, but they ignore me. Great way to ruin your reputation.
Another one is the ACLU. Easy to start, damn near impossible to stop without just canceling your card. All I wanted to do is change to a different card, but they ignore me. Great way to ruin your reputation.
I made a one-time donation to the ACLU, and they subsequently spent it all on mailing me crap asking for more.
If you'd like to donate to the ACLU in a way that lets you easily change/cancel your donations, I recommend using Sublime Fund (https://sublimefund.org/). Disclaimer that I am a founder. We deduct the cost of credit card processing, but we don't charge any sort of platform fee.
Donating should be easy, but canceling should be just as easy. You can do it through our website anytime without speaking to anyone.
Donating should be easy, but canceling should be just as easy. You can do it through our website anytime without speaking to anyone.
I would never even consider donating to an organization if I have to think about using a service like yours, I only donate to organizations that I like and are trustworthy, but thanks anyways
Lmao my NYT guy actually switched into a stereotypical Chinese accent when I didn't catch sth he said and asked him could he repeat (my surname is Chinese)
Mimicking an accent can help understandability, fwiw.
Might not apply here, but it's possible they were just attempting to be understood.
Might not apply here, but it's possible they were just attempting to be understood.
There's no way to save this one. I would be annoyed if someone used a stereotypical southern accent after finding out I'm from Georgia. They wouldn't get any of my money.
I've changed my ACLU monthly donation amount and credit card many times without any issues, it's a pretty simple online form.
How do you determine how easy it is to leave before you actually need to do it? Before even signing up?
This tool is highly useful: https://backgroundchecks.org/justdeleteme/
It ranks hundreds of websites from "easy" to "impossible".
It ranks hundreds of websites from "easy" to "impossible".
Looks like that is more about closing/deleting the entire account than cancelling a subscription. I'm more interested in cancelling my subscription than to delete my profile. Still a nice website, just not really something I'd find that useful. Thanks for sharing
Interestingly enough, HN is listed as "impossible".
Because it is. How would delete account work in a threaded forum? Delete all your posts?
Give you three options:
1. delete all your posts the same way they would be deleted if you went to them and pressed the delete button.
2. Anonymize them (replace user name with "deleted user <randomnumber>").
3. Keep storing the username
After that, delete all other data (profile, settings, e-mail, password hash, ...)
1. delete all your posts the same way they would be deleted if you went to them and pressed the delete button.
2. Anonymize them (replace user name with "deleted user <randomnumber>").
3. Keep storing the username
After that, delete all other data (profile, settings, e-mail, password hash, ...)
Yes.
Could gdpr endanger sites like this? Actually curious
Reading about the experiences of others. Or asking around.
It's sad that that's the only way at this point. Maybe sites will start bragging about how easy it is to leave if it becomes taboo enough to make it hard to leave (akin to "100% money back guarantee if you don't like it!"). Until then, someone's gotta be the first to try the poison.
100% money back guarantee is also something that's usually gated behind a sufficiently annoying process that few people take advantage of it.
Personally, I would just assume they're all like that, to varying degrees. Everyone optimizes the "on-boarding" process that they completely neglect how to let customers get out.
Not true. I cancelled Netflix last month, no problem.
I do a search for canceling that business, before I sign up. If I see a bunch of horror stories, then it's time to walk away.
Here at HN.
Fascinating. This retention tactic is usually pitched as a successful last-ditch attempt to retain subscription customers, but it comes at a hidden cost to the brand - and losing repeat buyers like yourself.
Comcast, Blue Apron, credit cards, etc. do it but I didn't think publishers were getting to this point.
Comcast, Blue Apron, credit cards, etc. do it but I didn't think publishers were getting to this point.
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In France, on of the biggest journals, Le Monde, is also a hassle to unsubscribe. Subscribing is very easy, just enter credit card online. But for unsubscribing, you have to send a registered letter with recorded delivery. This is a hassle, you have to go to the post station, and is also pretty expensive (around 5-10 euros), which is almost the price for 1 month subscription to the journal. I find this unbelievable that you can't unsubscribe online (even for the online edition).
Many legal systems recognize a fax (with delivery receipt) as equivalent to a letter with recorded delivery.
Setting up something that lets you send those is a hassle the first time, but after that, sending a fax is about as easy as sending an e-mail.
Setting up something that lets you send those is a hassle the first time, but after that, sending a fax is about as easy as sending an e-mail.
I just canceled my NYT subscription based on this comment. I was able to do so by logging into my account, following the "Cancel" link, then choosing the online chat option. It wasn't as easy as an automatic cancellation, but it wasn't terrible. Here's the transcript:
Isaiah: Hello Jay and thank you for contacting The New York Times! My name is Isaiah and I will be able to make any changes to your account today! One moment while I pull up your account.
Isaiah: I have located your digital account and I would like to personally thank you for being a Basic digital subscriber with the account number (XXXXXXXX)
Isaiah: If you don't mind me asking, what led you to cancel? I would love to gain your insight and see if there are any potential issues that I may resolve for you.
Jay: Please cancel my subscription.
Isaiah: May I ask why you wish to cancel?
Jay: I decline to answer that. Please cancel my subscription.
Isaiah: please note that leaving will put you back at 5 free articles per month and you will no longer have unlimited access to our content. Any saved Cooking recipes will stay saved but you will not be able to view them until you subscribe again.
Jay: I understand. Please cancel my subscription.
Isaiah: I understand your concerns. Because your readership is important to us, I'd like to extend a special offer for $2 per week for 1 year.
Jay: No thank you. Please cancel my subscription.
Isaiah: You will continue to enjoy all your subscription benefits for the rest of your billing cycle, which ends on February 07, 2019. Unfortunately we cannot issue any credits or refunds for the remainder of this billing cycle.
Isaiah: Hello Jay and thank you for contacting The New York Times! My name is Isaiah and I will be able to make any changes to your account today! One moment while I pull up your account.
Isaiah: I have located your digital account and I would like to personally thank you for being a Basic digital subscriber with the account number (XXXXXXXX)
Isaiah: If you don't mind me asking, what led you to cancel? I would love to gain your insight and see if there are any potential issues that I may resolve for you.
Jay: Please cancel my subscription.
Isaiah: May I ask why you wish to cancel?
Jay: I decline to answer that. Please cancel my subscription.
Isaiah: please note that leaving will put you back at 5 free articles per month and you will no longer have unlimited access to our content. Any saved Cooking recipes will stay saved but you will not be able to view them until you subscribe again.
Jay: I understand. Please cancel my subscription.
Isaiah: I understand your concerns. Because your readership is important to us, I'd like to extend a special offer for $2 per week for 1 year.
Jay: No thank you. Please cancel my subscription.
Isaiah: You will continue to enjoy all your subscription benefits for the rest of your billing cycle, which ends on February 07, 2019. Unfortunately we cannot issue any credits or refunds for the remainder of this billing cycle.
You're saying it's not terrible, but you had to state "Please cancel my subscription" four times and respond to their questions/suggestions, all of this after you already expressed that you want to cancel just to get there.
What happens when you try to cancel outside business hours? Do they have 24/7 support, do they just let you cancel, or do they tell you to try again the next day?
What happens when you try to cancel outside business hours? Do they have 24/7 support, do they just let you cancel, or do they tell you to try again the next day?
You're right, and I had "please cancel my subscription" on my clipboard to save some typing expecting I'd have to write it more than once. But the whole thing took less than 5 minutes. So yes it should be easier but it wasn't as difficult as say canceling cable service.
I don't know about canceling outside business hours.
I don't know about canceling outside business hours.
It seems to be a dark pattern in the news/media industry. Even the otherwise enlightened Economist makes you CALL in order to cancel/change your subscription.
Going from a quick, precise and inexpensive communications channel to a slow, synchronous, error-prone and costly one is something that really annoys me.
Going from a quick, precise and inexpensive communications channel to a slow, synchronous, error-prone and costly one is something that really annoys me.
I just sent them an email in order to cancel but maybe that’s different in the EU.
No, I had to phone.
There was one instance of a subscription that seemed impossible to cancel. I spent enough effort trying. I called the credit card company and explained the steps I had taken and told them I want any future charges to be considered fraudulent. That company got the hint really quickly.
On the flip side I subscribed to cigar afficiando for a year decade ago. Every year I get a renewal notice, every year I get new issues. I definitely have not paid for it since the first year. I don't know if it is to keep subscription stats up or they make enough on the ad revenue. But I'll receive multiple notices each year to renew and they just keep coming for free.
On the flip side I subscribed to cigar afficiando for a year decade ago. Every year I get a renewal notice, every year I get new issues. I definitely have not paid for it since the first year. I don't know if it is to keep subscription stats up or they make enough on the ad revenue. But I'll receive multiple notices each year to renew and they just keep coming for free.
If it’s harder to leave than to join, then it’s also illegal in the EU.
You have to be able to cancel through the same medium through which you can subscribe (so if you can subscribe through email, then unsubscribing only through snail mailing a letter is illegal), and it can’t be an unreasonable effort.
I’m very interested what the consumer protection agencies in the EU have to say about this.
You have to be able to cancel through the same medium through which you can subscribe (so if you can subscribe through email, then unsubscribing only through snail mailing a letter is illegal), and it can’t be an unreasonable effort.
I’m very interested what the consumer protection agencies in the EU have to say about this.
As of July 1, 2018, California also has a law requiring that services you've subscribed to online allow you to cancel online (from SB-313). This should apply to any US company doing business with a California resident.
I've heard that for the Wall St Journal only members with California mailing addresses get access to the online form, everyone else has to call. So the way to get around calling is using privacy.com with a California mailing address.
This is definitely not the case in Germany, unless there has been a very recent change in legislation. There are lots of scummy companies in Germany that make you fax/email copies of official ID to unsubscribe, even if joining was possible with a click of a button.
Since October 2016 this practice is explicitly outlawed (for most cases) https://www.bmjv.de/SharedDocs/Artikel/DE/2015/12182015_Verb...
Although the way you describe it probably wasn't legal for a long time.
Although the way you describe it probably wasn't legal for a long time.
They simply violate the law and don't care about it, it's that simple.
It wouldn't be the first time they did that.
I've been waiting since November to try and switch ISPs cause Unitymedia is as reliable as RFC 1149.
It wouldn't be the first time they did that.
I've been waiting since November to try and switch ISPs cause Unitymedia is as reliable as RFC 1149.
> reliable as RFC 1149
Don't tell me... As reliable as Twitter? It's got birds :-D
Don't tell me... As reliable as Twitter? It's got birds :-D
I'd say that this is more common than not. Fax/mail is the standard among the telecoms.
That said, I'm trying really hard to buy internet from Deutsche Telekom right now without much success, so it might just be that they're really struggling to make anything work at all, and they prioritize selling. I don't know how Germany got here. It's just absolutely insane at this point.
That said, I'm trying really hard to buy internet from Deutsche Telekom right now without much success, so it might just be that they're really struggling to make anything work at all, and they prioritize selling. I don't know how Germany got here. It's just absolutely insane at this point.
Could you point to the actual regulation? I have not heard about this yet.
If I have to call to cancel I usually just make a fraud complaint. It causes more pain to the company in exchange for hassling me this way. I will also never ever EVER use you again if you do this, and I will provide a terrible review of your product to anyone who asks.
Pretty much any kind of slimy "roach motel" sales or customer retention tactic get your company instantly placed in the bottom circle of hell in my mind.
Pretty much any kind of slimy "roach motel" sales or customer retention tactic get your company instantly placed in the bottom circle of hell in my mind.
They deserve it, but, does the law have your back on this, or are you accepting some risk of being charged with false accusation?
privacy.com is probably what you want.
You're making it a pain in the butt to cancel? That card is no longer valid.
You're making it a pain in the butt to cancel? That card is no longer valid.
Remember that this is not cancelling, and some companies can and will sell your bad debt to collection agencies.
You don't get out of contracts just by ghosting on them.
You don't get out of contracts just by ghosting on them.
What PayPal should do is offer a “PayPal subscriptions” product where the terms require cancellability through PayPal. So NYt and others can’t offer PayPal unless they agree, and when a user cancels through PayPal, PP agrees to send an API call to NYT notifying them.
Paypal has recurring payments and I thought it was exactly this. Never tried to cancel via Paypal, so I am not sure how this works.
That’s not entirely true; it seems to depend how much effort you put into informing them that you want to cancel. If they make it too difficult, then they’re creating all sorts of legal issues. They’d have to be pretty ballsy to sell it to a debt collector at that point—it does happen, but it’s pretty rare, and I’ve never heard of anyone actually being forced to pay in the end. That BS just isn’t going to hold up in a courtroom.
Can you expand further on this?
Say you sign up for a gym. The agreement is for $50/month with a year commitment. You give them a credit card to pay.
6 months in, you cancel your credit card (or it expires or whatever).
The fact that they can't bill you doesn't change that you agreed to the plan and that you owe the second 6 months anyway. That's a debt and the gym can (and some do!) choose to go after you for it in whatever legal way they feel. That's collection agencies, and direct lawsuits.
An open ended agreement ($10/month for a newspaper) often will have this same style - you agree to pay $10/month for access, they give you access. Valid until cancelled. If you simply ghost - is that cancellation? Probably not, and it's up to the contract. Of course, most consumer things just drop it and shrug, but that is not a given.
6 months in, you cancel your credit card (or it expires or whatever).
The fact that they can't bill you doesn't change that you agreed to the plan and that you owe the second 6 months anyway. That's a debt and the gym can (and some do!) choose to go after you for it in whatever legal way they feel. That's collection agencies, and direct lawsuits.
An open ended agreement ($10/month for a newspaper) often will have this same style - you agree to pay $10/month for access, they give you access. Valid until cancelled. If you simply ghost - is that cancellation? Probably not, and it's up to the contract. Of course, most consumer things just drop it and shrug, but that is not a given.
Well explained. Privacy.com gives the illusion of control in this regard (and I love the service) but to enable full user control like this you have to be untraceable after ghosting, which means signing up with a "fake" (I prefer "per-use") identity.
--amend yes it's (close to) fraud so be careful. Lots of things were illegal before they weren't; union strikes come to mind.
--amend yes it's (close to) fraud so be careful. Lots of things were illegal before they weren't; union strikes come to mind.
That is fraud. Do not use fake identities to buy things so you can then get out of contracts by not paying.
This is true, but only in regards to actual commitments like a yearly gym membership. If your intent is to mitigate dark patterns that frustrate the cancellation of a pay-as-you-go relationship, it's better described as shielding yourself from fraud and extortion.
Still, everybody should routinely use nyms when interacting with parties that needlessly ask for them - if for nothing else than to hinder the surveillance society.
Still, everybody should routinely use nyms when interacting with parties that needlessly ask for them - if for nothing else than to hinder the surveillance society.
[deleted]
Signing a contract under a false identity sounds legally very questionable
Contracts can be yearly, with or without your will, with the possibility to cancel or not. That could become debt if not paid but not necessarily, there are consumer protection laws against abusive subscriptions, but maybe not in the US.
Services that care about cancellation and charge backs always charge the full duration upfront at the reduced price. Not month to month.
The gym, the newspapers or tinder will charge you ahead for the next month. If they can't charge you, they terminate your access and it ends the contract. You stop paying and you stop being able to use the service.
Services that care about cancellation and charge backs always charge the full duration upfront at the reduced price. Not month to month.
The gym, the newspapers or tinder will charge you ahead for the next month. If they can't charge you, they terminate your access and it ends the contract. You stop paying and you stop being able to use the service.
> The gym, the newspapers or tinder will charge you ahead for the next month. If they can't charge you, they terminate your access and it ends the contract. You stop paying and you stop being able to use the service
Maybe it's different in the UK but many people have got caught out assuming this is the case for gyms.
If you sign a contract saying you will pay £X each month until you cancel then just stop paying, you still owe the money.
Maybe it's different in the UK but many people have got caught out assuming this is the case for gyms.
If you sign a contract saying you will pay £X each month until you cancel then just stop paying, you still owe the money.
What if the service agreement is simply per month, and not a contract? Then privacy.com regular use is fine, no?
As in, suppose a service advertises it open endedly as you stated, but I only needed 3 months of the service, then forgot about it or was traveling, is that considered illegal?
As in, suppose a service advertises it open endedly as you stated, but I only needed 3 months of the service, then forgot about it or was traveling, is that considered illegal?
If you have a contract for a service, quite often simply stopping paying does not end the contract - it just builds up charges and past-due fees. If you stop paying your electricity bill, the utility doesn't cut you off immediately - they keep providing service (availability of electricity, even if you're not using any because you flipped the circuit breakers) and charges keep accruing.
Eventually services will be cut off, but contractually you're likely responsible for charges up to that point and the companies involved may end up selling that debt to collection agencies (often for pennies on the dollar).
Eventually services will be cut off, but contractually you're likely responsible for charges up to that point and the companies involved may end up selling that debt to collection agencies (often for pennies on the dollar).
That's not entirely comparable.
For utilities, you always pay much later after it was consumed. At least a whole month usually. It's a fundamental constraint with distributing water and electricity. You're always in debt with the utility provider.
For a newspapers subscription, you always pay in advance. They can cut it anytime. There is no reason for them to give you access if you didn't pay.
For utilities, you always pay much later after it was consumed. At least a whole month usually. It's a fundamental constraint with distributing water and electricity. You're always in debt with the utility provider.
For a newspapers subscription, you always pay in advance. They can cut it anytime. There is no reason for them to give you access if you didn't pay.
In the UK the utilities take money to meet an estimated bill; meaning most people are usually creditors to the utility. If a customer doesn't rein it in then the utility will often take stupid amounts to meet an anticipated bill.
I think they were threatened with regulation and so stopped being so blatant, but they make money off holding customer's cash.
I think they were threatened with regulation and so stopped being so blatant, but they make money off holding customer's cash.
The projection is roughly the monthly consumption from last year if I am not not mistaking. You should change provider if you're being charged stupid amounts.
The provider certainly allows debt when moving in, while the contracts and payments are setup. Afterwards, I am not sure if the last bill if for the next or past period, probably a bit of both.
The provider certainly allows debt when moving in, while the contracts and payments are setup. Afterwards, I am not sure if the last bill if for the next or past period, probably a bit of both.
Bad debt lists are sold for pennies on the dollar to collection agencies, who can and do make a profit on then collecting a percentage of it.
Planet Money had a good podcast episode on it: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/08/354591198/epis...
Planet Money had a good podcast episode on it: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/08/354591198/epis...
Not to mention trashing your credit in the process.
This is no joke. If you get tired of dealing with an annoying Comcast "customer retention specialist"[1] and simply stop paying and stop using their service, they'll keep charging you for awhile, then sell the bill to a collections agency. This hurts your credit rating, and can have all sorts of side effects and take years to repair. It sucks, but it's how things are.
[1] https://soundcloud.com/ryan-block-10/comcastic-service
[1] https://soundcloud.com/ryan-block-10/comcastic-service
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Just because you stop paying doesn't mean you stopped the subscription. This is why there are late fees in the first place.
If you do this with any sizable company, you will just end up accumulating the original charge along with late fees until it is sent to collections and hits your credit report. Even if you get lucky and they just cancel your service, your lack of payment will still be reported to payment networks and eventually you will be deemed high risk when paying for other things.
If you do this with any sizable company, you will just end up accumulating the original charge along with late fees until it is sent to collections and hits your credit report. Even if you get lucky and they just cancel your service, your lack of payment will still be reported to payment networks and eventually you will be deemed high risk when paying for other things.
This is very bad advice. Do not just cancel your payment and expect things to be ok. You might end up with additional late fees, increased risk scores, notices on your credit report, and collection agencies.
Cancel the service properly and always have proof.
Cancel the service properly and always have proof.
Wouldn't just cancelling the card and sending them a email to their support email saying "I hereby give notice I have cancelledy subscription and further attempts to come will fail".
I doubt any court would go against the consumer in that situation. Especially if you never login or use the service again.
I doubt any court would go against the consumer in that situation. Especially if you never login or use the service again.
I don't know the legal details but court is a far off thing. Companies don't have to accept arbitrary notices and can send your account to collections for being past-due according to whatever terms you accepted for the subscription.
So how easy is it to cancel privacy.com?
I use Privacy.com but haven't had to cancel. You don't pay for the service, as they make their money in adding as a credit-card company and charging merchants fees (or something to that effect). The trade-off is that I had to give them access to my bank account, which would likely make it much more difficult to cut them off if it came to it.
It's extremely useful though, and they say all the right words when it comes to their revenue and their management of user data. The way I see it: they're basically a credit-card company that gives you much finer control of your online payments; they could probably screw me over, but so could my actual credit-card company. They at least make it harder for other companies to screw me over.
It's extremely useful though, and they say all the right words when it comes to their revenue and their management of user data. The way I see it: they're basically a credit-card company that gives you much finer control of your online payments; they could probably screw me over, but so could my actual credit-card company. They at least make it harder for other companies to screw me over.
Sounds like a good idea. Basically a concierge credit card service that can negotiate canceling a subscription for you. That's actually the best thing that can happen for these cancel my contract type companies.. You pay a flat fee say $10 and then do the hassle of canceling for you or something. Or you build it in as a perk. The mass aggregation factor gives you some money to get the whole process streamlined for your customers.
Their support pages didn't seem to have any information on how to cancel. I emailed their support and requested to have my account deleted and got a polite reply from a human the next morning saying that they had done so.
Good to know, thanks!
How is this working? Don't they send the unpaid part to collections?
Only for certain things. My experience is anything primarily offline, they collect: gyms, ISPs, gas companies, etc.
Anything primarily online? They don't. Netflix, hulu, most credit card subscriptions that are VC funded (I've done with with countless SAAS providers), etc. I've ghosted them with no repercussions on my credit score or collections calls.
Edit: I also use paypal and click the remove merchant authorization button from there; that might also trigger some kind of forced cancellation?
Anything primarily online? They don't. Netflix, hulu, most credit card subscriptions that are VC funded (I've done with with countless SAAS providers), etc. I've ghosted them with no repercussions on my credit score or collections calls.
Edit: I also use paypal and click the remove merchant authorization button from there; that might also trigger some kind of forced cancellation?
Mastercard is getting into the cancel subscriptions game too.
NYT is a great example for mindless optimization of short-term metrics. Canceling my subscription during the 2016 presidential race was such a humiluating experience that I would never again subscribe even though I miss reading the NYT. They lost me forever.
Amen. Same problem with Blue Apron and every other meal kit delivery startup.
They make you subscribe (vs purchasing just a single meal), which is very annoying and the reason I don't use them, but I've found them very easy to cancel. You just click a button online. And even better, they then send you a $60 coupon to rejoin a month later.
Sure, it's not like you have to call them, but all the ones I've tried have employed anti-patterns for cancelling meals and worse ones for cancelling subscriptions.
I tried to cancel SoFi Money online (after not using it because of terms I didn't like that they didn't mention til after signing up), and they told me I had to call to cancel... this after everything else on their site that I use is online-only.
I told them if I had to call, I would call my lawyer first, who would be calling them... and then they wrote back that they canceled.
So, these companies don't need to make you call, and even if it's inconvenient, difficult, or impossible to call to cancel, some won't budge. This should be illegal; if I sign up online, I should be able to cancel online. Making these artificial steps hampers business, my work time, my personal time... sitting on a phone waiting or slogging through steps or upsells is not a good way to do business and interferes with everything else.
It hasn't bothered the politicians enough, who are corporate shills anyway, so they haven't made it so companies have to be reasonable with this, like they did with CANSPAM.
I told them if I had to call, I would call my lawyer first, who would be calling them... and then they wrote back that they canceled.
So, these companies don't need to make you call, and even if it's inconvenient, difficult, or impossible to call to cancel, some won't budge. This should be illegal; if I sign up online, I should be able to cancel online. Making these artificial steps hampers business, my work time, my personal time... sitting on a phone waiting or slogging through steps or upsells is not a good way to do business and interferes with everything else.
It hasn't bothered the politicians enough, who are corporate shills anyway, so they haven't made it so companies have to be reasonable with this, like they did with CANSPAM.
If you by chance see this, would you mind expanding on terms you didn't agree with, either here or privately(email in profile)? It sounds like a sweet deal, and I'm considering moving ahead with them.
You can sometimes find a merchant’s direct line for billing in common personal banking sites. There is usually a toll free number you can call concerning on going payments like subscriptions next to a transaction. They got to cooperate or they could run afoul of the bank so I have found the numbers useful.
On that note, I was really impressed with how easy it was to end an xmradio trial subscription just recently. I had gone over a few days into their regular monthly service. I was anticipating something unpleasant, but it was very easy to cancel, and they refunded the new month pro-rata without prompting.
Yup, I'm making a note of this, and will never sign up for a DropBox Pro account now.
How likely were you to sign up beforehand?
it's a good point. I wasn't in the market for that type of service anyways. But, if I was at any time in the future, I'd look at other competitors.
I've cancelled by NYTimes subscription just a few months ago. Didn't have to do any phone calls-- just answered a few questions in the chat, right there on their website.
They "generously" let you use an IM chat now, yes. But there's no excuse for it not being a simple button. The only reason is so they can raise the effort barrier just a bit more.
Had a similar experience when I left my previous ISP. I didn’t even have a choice to keep the service as I was moving. Upgrading the service was an easy click, but cancelling consisted of reading through their help pages to find a number to call, which of course was only open a few hours per week. It explicitly said that this was the only way to cancel.
Instead I simply sent them an email insisting that I wanted to cancel, and that I refused to talk to them on the phone to do it. They replied with a “great offer” to reduce the price. In my reply I simply insisted on cancelling. I didn’t hear from them again, except for a confirmation by post a while later that the service had been cancelled.
Of course, this is much more effort than it should be, especially an emotional effort because being treated like this is very upsetting. But it might be worth trying.
Instead I simply sent them an email insisting that I wanted to cancel, and that I refused to talk to them on the phone to do it. They replied with a “great offer” to reduce the price. In my reply I simply insisted on cancelling. I didn’t hear from them again, except for a confirmation by post a while later that the service had been cancelled.
Of course, this is much more effort than it should be, especially an emotional effort because being treated like this is very upsetting. But it might be worth trying.
> just answered a few questions in the chat
there is no "just" about that...
there is no "just" about that...
They wouldn't let me cancel until I answered the question "how are you doing today?" I said "I want to cancel" but they just repeated the question until I finally said "fine" and then the conversation could proceed. Fun times.
I'm feeling like I just want to cancel?
For this reason I only subscribe via AppStore subscriptions or PayPal whenever possible (and unless I have no choice I won’t subscribe otherwise).
I recently canceled NYT by email in one round.
Perhaps if they know they can retain you by being awkward then they'll try; if they know you won't succumb then they're better saving their "breath".
The daily Washington Post crosswords are a nice free alternative.
I wanted to subscribed to Mediapart, one of the very very few independent news site in France. Everything is online (subscription, article) but the unsubscription with requires register mail! That's crazy, they are financed only by subscriptions (paywall, no ads) and not backed by any major media group/tycoon/the state, but they still rely on this dishonest practice. I read that you can unsubscribe by email, but if it's not written in the terms and conditions I'm not going to trust them on that. What a pity.
For services like that it might be easier just to get a new credit card ;-)
Be careful with this. I had a monthly charge from several vendors. Despite phone calls, letters, etc. cancelling the service, they would keep charging. So, I said, 'screw it' and got a new card.
The next month -- on my new card -- the charges appeared.
Turns out that Visa will honor a recurring charge even if the old card number has been cancelled. Insane. You will need to move to an entirely different type of card. Don't know if this is true for the others (Amex, discover, etc) but I was shocked that this was Visa's policy.
The next month -- on my new card -- the charges appeared.
Turns out that Visa will honor a recurring charge even if the old card number has been cancelled. Insane. You will need to move to an entirely different type of card. Don't know if this is true for the others (Amex, discover, etc) but I was shocked that this was Visa's policy.
The account number update feature can be turned off for accounts at the credit card company I work for. It must be done before the account is cancelled, though, and the setting itself is not widely known by front-line reps.
What are credit card deets?
Deets is just a shorthand for details.
Oh I assumed it was some new temporary credit card thing!
How do you know how difficult it will be to leave before you sign up?
Exactly the way I feel. I'm willing to lose big just to make this point to every company I deal with, nowadays. 'Too many Mutha'uckas...'
pbs did this to me (wgbh). Pissed me off.
I don’t get why NY Times gets so much grief. They are fast and friendly on the phone and usually offer to halve the bill if it’s a price thing.
Dropbox is annoying to me because I have a service that I’m overpaying for, lack basic features like search, up sell with every interaction, and make leaving tough too.
Dropbox is annoying to me because I have a service that I’m overpaying for, lack basic features like search, up sell with every interaction, and make leaving tough too.
> on the phone
This should be an option, not the only way to cancel.
This should be an option, not the only way to cancel.
Why? I’m surprised at the downvotes I got on my original comment.
The Dropbox online cancellation, like many others, is a deceptive, tricky option designed to make you think that you cancelled when you did not to rip you off. Dropbox isn’t unusual.
Why is a phone call so evil? It’s bizarre to me that a arguably marginal inconvenience is more noxious than active trickery.
The Dropbox online cancellation, like many others, is a deceptive, tricky option designed to make you think that you cancelled when you did not to rip you off. Dropbox isn’t unusual.
Why is a phone call so evil? It’s bizarre to me that a arguably marginal inconvenience is more noxious than active trickery.
Can you imagine a business that insisted on a phone call to begin a subscription? Like, say the NYT website had just a phone number instead of a link and a form.
That would severely reduce their circulation.
The whole reason the signup flow is done entirely online is because its simpler and more convenient for both the subscriber and the provider.
Which tells you why they don't offer the cancel flow through the same medium. Because it's too easy. They want to add friction and inconvenience to the cancellation.
It's not as bad as many gyms ("you must (snail) mail a form to our headquarters to cancel"), but it's a step in that direction.
That would severely reduce their circulation.
The whole reason the signup flow is done entirely online is because its simpler and more convenient for both the subscriber and the provider.
Which tells you why they don't offer the cancel flow through the same medium. Because it's too easy. They want to add friction and inconvenience to the cancellation.
It's not as bad as many gyms ("you must (snail) mail a form to our headquarters to cancel"), but it's a step in that direction.
> Can you imagine a business that insisted on a phone call to begin a subscription?
Very clean way to illustrate the ridiculousness.
Very clean way to illustrate the ridiculousness.
I want to cancel my subscription. I don't want to explain why to a pleading sales rep telling me about all the great things I'm going to miss while they "pull up my account".
Well, at least in California, it is outright illegal (from SB-313).
Retain with pain..
The other day I tried to delete my udacity account. No button in settings, I mailed support, they asked my to mail legal (apparently they don't fwd mail..). From legal I received the following response:
Hello,
We are in receipt of your request to delete your account. We are sorry you want to leave the Udacity family; you will be missed.
Before we can proceed with fully processing your request, we need to verify your information. We take these steps to minimize risk to the security of your information and of fraudulent information and removal requests. Specifically, we ask that you provide the following pieces of information:
- Username and email address associated with your Udacity User Account (if different from the one you provided in your initial request);
- Online Courses currently or previously enrolled in;
- Approximate date of User Account registration;
- Country of residence; and
- A statement under penalty of perjury that all information in your request is truthful and that this is your User Account or that you have the authorization to make the request on behalf of the owner of the User Account.
If, after you have provided the above information, we are unable to verify your identity and/or authority to issue the request, we may reach out to you for further verification information.
As a reminder, any deletion actions we take in response to your request are not reversible and may result in Udacity (or you) being unable to retrieve information about your account, enrollment, and records of completion. Please also keep in mind that all removals of such information are subject to requirements to maintain certain data in our archives for legal or legitimate business purposes.
If you have any questions about this request please see our Privacy Policy or let us know.
Thanks for your understanding.
Udacity Legal Team
The other day I tried to delete my udacity account. No button in settings, I mailed support, they asked my to mail legal (apparently they don't fwd mail..). From legal I received the following response:
Hello,
We are in receipt of your request to delete your account. We are sorry you want to leave the Udacity family; you will be missed.
Before we can proceed with fully processing your request, we need to verify your information. We take these steps to minimize risk to the security of your information and of fraudulent information and removal requests. Specifically, we ask that you provide the following pieces of information:
- Username and email address associated with your Udacity User Account (if different from the one you provided in your initial request);
- Online Courses currently or previously enrolled in;
- Approximate date of User Account registration;
- Country of residence; and
- A statement under penalty of perjury that all information in your request is truthful and that this is your User Account or that you have the authorization to make the request on behalf of the owner of the User Account.
If, after you have provided the above information, we are unable to verify your identity and/or authority to issue the request, we may reach out to you for further verification information.
As a reminder, any deletion actions we take in response to your request are not reversible and may result in Udacity (or you) being unable to retrieve information about your account, enrollment, and records of completion. Please also keep in mind that all removals of such information are subject to requirements to maintain certain data in our archives for legal or legitimate business purposes.
If you have any questions about this request please see our Privacy Policy or let us know.
Thanks for your understanding.
Udacity Legal Team
> A statement under penalty of perjury that all information in your request is truthful and that this is your User Account or that you have the authorization to make the request on behalf of the owner of the User Account
That strikes me as really extreme. If I had an Udacity account and someone tried to delete it, I would be annoyed, but I wouldn't seek to press criminal charges against them.
That strikes me as really extreme. If I had an Udacity account and someone tried to delete it, I would be annoyed, but I wouldn't seek to press criminal charges against them.
Their concern is probably someone deleting somebody else's account, along with all record of courses completed, etc. Is it possible to have an Udacity account if you're not actually paying them? If so, "account removed" and "unpaid account" are very different things and the transition between them is one-way.
> Their concern is probably someone deleting somebody else's account
Yes, that's what I meant. If some stranger deleted my account, I don't think I would be angry enough to attempt to press criminal perjury charges against them.
Yes, that's what I meant. If some stranger deleted my account, I don't think I would be angry enough to attempt to press criminal perjury charges against them.
It may depend on the real-world relevance of the courses you've taken.
What happens if you're taking part in the Georgia Tech/Udacity online Master's in Computer Science, and suddenly all of your course history on Udacity is gone? Are you then stuck with remotely trying to access records through whatever GA Tech has retained for MOOC students in a degree program? Does it prevent you from signing up for additional courses because there's no record of you completing the prerequisites? Does their platform have a provision for overriding those prerequisites, and what would that have to be based on - word from a professor who taught a MOOC, has never seen you or your work and probably depends on Udacity's listings?
A similar situation could arise if the platform is being used for mandatory continuing education credits in fields that have that. An industry that has CE requirements would often be well-served to partner with an established and stable online learning platform rather than building their own. If you're required to take X hours of CE annually to retain a license but the only proof you have is a PDF certificate from someplace that says "We've never heard of this person," do you qualify or do you end up in licensing/certification hell?
What happens if you're taking part in the Georgia Tech/Udacity online Master's in Computer Science, and suddenly all of your course history on Udacity is gone? Are you then stuck with remotely trying to access records through whatever GA Tech has retained for MOOC students in a degree program? Does it prevent you from signing up for additional courses because there's no record of you completing the prerequisites? Does their platform have a provision for overriding those prerequisites, and what would that have to be based on - word from a professor who taught a MOOC, has never seen you or your work and probably depends on Udacity's listings?
A similar situation could arise if the platform is being used for mandatory continuing education credits in fields that have that. An industry that has CE requirements would often be well-served to partner with an established and stable online learning platform rather than building their own. If you're required to take X hours of CE annually to retain a license but the only proof you have is a PDF certificate from someplace that says "We've never heard of this person," do you qualify or do you end up in licensing/certification hell?
It depends on what an account deletion means, yeah. Is there a GDPR for universities that makes them delete all history of your attendance at that institute? Do customer privacy laws force Udacity to do a more thorough deletion than you might expect if you're treating it like a website rather than a university or vice-versa?
Is that even plausible? Not being government, I can't just declare "Anyone who lies to me is committing perjury, nyah nyah!"
IANL but I think it's perjury to lie in a declaration "under penalty of perjury" only if that declaration is specifically required under the law or if you are submitting it to a legal body, such as a court, or to achieve an expressly defined legal outcome. For example, the DMCA specifically requires such a declaration when making a complaint, so private parties can require it and you could face criminal prosecution for lying.
On the other hand, I have no idea what legal justification could Udacity claim. It's probably bogus.
On the other hand, I have no idea what legal justification could Udacity claim. It's probably bogus.
Yeah, they might as well require you to write "under penalty of murder" while they're at it.
If I had a nanodegree and was listing it on my resume or mentioning it in job interviews, I'd be pretty upset if someone came in and deleted all proof that I had completed it.
Yeah, I'd definitely be pretty upset if someone wiped the record of my college degree, but (I hope) Udacity courses don't cost nearly as much as I had to pay.
Do employers often depend on "nanodegrees" (first I've heard the term) such as Udacity?
Depend probabbly not, but "hey there is this thing this guy did" might be a real thing. Probably not weighted as much as other things but still relevant to some.
But if it's a simple "hey there's this thing this guy did", are they going to go to the trouble to actually verify with Udacity that the person took the course? Probably not.
If it is just a link to click, sure why not?
This is unacceptable - if an authenticated login is good enough to change account details and sign-in info, why isn't it good enough to close an account?
I'm not an Udacity customer, and after reading your account I never will be - I loathe these scummy tactics.
I'm not an Udacity customer, and after reading your account I never will be - I loathe these scummy tactics.
What's 'scummy' about being unable to delete an account?
Many people (me included) hold the opinion that you should be able to control your data, which includes the right to ask a company storing data about you to delete it unless they have a valid justification not to (e.g. they may have to keep payment history for 10 years for compliance reasons).
In fact, in Europe it's so many people that that's the law.
In fact, in Europe it's so many people that that's the law.
I hold this opinion too but I struggle with the high cost of accidental and unwanted deletion.
To delete your account's content I think here should be email verification or 2FA.
To delete your account's content I think here should be email verification or 2FA.
That doesn't automatically justify "scummy". Especially when it's a tiny amount of data.
And what about a company where you can clear out the few bits of data they have, but still can't delete the account itself?
And what about a company where you can clear out the few bits of data they have, but still can't delete the account itself?
Wow, thank you so much for bringing this to light. Our org is literally in the process of signing up for their enterprise product but I can not in good conscience allow it to proceed after seeing that, it is unprofessional on so many levels. I would expect this kind of contractual bullshit from an NY landlord, not from an education platform.
I know they wont miss our 220ish users, but I hope enough individuals see your post to put a dent in their numbers.
I know they wont miss our 220ish users, but I hope enough individuals see your post to put a dent in their numbers.
Protecting completed educational certificates for their users free of cost seems reasonable. It's not like they force you to keep paying, they are just not easily deleting your educational history on their platform.
It's worth mentioning that people are completing courses, nanodegrees, and even Master's degrees through Georgia Tech on Udacity. These are significant life events for people trying to change/shift their careers, get that next promotion, etc. Having all records of your Master's degree deleted by a 'griefer' is a terrible thing to have to recover from.
I have no affiliation with Udacity but I feel that yours is an extreme response to a company that holds records of work that is very dear to some people and their careers.
I have no affiliation with Udacity but I feel that yours is an extreme response to a company that holds records of work that is very dear to some people and their careers.
> contractual bullshit
You read the post wrong.
You read the post wrong.
I'll remember to never sign up for that service. Thank you.
Almost sounds like they're about to say GuyWhoWantsToKeepHisAccountSaysWhat
> As a reminder, any deletion actions we take in response to your request are not reversible and may result in Udacity (or you) being unable to retrieve information about your account, enrollment, and records of completion.
Didn't windows 95 popularize the idea of the trashcan - temporary deletion - 20+ years ago? Don't many db tools support the idea of "soft deletes"?
"Hey - once we do this, you can't get anything back, ever, immediately, it's all gone. For good. But we're going to keep stuff forever that you can never see, and we won't tell you what it is. But you can't have your stuff back, ever. It's gone."
Even my "offline" university had the idea of "not paid", "suspended", "active", etc. Keep me on file, and I'll pay again in 12 months when I take more classes, etc.
Didn't windows 95 popularize the idea of the trashcan - temporary deletion - 20+ years ago? Don't many db tools support the idea of "soft deletes"?
"Hey - once we do this, you can't get anything back, ever, immediately, it's all gone. For good. But we're going to keep stuff forever that you can never see, and we won't tell you what it is. But you can't have your stuff back, ever. It's gone."
Even my "offline" university had the idea of "not paid", "suspended", "active", etc. Keep me on file, and I'll pay again in 12 months when I take more classes, etc.
These days if I want to "delete" an account, I'll just change my email address and password associated with that account. I take help of temporary email providers. Also, I write gibberish in place of my profile data.
Is there an option to simply not pay anymore?
That sounds like a complex process to avoid deleting the wrong things, but maybe not the same for stopping a subscription?
That sounds like a complex process to avoid deleting the wrong things, but maybe not the same for stopping a subscription?
I wasn't actually paying. The account basically dormant and from back when they started and courses were free. I am just trying to minimize my digital footprint by deleting accounts I don't actually use (I'm happy with value for money at coursera).
Ah, that makes sense.
That delete process sounds like a pain, but I suspect even a "reasonable" delete process is gonna involve a lot of steps and be somewhat a pain considering the consequences of actually deleting data.
That delete process sounds like a pain, but I suspect even a "reasonable" delete process is gonna involve a lot of steps and be somewhat a pain considering the consequences of actually deleting data.
Thanks for this. Just opened a support case to delete my account.
fyi - given it's annoying to collect all that information, I felt udacity might actually be able to help me with that. So I filed a subject access request under GDPR and asked them to provide me with all the data they have in relation to me..
Years ago I needed to cancel a fax service. They refused to allow me to cancel unless I called them up, which I wouldn't do.
In the end I just changed all my details to some variation of the phrase "cancel account" except the billing details (which I couldn't change) then did a chargeback every time they charged me.
It took them a couple of months to finally get round to cancelling my account (I think it was actually the bank who intervened). It was more effort than just calling the fac company, but I sure as hell wasn't playing their game.
In the end I just changed all my details to some variation of the phrase "cancel account" except the billing details (which I couldn't change) then did a chargeback every time they charged me.
It took them a couple of months to finally get round to cancelling my account (I think it was actually the bank who intervened). It was more effort than just calling the fac company, but I sure as hell wasn't playing their game.
I think it costs them a transaction fee from the credit card company each time too and affects their future ability to use the merchant network when they get too many chargebacks.
Unfortunately it can also really seriously effect your credit rating, but then again anything can do that and credit ratings are silly.
Can it? There shouldn’t be any obligation implicit for monthly subscriptions outside of loans.
You can absolutely be sent to collections for not paying for a service, it happens all the time. As soon as that happens they will report it to the credit bureaus.
Why can’t I send them to some other service?
Send who, the debt collector? "Oh, no, I switched from Dropbox to backblaze. Go get the money from them." I guess you can say that, but I doubt it works.
It’s not debt if you’ve just been automatically renewed. Agreeing to pay X in Y payments is not the same as paying Z for 1 term of use.
Why do you think that? You entered a legally binding contract with an obligation to pay. You refuse to pay without canceling the contract. Why should the fact that it's a recurring payment change anything here?
Modern subscriptions are little more than saved payment information. Merely having someone’s payment information does not give consent.
No, merely having payment information is not giving consent, but you signing up for a subscription service was giving consent to a recurring subscription. That's a totally different situation.
With Stripe, it's $15 for each dispute.
Finally the killer application for Google Duplex.
Amazon is the same. I just cancelled Prime yesterday. It took me four or five confirmations that yes, I want to lose the benefits.
The buttons were jumping around. Sometimes the left one was for cancelling, sometimes the right one, sometimes it was a few centimeters lower.
I love my Kindle, but without that my Amazon account itself would be in real danger.
The buttons were jumping around. Sometimes the left one was for cancelling, sometimes the right one, sometimes it was a few centimeters lower.
I love my Kindle, but without that my Amazon account itself would be in real danger.
Oh, heads up, you're in for a treat. Amazon will try to tack on a Prime subscription on every order you try to make from now on. They do this with a permanent full-page interstitial (not a pop-up) for ex-Prime users before the order confirmation page whose big green 'continue' button automatically one-click charges your account for a full year of Prime. You have to read down and click the tiny 'no, I don't want these benefits' blue text link in 8px font size to file your order without Prime.
I no longer shop from Amazon. The more we accept these kind of indignities, the more they will be forced on us. Let them starve, that's the most powerful message one can send.
Edit / More data points:
- One more trick up their sleeve: they will default to two-day paid shipping even when you have free shipping available, just so that you'll feel the pain (i.e. the 'worth') of Prime every time you have to pay attention in the last page, and check the right 'free shipping' radio box for every shipment in your order.
- For me, the last thing that broke the camel's back was that they were specifically sending shipments to arrive on the last day of the shipment window. As a real example, I ordered a display on Jan 7 to arrive between Jan 14 and Jan 18. They shipped it Jan 17. This is what made me notice this, and it made me look at my past orders. Turns out, they have been doing this consistently, for a while.
The purpose of a shipping window is to allow for some slack in the case shipment gets delayed, it is for shipment. If they shipped it a few days before the window, that would be fine. If they shipped it right at the beginning of the window, that would still (arguably) be fine. If you ship in a way that is aiming for as late as possible delivery, that's pretty obvious what you're trying to do.
If you're not a Prime customer, your orders might arrive as late as they can make it. They are likely doing this on purpose.
I no longer shop from Amazon. The more we accept these kind of indignities, the more they will be forced on us. Let them starve, that's the most powerful message one can send.
Edit / More data points:
- One more trick up their sleeve: they will default to two-day paid shipping even when you have free shipping available, just so that you'll feel the pain (i.e. the 'worth') of Prime every time you have to pay attention in the last page, and check the right 'free shipping' radio box for every shipment in your order.
- For me, the last thing that broke the camel's back was that they were specifically sending shipments to arrive on the last day of the shipment window. As a real example, I ordered a display on Jan 7 to arrive between Jan 14 and Jan 18. They shipped it Jan 17. This is what made me notice this, and it made me look at my past orders. Turns out, they have been doing this consistently, for a while.
The purpose of a shipping window is to allow for some slack in the case shipment gets delayed, it is for shipment. If they shipped it a few days before the window, that would be fine. If they shipped it right at the beginning of the window, that would still (arguably) be fine. If you ship in a way that is aiming for as late as possible delivery, that's pretty obvious what you're trying to do.
If you're not a Prime customer, your orders might arrive as late as they can make it. They are likely doing this on purpose.
Pro-tip: Sometimes you can get lucrative deals on Prime during checkout if you don't have prime.
For example, I've gotten multiple 1 month free trials, and also the '1 week for 1.99' which you can immediately cancel after placing your order for a $1 refund (if you immediately cancel, not at end of the week).
I don't shop at Amazon often, but I've gotten many (read: > 10) Prime shipments over the last year, probably paying a grand total of $3 or so.
If I don't have any good Prime offers upon checkout, I'll go to Ebay, find the product, soft by lowest price, and it's usually the same price, or within a dollar or so, and ships a LOT faster than Amazon.com's standard shipping (usually ends up coming from Amazon anyways proxied by the Ebay seller with Prime).
I've gone through the Amazon cancellation pages many times. They always keep tweaking it and expanding the process.
For example, I've gotten multiple 1 month free trials, and also the '1 week for 1.99' which you can immediately cancel after placing your order for a $1 refund (if you immediately cancel, not at end of the week).
I don't shop at Amazon often, but I've gotten many (read: > 10) Prime shipments over the last year, probably paying a grand total of $3 or so.
If I don't have any good Prime offers upon checkout, I'll go to Ebay, find the product, soft by lowest price, and it's usually the same price, or within a dollar or so, and ships a LOT faster than Amazon.com's standard shipping (usually ends up coming from Amazon anyways proxied by the Ebay seller with Prime).
I've gone through the Amazon cancellation pages many times. They always keep tweaking it and expanding the process.
I quit shopping at Amazon completely. Counterfeits are mixed in with legit. If I want cheap shit, I hit eBay or Ali. And if I want legit I go to the store or order from local box stores and pick up.
I think it works even without deals. Just subscribe to Prime, order stuff, cancel subscription. This way you pay only some cents (they charge proportionally to the subscription time) instead of 3€ for the shipment.
I've received this interstitial and it's one of the darkest dark patterns I've ever seen. It would fit right in with an adware, pharmacy, or porn site's checkout flow.
Here's screenshots over time:
2017: https://twitter.com/troyd/status/819409073590308864
2016: https://twitter.com/troyd/status/765560428663443456 <- the worst
2013: https://twitter.com/troyd/status/394173352199196674
All of these activate a recurring subscription fee. You can see the fee go from barely mentioned (2013) to as little disclosure as possible (2016, 2017). The 2016 version is so intentionally deceptive that it inspired a discussion among friends whether, if we were asked to implement something like this by an employer or client, we'd quit instead of doing it. The easy consensus was yes, both because it's beneath our ethics and because it destroys long-term value for the employer.
I'd love to hear how this came to be within Amazon, let alone how it got approved, kept, and made worse. Somewhere inside Amazon, there's a two-pizza team of developers implementing this value destruction.
Here's screenshots over time:
2017: https://twitter.com/troyd/status/819409073590308864
2016: https://twitter.com/troyd/status/765560428663443456 <- the worst
2013: https://twitter.com/troyd/status/394173352199196674
All of these activate a recurring subscription fee. You can see the fee go from barely mentioned (2013) to as little disclosure as possible (2016, 2017). The 2016 version is so intentionally deceptive that it inspired a discussion among friends whether, if we were asked to implement something like this by an employer or client, we'd quit instead of doing it. The easy consensus was yes, both because it's beneath our ethics and because it destroys long-term value for the employer.
I'd love to hear how this came to be within Amazon, let alone how it got approved, kept, and made worse. Somewhere inside Amazon, there's a two-pizza team of developers implementing this value destruction.
I almost want a separate thread for Amazon, so they are sure to notice it.
Amazon restarted my prime subscription without my consent. I definitely cancelled it and left it canceled for months. I think they auto renewed it when I bought something? No idea. Very dishonest
It doesn't get much better if you're a prime customer. I don't think I've ever received an item I ordered with 1-day shipping. It seems their only mode is 2-day.
For a while, I was getting things shipped in days, though it was always order day 1, at least 24 hours elapse, then "your order has shipped" and I would get it the next day.
Now it's more like prime shipping means at least 3 business days. My last order was on Wednesday but I was told it would be here Monday unless I wanted to pay extra.
I'm getting rid of old computers, phones, and routers on eBay. Dealing with that is therapeutic but it makes it really tempting to cancel Amazon Prime just to raise barriers to accumulating stuff.
Now it's more like prime shipping means at least 3 business days. My last order was on Wednesday but I was told it would be here Monday unless I wanted to pay extra.
I'm getting rid of old computers, phones, and routers on eBay. Dealing with that is therapeutic but it makes it really tempting to cancel Amazon Prime just to raise barriers to accumulating stuff.
Is there nothing we can do about these scummy tactics? Can they be reported to some government entity?
True, Amazon Prime is full of dark patterns when you want to cancel.
I got the first two months free (Amazon.de), and at the end of the trial, when I wanted to cancel, they added a month for free, and I accepted the free month. My card was charged regardless and I had to email them to cancel it finally with no option to cancel at the end of this extended trial.
I got the first two months free (Amazon.de), and at the end of the trial, when I wanted to cancel, they added a month for free, and I accepted the free month. My card was charged regardless and I had to email them to cancel it finally with no option to cancel at the end of this extended trial.
just wait till you get closer to the end date of your sub. They will start harassing you on every page load of every product you look at.
Their page header "you saved XXX Euros last year from YYY orders with free priority shipping" was very effective.
Not because I was thinking "wow, I've saved so much money".
But because I was thinking "wow, I'm buying too much stuff".
Not because I was thinking "wow, I've saved so much money".
But because I was thinking "wow, I'm buying too much stuff".
I removed a lot of useless parts and ads from amazon by using stylus-addon.
.scheduled-ad { display: none !important; } .nav-a.nav-hasImage.nav-right { display: none !important; } .nav-fullWidthSubnavFlyout.nav-flyout { display: none !important; } .a-section.a-spacing-none.uilm-section { display: none !important; } .acsUxWidget { display: none !important; } .cr-vote-buttons.cr-vote-component { display: none; } span[data-action="cr-popup"] { display: none; } #regularprice_savings { display: none; } #cbcc_content_container{ display: none !important; } .super-tcg, .dv-product-offer, #nav-swmslot, #ape_Detail_dp-ads-center-promo_Desktop_placement, #heroQuickPromo_feature_div,.iss-ad-row, #amsDetailRight_feature_div,#ape_Detail_customer-reviews-top_Glance_placement,#cm_cr-rvw_summary-ads{ display: none !important; } #nav-upnav{ display:none !important; } .nav-prime-try{ display:none; } .dv-dp-top-banner{ display:none; } .acs-private-brands-container-background{ display:none !important; } .maple-banner{ display:none !important; }
.scheduled-ad { display: none !important; } .nav-a.nav-hasImage.nav-right { display: none !important; } .nav-fullWidthSubnavFlyout.nav-flyout { display: none !important; } .a-section.a-spacing-none.uilm-section { display: none !important; } .acsUxWidget { display: none !important; } .cr-vote-buttons.cr-vote-component { display: none; } span[data-action="cr-popup"] { display: none; } #regularprice_savings { display: none; } #cbcc_content_container{ display: none !important; } .super-tcg, .dv-product-offer, #nav-swmslot, #ape_Detail_dp-ads-center-promo_Desktop_placement, #heroQuickPromo_feature_div,.iss-ad-row, #amsDetailRight_feature_div,#ape_Detail_customer-reviews-top_Glance_placement,#cm_cr-rvw_summary-ads{ display: none !important; } #nav-upnav{ display:none !important; } .nav-prime-try{ display:none; } .dv-dp-top-banner{ display:none; } .acs-private-brands-container-background{ display:none !important; } .maple-banner{ display:none !important; }
Yupp. And they’ll have dark patterns for purchases after you cancel prime.
Those pesky engineers tried to charge me on my first post-prime purchase by giving me a $5.99 shipping charge. I was shocked! I knew the item said free shipping available. I checked other options (which were hidden behind a button), and lo and behold there was a free shipping option.
Those pesky engineers tried to charge me on my first post-prime purchase by giving me a $5.99 shipping charge. I was shocked! I knew the item said free shipping available. I checked other options (which were hidden behind a button), and lo and behold there was a free shipping option.
I've signed up for amazon prime uk and after some time I've canceled it. But somehow my amazon.com prime was still going and it took 6 months before i noticed. After quite some discussions with support they told me they only return last 3 months and that i should chargeback the rest. So I'm one of the few people who chargedback amazon and lived to tell the tale
Thanks for reminding me!
I actually went through exactly this with Dropbox a couple weeks ago. It took me two tries, the first time I mis-read / fell into one of the dark patterns. I'd made up my mind long before I ever went to the website to cancel and all this did was make me grumpy and justify my decision even more. Clearly it adds to their retention numbers somewhere or it would be dropped, however I will not use dropbox again in the face of such blatant disrespect. It was a great service, but with so many other options out there I have no need to use one that thinks I need to be tricked in to staying.
What are you looking to use next? I've thought about a raid NAS but have not brought myself to going through with it.
Syncthing is designed for decentralized syncing, but I've forced it into a hub-and-spoke model by running one instance on a cheap VPS, with my client machines configured to connect to only that with all the discovery/relay features turned off. It's been painless to administer so far - the "server" has been running without restart since I set it up 18 months ago and I've had to fiddle with "client" settings maybe once or twice in that time. Then again, I don't put it under much stress - mostly documents and source code, no multimedia.
Is there a one-click docker image or other VM one can run as the announcer/tracker for Syncthing?
I'm not a power user, but sync.com works quite well for me and is relatively cheap
Ha, not as hard as I expected but still like 4-5 steps with a bunch of dark patterns (highlighting the buttons that don't downgrade, etc). The screen that's like "OK, you want to downgrade, but tell us why" gave me flashbacks to that nightmare Comcast cancellation call[0].
[0] https://soundcloud.com/ryan-block-10/comcastic-service
[0] https://soundcloud.com/ryan-block-10/comcastic-service
At what point can you just state something like the following?
> I am recording this phone call. I am terminating our service contract, and have communicated this by mail as well as verbally as we speak. Any further attempts to charge me for this service I have cancelled shall be disputed and reported to the police for attempted fraud. Good day.
> I am recording this phone call. I am terminating our service contract, and have communicated this by mail as well as verbally as we speak. Any further attempts to charge me for this service I have cancelled shall be disputed and reported to the police for attempted fraud. Good day.
Possibly at the point where you actually bothered to print, sign, and mail a physical letter (by registered mail so you can prove it).
At that point, there's no need to state it, go straight for the chargeback and attach a copy of the cancellation letter and registered mail receipt.
At that point, there's no need to state it, go straight for the chargeback and attach a copy of the cancellation letter and registered mail receipt.
That is legendarily bad.
I think I'd just be obnoxious and say cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel...
I barely obey the social contract as it is.
I think I'd just be obnoxious and say cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel...
I barely obey the social contract as it is.
I'd like to sometimes, too, but I have a feeling they're free to just hang up on abusive customers.
I don't consider it abusive. Or at least I'm perfectly ok being an "abusive" customer to an abusive company.
Bit of a tangent but you know I always really hate telemarketing calls or just people I don't know phoning me generally because sometimes it's very hard to tell spam calls from the 1 out of 10 times it's a legit call you actually need to take. So I figured out a trick that works ok-ish. I answer the call and I say nothing. I wait for the other side to speak. Often it's a confused "hello???". If I don't recognize your voice and/or you don't introduce yourself and state your business I effectively screen you without giving you license to launch into your sales pitch. So far it has been a good compromise.
Sales people on the street trying to heckle me often get incredulous, well a minority but it happens, when I walk by completely ignoring their existence. It's like... I know it's in the social contract that if someone addresses you you are supposed to respond, but I crossed that clause out before signing because I knew it would be abused like this.
People that don't know you that approach you out of the blue either want your time, your money, or your body. I don't owe them shit and especially not the time of day. The exception to this rule is that some people are tourists that are a little stuck and need help. It's pretty easy to delineate those cases and I almost always help.
I dunno. I find the world abusive fullstop. So I just give it the fewest possible avenues through which to abuse me and don't go down the ones that I can see lead to abuse. I feel no need to feel badly about the way I behave in this regard and am ok with people thinking I'm an asshole for doing it.
Bit of a tangent but you know I always really hate telemarketing calls or just people I don't know phoning me generally because sometimes it's very hard to tell spam calls from the 1 out of 10 times it's a legit call you actually need to take. So I figured out a trick that works ok-ish. I answer the call and I say nothing. I wait for the other side to speak. Often it's a confused "hello???". If I don't recognize your voice and/or you don't introduce yourself and state your business I effectively screen you without giving you license to launch into your sales pitch. So far it has been a good compromise.
Sales people on the street trying to heckle me often get incredulous, well a minority but it happens, when I walk by completely ignoring their existence. It's like... I know it's in the social contract that if someone addresses you you are supposed to respond, but I crossed that clause out before signing because I knew it would be abused like this.
People that don't know you that approach you out of the blue either want your time, your money, or your body. I don't owe them shit and especially not the time of day. The exception to this rule is that some people are tourists that are a little stuck and need help. It's pretty easy to delineate those cases and I almost always help.
I dunno. I find the world abusive fullstop. So I just give it the fewest possible avenues through which to abuse me and don't go down the ones that I can see lead to abuse. I feel no need to feel badly about the way I behave in this regard and am ok with people thinking I'm an asshole for doing it.
Unfortunately, it doesn't matter what you consider abusive.
> tell us why
This is where you copy-paste the timecube website and tell them you don't want to do business with a company that cannot understand 4-corner time.
This is where you copy-paste the timecube website and tell them you don't want to do business with a company that cannot understand 4-corner time.
I'm so glad I have never encountered anything this bad in my life. This is truly awful.
This looked a bit like someone being overly picky, but the the number of times Dropbox presented a deceptive ui got more and more funny. 3 different confirmation pages in a row, and a weak confirmation that you actually cancelled the subscription.
I wouldn't put is as "very hard", but they could probably drop the last confirmation page since any value you get by having these pages dramatically falls off after the first.
I wouldn't put is as "very hard", but they could probably drop the last confirmation page since any value you get by having these pages dramatically falls off after the first.
Anytime I can cancel online, in under a minute I'd consider that easy. Yes, ideally they wouldn't put all those hoops in the way, but far better than most companies that require you to call a phone number during a certain time where you have to spend forever talking to a person who has to read from a script and may get aggressive with you or have to transfer you, or call drops or they say they have cancelled but didn't go through. Like MyFico, Sirius and other big names. Hopefully Dropbox improves but I assume their pages get enough people not to cancel, than the amount of people so angered by it that they decide to never come back that it makes sense for them.
This is how my old gym was (Crunch Fitness), at least several years ago. I moved cities and had forgotten about the subscription until I checked my bank statement - so I called them and asked to cancel. They said I needed to do so in person, or physically mail them some form (wasn't exactly clear on where I get this form from...). Even after being pretty irate and asking for a manager, I got those canned responses.
I suppose it was lucky that I was visiting that city the upcoming weekend, so I did end up cancelling in person - but my experience sounded and felt illegal.
I suppose it was lucky that I was visiting that city the upcoming weekend, so I did end up cancelling in person - but my experience sounded and felt illegal.
Stupid shit like this is the reason I moved everything to my own Nextcloud instance. It's completely free, open source and surprisingly have a BETTER user interface than Dropbox. Rclone can sync to the WebDav interface.
https://nextcloud.org/
https://rclone.org/webdav/#nextcloud
https://nextcloud.org/
https://rclone.org/webdav/#nextcloud
By the way, for those who don't want to use one of the existing providers [1] and don't want to operate their own server either: Hetzner started their Nextcloud as a service recently:
https://www.hetzner.com/storage/nextcloud
I haven't tested it yet, as I am running my Nextcloud on my own server, but I found their offer quite compelling.
[1]: https://nextcloud.com/signup/
https://www.hetzner.com/storage/nextcloud
I haven't tested it yet, as I am running my Nextcloud on my own server, but I found their offer quite compelling.
[1]: https://nextcloud.com/signup/
Interesting. Makes sense at the low end I guess. The more expensive ones are quite similar to their dedicated servers, which gets you compute as well. So you'd be better off rolling it yourself.
yes, you can get 130TB RAID6 of 15 disks for 269 a month. But in case you need less...
Similarly, I switched from Dropbox to Seafile and have never looked back.
It supports disks, AWS API-compatible blob storage and Ceph and OpenStack Swift as storage backends.
You can also mount Seafile folders as drives using Webdav or a FUSE extension.
I highly recommend it!
Disclaimer: no affiliation, just a Dropbox refugee that's been very happy with Seafile for ~3 years
It supports disks, AWS API-compatible blob storage and Ceph and OpenStack Swift as storage backends.
You can also mount Seafile folders as drives using Webdav or a FUSE extension.
I highly recommend it!
Disclaimer: no affiliation, just a Dropbox refugee that's been very happy with Seafile for ~3 years
I'll take that flow any day over a company that makes you call or email to cancel.
Recently had a horrible experience with Full Contact. You can sign up with a couple clicks, but you need to email them to cancel. Then they'll sit on your request so you get billed for another month while they're processing it and then they'll kill your plan right away for the month you just paid for. Horrible!
Recently had a horrible experience with Full Contact. You can sign up with a couple clicks, but you need to email them to cancel. Then they'll sit on your request so you get billed for another month while they're processing it and then they'll kill your plan right away for the month you just paid for. Horrible!
Constant Contact — same thing.
Annoying sure. "Very" hard? No, not in the slightest and is disingenuous to title it that way. Sure their confirmation buttons were the primary action color, and they really drag the process but it was straight forward, just involved reading to make sure the button you were clicking was the right one. It's a bad process definitely, but not very hard or even moderately hard.
This seems like standard fare at almost any company. Cox communications offered me $10 lower per-month Internet when I was cancelling. I told them if they retroactively paid me the $10/month they were over-charging me for years I would stay. This finally ended their attempts to change my mind.
This is why I prefer to handle my app subscriptions through Apple's App Store: easy, transparent (un)subscriptions.
Plan B is to use virtual credit card numbers, such as https://privacy.com preferably with a bogus name.
Too many tech companies are shady.
Plan B is to use virtual credit card numbers, such as https://privacy.com preferably with a bogus name.
Too many tech companies are shady.
I have long wished someone, ideally Apple, would successfully implement micropayments for news.
Google Contributor [1] was an attempt, but it never really seemed to have taken off.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Contributor
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Contributor
Phone employees must be given drop-dead quotas or something because they really resist not being able to do their won’t-you-please-stay spiels at cancellation time, no matter what you say.
Once when cancelling an AmEx card, I TOLD the agent immediately “I am cancelling my card, and I decline in advance any offers you make to keep me on this card”; she still couldn’t seem to resist interjecting about 3 or 4 time-wasting counter-offers. It was extra annoying when she started prefacing them with “I know you said you just wanted to cancel BUT...”. (Really?!? That means you know I don’t want it and you know you are wasting my time, yet you choose to waste it anyway! Is your manager behind you or something?)
I have seen this with everything from cards to cable companies. All I can figure is that these companies simply have too much power. There just aren’t that many cable choices or card choices for example, so how exactly am I going to storm off and never return?
Once when cancelling an AmEx card, I TOLD the agent immediately “I am cancelling my card, and I decline in advance any offers you make to keep me on this card”; she still couldn’t seem to resist interjecting about 3 or 4 time-wasting counter-offers. It was extra annoying when she started prefacing them with “I know you said you just wanted to cancel BUT...”. (Really?!? That means you know I don’t want it and you know you are wasting my time, yet you choose to waste it anyway! Is your manager behind you or something?)
I have seen this with everything from cards to cable companies. All I can figure is that these companies simply have too much power. There just aren’t that many cable choices or card choices for example, so how exactly am I going to storm off and never return?
The agent is probably required to walk you through them. The people who have taken away the agent's power to actually make your customer experience a happy one will never directly encounter the consequences of their decisions.
They wont quit pestering me to upgrade. I've never uploaded a single file, but collaborators have shared folders with me. Apparently that means my drive is full and I need to upgrade...
That's what happens when you have a huge growth team.
Thanks for posting this.
I've never signed up for Dropbox Pro but this is off-putting because their product seems pretty well rounded in most cases.
Thanks for posting this.
I've never signed up for Dropbox Pro but this is off-putting because their product seems pretty well rounded in most cases.
That looks super annoying (seems like a really good way to get zero return customers), but does anyone remember how difficult it was for people to quit AOL in the (early?) 2000's? Just search for "cancel AOL" on youtube and you will find some pretty incredible accounts of people being straight up harassed by AOL reps to keep their accounts. For some people it took hours arguing with a rep over the phone before they would agree to cancel.
If you live in the USA, Email their support and declare that you've canceled your account with them and refuse to pay anything further. Then contact your credit card company and initiate a charge back. If your CC company wants proof, send them a copy of the email you sent.
Every chargeback a company gets costs them money, on top of the money they aren't getting from you. If a company gets a high enough charge back rate, their credit card processing vendor will revoke their services. Fraud/Chargebacks are a MAJOR issue for any company accepting credit cards.
If you've made it clear you wish to cancel and are in no other way violating a contract (ex: You signed up for a 1 year subscription billed monthly with Adobe Cloud, ya gotta pay them for the year), then you are free and clear.
Every chargeback a company gets costs them money, on top of the money they aren't getting from you. If a company gets a high enough charge back rate, their credit card processing vendor will revoke their services. Fraud/Chargebacks are a MAJOR issue for any company accepting credit cards.
If you've made it clear you wish to cancel and are in no other way violating a contract (ex: You signed up for a 1 year subscription billed monthly with Adobe Cloud, ya gotta pay them for the year), then you are free and clear.
Yeah, I actually by accident retained my account by not clicking the last of several ”are you sure” type buttons.
I had a yearly plan and had moved everything off to my own NAS in the last month before subscription renewal.
Was very surprised to see an additional year billed to my account!
Well annoying, and quite ugly.
I had a yearly plan and had moved everything off to my own NAS in the last month before subscription renewal.
Was very surprised to see an additional year billed to my account!
Well annoying, and quite ugly.
I signed for Dropbox pro through their iOS app, which means canceling is super easy because the payments are handled by Apple. You can cancel your account by staying entirely inside iOS system preferences menus.
And ironically, it may lead to 1 or 2 more clicks than what was shown in the video, but at least there are no dark UI patterns.
And ironically, it may lead to 1 or 2 more clicks than what was shown in the video, but at least there are no dark UI patterns.
I use Privacy[0] for all internet subscriptions. I mentioned this on HN before but it gives me purpose-generated cards for specifics d services like Netflix and Google. When I want to cancel, if the process is even marginally difficult, I just turn the card off — which I was going to do anyways.
[0]: Referral link: https://privacy.com/join/S5U7B
[0]: Referral link: https://privacy.com/join/S5U7B
Don't use the form. Use the legal way to quit any contract in your country. For instance that means sending a paper letter to their offices with the postal service confirming that the letter was received. If your contract has a quitting period pay the 3 months or what. Then stop and ignore all the annoying emails and letters they send you. They will not sue, because they would lose.
Might cost you $5 for the special letter type, and might cost you 3 more monthly fees than you would be willing to pay otherwise. But this is 100% save in all countries with a working legal system. Of course if they come after you with baseball bats or car bombs, then you probably can't quit their "services" anyways. ;)
Might cost you $5 for the special letter type, and might cost you 3 more monthly fees than you would be willing to pay otherwise. But this is 100% save in all countries with a working legal system. Of course if they come after you with baseball bats or car bombs, then you probably can't quit their "services" anyways. ;)
It's annoying as hell. Dropbox deleted 50,000 files on our dropbox business account once. I had to go in an manually undelete each folder. There were hundreds of folders. Poof, suddenly gone. After that we were done, had to go through these hoops to cancel.
Dropbox deleted my honeymoon photos on my wife's account. They also deleted my account a few months later. I wouldn't trust Dropbox with a swap file.
They have an undeletion button (and they send you a notice about bulk deletions). They also retain and let you recover accidentally deleted files for 30 days. Without more detail it's hard to find these claims credible.
I suddenly have the urge to backup my ~800GB of data in Dropbox somewhere else.
I used to use Dropbox for syncing between machines, and had to do the same thing a few years ago. Utterly insane that you still have to manually undelete folders one-by-one. Also insane was the crap customer support (not sure if it's better for business accounts?) - it was all forum based, and you were lucky to get a response. In this case I did get a response, saying that one of the machines hooked up to the account must have deleted the files due to a conflict (it most certainly did not, and I'd said as much in my original post).
Aside from this I had 2 other problems with Dropbox:
1. On startup, it would render my machine unusable for over 1 hour. Now, it was syncing from 5400 RPM spinning rust, but still - there are good solutions that don't require hashing every file on the drive with the crappest and slowest possible hash implementation (USN change journal, file system minifilters).
2. Despite only syncing between 2 machines, there were frequent, unexplained 'sync conflicts' that resulted in duplicate copies of file (or sometimes data loss). These conflicts were not even discoverable in the Dropbox UI - you'd only see them if you looked in the folder and say the extra 'conflict' files
Oh, and they sent me a ridiculous number of emails after cancelling my Pro account. I cancelled in March 2016, and they regularly spammed me until October 2018. Only some of the emails I received over that time included an 'unsubscribe' link, and despite using those I did get, they didn't stop the emails - pretty scummy behaviour.
So, poor product, poor customer service, and scummy tactics. Not their biggest fan...
Nowadays I use Seafile, hosted in a Docker container on a low-powered Azure VM, backed by Azure Bloc Storage. Works flawlessly, and I highly recommend it. I understand this isn't a solution for the general population, but if you're technically minded (this is HN; you are), it's really easy to setup. You can use VM-mounted disks or AWS API-compatible block storage (Azure Blob Storage isn't, but I have another container running Minio, which acts as a proxy between the Azure API and Azure Blob Storage - it was plug-and-play, just working OOTB)
Aside from this I had 2 other problems with Dropbox:
1. On startup, it would render my machine unusable for over 1 hour. Now, it was syncing from 5400 RPM spinning rust, but still - there are good solutions that don't require hashing every file on the drive with the crappest and slowest possible hash implementation (USN change journal, file system minifilters).
2. Despite only syncing between 2 machines, there were frequent, unexplained 'sync conflicts' that resulted in duplicate copies of file (or sometimes data loss). These conflicts were not even discoverable in the Dropbox UI - you'd only see them if you looked in the folder and say the extra 'conflict' files
Oh, and they sent me a ridiculous number of emails after cancelling my Pro account. I cancelled in March 2016, and they regularly spammed me until October 2018. Only some of the emails I received over that time included an 'unsubscribe' link, and despite using those I did get, they didn't stop the emails - pretty scummy behaviour.
So, poor product, poor customer service, and scummy tactics. Not their biggest fan...
Nowadays I use Seafile, hosted in a Docker container on a low-powered Azure VM, backed by Azure Bloc Storage. Works flawlessly, and I highly recommend it. I understand this isn't a solution for the general population, but if you're technically minded (this is HN; you are), it's really easy to setup. You can use VM-mounted disks or AWS API-compatible block storage (Azure Blob Storage isn't, but I have another container running Minio, which acts as a proxy between the Azure API and Azure Blob Storage - it was plug-and-play, just working OOTB)
I know it's not as big of a problem to have as them deleting all your files but to my knowledge you still can't use the Web-based UI on a Mac and make it sort folder-first. I mean how non-sensical is that? It works fine if you load it on a Windows-based browser!
It's such a major annoyance that I ended up paying for another cloud file host instead.
It's such a major annoyance that I ended up paying for another cloud file host instead.
Did you contact them to have them do the work, instead of doing it yourself? I mean, that's why you pay, to have support.
I needed the files back instantly. These were files for work, on a Dropbox business account.
Eeeeeesh. Let's continue this tradition - companies need to be shamed for pulling this crap.
Nice work, OP.
Nice work, OP.
I'm starting to use privacy.com with all my online accounts. If I really have trouble leaving deleting the vendor locked credit card I used to sign up is an easy way to go that gets the job done.
Audible seems to do memberships right. Cancel at anytime, resume when desired. Works a treat and I frequently go back an rejoin if there's something I'm interested in.
A little over a year ago I spent days and days trying and failing to sign up for a Dropbox Business account.
The "Start free trial" button on the website literally did nothing. If I clicked it enough times, I eventually got a poorly worded error asking me to try again in 24 hours. This happened in multiple browsers. I tried many times over the course of several days with no success. I had coworkers try in case it was something specific to my machine or network. They got the same error.
I opened a support request and asked if they could help me manually open a Dropbox Business account. No, they couldn't. The best advice they were able to give me was to try clearing my browser cache and cookies (I did; it didn't help).
Finally I dug around and managed to find a link directly to a billing form, and was able to sign up by having them start billing me immediately instead of going through a free trial. I signed up for annual billing, naively assuming the per-user annual fee would be pro-rated (like Slack and most other good per-user services do) if our small company hired or lost any employees.
During the course of that year I did end up removing two users from our Dropbox Business account. Since we had already paid for the full year up front, I expected the next annual charge to reflect a pro-rated charge. But nope! The automatic renewal paid no attention to the _actual_ number of users on our account, and Dropbox charged us as if those users still existed.
Turns out the number of licenses you're billed for has to be managed manually. If you have 10 licenses and 10 users and then remove two users, that doesn't affect the license count. You have to remove two licenses manually. And if you pay up front for a year but remove two licenses halfway through the year? Too bad. No pro-rated reduced charge next year. Better be sure to predict your exact staffing numbers a year in advance next time.
Want to add a user halfway through the year when you're already at your license limit? It'll just fail with a cryptic error until you finally realize you need to first go to a different page and manually add a license. And sometimes (like literally as I type this) the Billing page you need to visit to do this is completely broken and just serves up an error that says "Oh hello. Sorry for this little hiccup."
Dropbox's core functionality works well and I have no complaints about it, but everything related to billing is so unintuitive and so frequently broken that I wonder whether they even care about it.
So yeah, I guess it doesn't surprise me that canceling is hard too.
The "Start free trial" button on the website literally did nothing. If I clicked it enough times, I eventually got a poorly worded error asking me to try again in 24 hours. This happened in multiple browsers. I tried many times over the course of several days with no success. I had coworkers try in case it was something specific to my machine or network. They got the same error.
I opened a support request and asked if they could help me manually open a Dropbox Business account. No, they couldn't. The best advice they were able to give me was to try clearing my browser cache and cookies (I did; it didn't help).
Finally I dug around and managed to find a link directly to a billing form, and was able to sign up by having them start billing me immediately instead of going through a free trial. I signed up for annual billing, naively assuming the per-user annual fee would be pro-rated (like Slack and most other good per-user services do) if our small company hired or lost any employees.
During the course of that year I did end up removing two users from our Dropbox Business account. Since we had already paid for the full year up front, I expected the next annual charge to reflect a pro-rated charge. But nope! The automatic renewal paid no attention to the _actual_ number of users on our account, and Dropbox charged us as if those users still existed.
Turns out the number of licenses you're billed for has to be managed manually. If you have 10 licenses and 10 users and then remove two users, that doesn't affect the license count. You have to remove two licenses manually. And if you pay up front for a year but remove two licenses halfway through the year? Too bad. No pro-rated reduced charge next year. Better be sure to predict your exact staffing numbers a year in advance next time.
Want to add a user halfway through the year when you're already at your license limit? It'll just fail with a cryptic error until you finally realize you need to first go to a different page and manually add a license. And sometimes (like literally as I type this) the Billing page you need to visit to do this is completely broken and just serves up an error that says "Oh hello. Sorry for this little hiccup."
Dropbox's core functionality works well and I have no complaints about it, but everything related to billing is so unintuitive and so frequently broken that I wonder whether they even care about it.
So yeah, I guess it doesn't surprise me that canceling is hard too.
Calendly also works this way. I guess I can understand it making development a bit easier (not having to tie each charge to an individual user) but they should have a warning that when you delete a user that you should also remove a license if that is your intention.
Call your CC, claim inability to reach business to cancel and request chargeback.
This is my action plan #1 when vendor start irritating me with their support or policies.
This is my action plan #1 when vendor start irritating me with their support or policies.
Seems like a great way for the vendor to send you debt to collections.
What you said is more applicable to gym memberships or cell phone contracts where you actually sign in-person multi-page agreement for 1-2 years conscious slavery.
CC chargebacks works just fine for any online business that try to pull a quick one on you and making it artificially hard to cancel/unsubscribe/change services.
Most people choose to spend 1-2 hours online try to get hold of someone "who can solve your problem". You CC service dept can do it faster for you by transferring the problem to the other side.
I mean - it's always fair to try to solve problem by contracting vendor to have them to honor your legitimate request first. If that doesn't help [quickly and painlessly enough] - then there is a plan B in place.
CC chargebacks works just fine for any online business that try to pull a quick one on you and making it artificially hard to cancel/unsubscribe/change services.
Most people choose to spend 1-2 hours online try to get hold of someone "who can solve your problem". You CC service dept can do it faster for you by transferring the problem to the other side.
I mean - it's always fair to try to solve problem by contracting vendor to have them to honor your legitimate request first. If that doesn't help [quickly and painlessly enough] - then there is a plan B in place.
I'm not familiar, but this seems unlikely to happen for something as small as a Dropbox bill. Debt collection is a 'regular' business - it's simply uneconomical for a business to pay people to pursue your $9 Dropbox debt.
This is infuriating!!! I wasn't planning on cancelling, but seeing this shit now makes me want to cancel. Thanks for giving me a reason.
I don't think this is hard, it is possible online, no phone calls nor paper communication.
In Germany if you want to cancel anything, you need to send personally signed letter three full months in advance.
And most of the things run as two year long contacts. If you miss the the date three months before your contact ends you get another two years automatically.
I think the real solution is to use a one time use credit card number which you can deactivate if its too hard to cancel a free trial.
This was very similar to my experience when cancelling my Amazon Prime account a week ago. It was at least five pages of trying to talk me out of it and the 'continue cancelling' was similarly the more obscure/non-obvious button.
It makes it feel like a very shady process without being outright deceptive.
It makes it feel like a very shady process without being outright deceptive.
The process is quite convoluted, but at least they didn’t offer 50% discount when you tried to cancel.
Hulu used to do this, but they'd give a free month. All I had to do was remember to find the cancellation flow once a month and I got it for free for almost a year.
The ONE good thing about Bank of America, and it was only available on their credit cards but not debit cards, and I don't even know if they still offer it: You could generate new credit card numbers on demand, and set a hard spending limit on them, and their expiration date could be set by you.
This was pitched by their marketing as a way to make online shopping safer, because even if they did get the card and the expiry date and everything, they couldn't spend more than the limit which you likely already hit when you bought your item. But the hidden feature was it made cancelling difficult services a breeze, because you could just log in to your banking portal and kill the temporary card you made for that service.
This was pitched by their marketing as a way to make online shopping safer, because even if they did get the card and the expiry date and everything, they couldn't spend more than the limit which you likely already hit when you bought your item. But the hidden feature was it made cancelling difficult services a breeze, because you could just log in to your banking portal and kill the temporary card you made for that service.
The three big banks that offer virtual credit card numbers are: Bank of America, Capital One, and Citi.
It's almost always harder to cancel.
But even worse is if you want to delete your account.
I had a subscription that was not lapsed on NORVPN and I wanted to delete my account. Of course I had to contact customer support and after 2-3 emails confirming that yes I actually want to delete my account even if it has an active subscription that I had paid for and no there is no particular reason for it except that I don't use it they actually removed me.
It wasn't the end of the world but I would really like a button.
Funnily enough their customer service is called "Customer success team". I had to laugh out loud at that.
In any case, the worst offender here is probably facebook with their probation pattern.
I had a subscription that was not lapsed on NORVPN and I wanted to delete my account. Of course I had to contact customer support and after 2-3 emails confirming that yes I actually want to delete my account even if it has an active subscription that I had paid for and no there is no particular reason for it except that I don't use it they actually removed me.
It wasn't the end of the world but I would really like a button.
Funnily enough their customer service is called "Customer success team". I had to laugh out loud at that.
In any case, the worst offender here is probably facebook with their probation pattern.
Also difficult - deleting all the files in your account. It took me days to do it through their web UI, as the delete operation would repeatedly fail after some amount of time. Very poor feedback on what was happening, how long it would take, etc.
If you think this sucks, have a go at deleting your Facebook account.
Worse... WhatsApp. When you change phone numbers it prompts you to notify all your friends. But when you delete, it just keeps letting friends message you without letting them know you aren't there, and all you get are notifications that people on WhatsApp are trying to contact you -- but it won't tell you anything more unless you sign up again. Before I had WhatsApp, people couldn't message me through WhatsApp, but once you had it, there's apparently no way to delete it. What if I change my phone number? Is any number in the system just forever in the system. Cool, cool cool cool.
Worse... WhatsApp. When you change phone numbers it prompts you to notify all your friends. But when you delete, it just keeps letting friends message you without letting them know you aren't there, and all you get are notifications that people on WhatsApp are trying to contact you -- but it won't tell you anything more unless you sign up again. Before I had WhatsApp, people couldn't message me through WhatsApp, but once you had it, there's apparently no way to delete it. What if I change my phone number? Is any number in the system just forever in the system. Cool, cool cool cool.
Just thought I'd point out that a lot of the reason companies make it so hard to cancel subscriptions is that it literally is a more "brutal" change for them when it comes to accounting, and what they have to report back to investors.
Recurring income is more highly valued than one-off / extraordinary income. Most traditional companies (telecom, banks, even gyms) have been this way, backing off only when forced to by regulation. It's sad, but not surprising to see the newer breed of companies also adopt these practices.
Recurring income is more highly valued than one-off / extraordinary income. Most traditional companies (telecom, banks, even gyms) have been this way, backing off only when forced to by regulation. It's sad, but not surprising to see the newer breed of companies also adopt these practices.
I have been working as a ux consultant for 15 years now, there are two things that are serious problems:
1. Forcing your users into actions they don’t want to take (dark patterns)
2. Having users delete their accounts and data because you didn’t install enough hurdles on their way to the delete button
I am actually not very sure what we see here, is it a dark pattern? It could be, but at the size of Dropbox I could easily imagine the problems haveing a way of cancelling to easily could cause. Especially if we are talking about a file space.
I am actually not very sure what we see here, is it a dark pattern? It could be, but at the size of Dropbox I could easily imagine the problems haveing a way of cancelling to easily could cause. Especially if we are talking about a file space.
> I have been working as a ux consultant for 15 years now
> ...
> I am actually not very sure what we see here, is it a dark pattern?
It sounds like you've been in the grey/black side of the UX industry for too long, and have become a bit institutionalised.
eg You're not see things clearly.
If possible, maybe take a break from the UX space for a year or so, and do something else? Might help to regain your sense of things. :)
> ...
> I am actually not very sure what we see here, is it a dark pattern?
It sounds like you've been in the grey/black side of the UX industry for too long, and have become a bit institutionalised.
eg You're not see things clearly.
If possible, maybe take a break from the UX space for a year or so, and do something else? Might help to regain your sense of things. :)
I'm not an UX consultant and what justinclift said makes sense. Maybe the downgrading process could be a bit more streamlined, but, since you're dealing with data, erring on the side of caution does not seem too bad of a strategy.
I’m not defending Dropbox, some parts of this are definitely dark patterns, but I worked for one startup that had decorated their hallways with messages from people who had erroneously deleted their own accounts and data. To do that they had to click 3 times. In the beginning you just had to click “yes” 3 times, we changed it to delete and did the same thing as Dropbox using the other UX color so people would not just click but read and think. Dropbox is used in situations where I could easily imagine scores of user keeping valuable data on it and forgetting about his data, forcing them through a process seems prudent.
This one wins points for comedy, but I've seen worse. NY Times forced me to open an IM chat window with "customer service" and request my cancellation interpersonally through them.
That's definitely over the top (particularly the second "please look at this list of things you're losing" after what looks like a feedback collection page), but it's orders of magnitude easier than cancelling a typical cable/phone/internet subscription or gym membership.
My concern is that companies like Dropbox will eventually learn that the reason the companies that are famously hard to end a relationship with are that way is because, in the end, you make more money that way.
My concern is that companies like Dropbox will eventually learn that the reason the companies that are famously hard to end a relationship with are that way is because, in the end, you make more money that way.
Since they solved the problem of "what if file sharing didn't suck?" they now need to solve the problem of "what if cancelling a subscription didn't suck?"
I cancelled Dropbox for Business a few days ago and it wasn't as bad as this video.
- I went into settings
- Pressed the button to cancel the plan
- ~75 words about what would happen to the individual accounts created with the Dropbox for Business plan
- One more button saying I still wanted to cancel my account
- Three checkboxes confirming that I understand my data would be deleted from Dropbox
- Now I could finally cancel
It might sound like a lot, but I appreciate that they didn't have any "No I don't wanna be awesome anymore and have 10TB of Dropbox storage" like they did in this video.
- I went into settings
- Pressed the button to cancel the plan
- ~75 words about what would happen to the individual accounts created with the Dropbox for Business plan
- One more button saying I still wanted to cancel my account
- Three checkboxes confirming that I understand my data would be deleted from Dropbox
- Now I could finally cancel
It might sound like a lot, but I appreciate that they didn't have any "No I don't wanna be awesome anymore and have 10TB of Dropbox storage" like they did in this video.
There are even worse services where there is no UI to cancel subscriptions. You have to instead email customer support and spend another week explaining why their service sucks.
Example: Willow TV
Example: Willow TV
Mealpal doesn't have a cancel subscription option on their app. You have to email them for them to cancel your subscription. Who even does that, smh.
To add to the ancedata pile, cancelling spotify was refreshingly easy and nice. A+ would resubscribe again, once they have homepod support.
Note: this is a video; should have [Video] in title.
These dark patterns are not good. but this submit is good PR for Loom.
At first, I thought someone who works at loom complaining about it.
Just disable automatic payments from your paypal account and/or bank or card issuer and they'll cancel it for you! EASY! /s
We should get a list going of companies doing it right. I recall quitting Basecamp in like 3 clicks and and thank you page.
Got this email from them a couple days ago:
We’ve noticed you haven’t used your [email protected] Dropbox account in over one year and have closed your account for you. Devices connected to this account have now stopped syncing. Any remaining files in your account will be subject to deletion.
Sincerely, - The Dropbox Team
There goes my files. Fuck dropbox. Stick to google drive.
We’ve noticed you haven’t used your [email protected] Dropbox account in over one year and have closed your account for you. Devices connected to this account have now stopped syncing. Any remaining files in your account will be subject to deletion.
Sincerely, - The Dropbox Team
There goes my files. Fuck dropbox. Stick to google drive.
Similarly, trying to disable google services on your account is a gigantic pain in the ass. Thank god for Lineage OS.
As a counter example I recently cancelled a subscription to premiersports in the UK, iirc it was a two click process.
I don’t mind Dropbox’ effort for trying to make users change the mind (I’m biased as an ex Dropboxer) and maybe the pattern is a little Grey but it only takes you 45 seconds to unsubscribe.. in contrast I has a much much worse experience with “I Done This” (idonethis.com) where I subscribed for me and one of my colleagues but somehow other people in my company that I didn’t know or work with (without me really knowing clearly - not sure what happened) were somehow able to become part of my “team” license and I got a big fat bill from them.. we didn’t even use the product and there was no negotiations whatsoever - not even an invoice section/download option in the product so no way I even had any kind of “receipt” for expense claims - the customer experience and cancellation process was the worst I’ve seen in a long time!! I’m pretty sure I had to email them to cancel in the end as well. Biggest issue was bill shock by new accounts being added to my subscription though. At least with Dropbox if you’ve subscribed in error or have very good reasons they’re usually not too strict on refunds - they try and go the extra mile unlike idonethis.com
When I tried to cancel Britbox, I went to account settings, where I saw a message that said "Please cancel your subscription using the device you used to sign up." I saw this message on my iPhone and my iMac. Who knows or cares where I signed up? I had to phone to cancel my subscription.
ExpressVPN also has a cancel screen like this. It's particularly insidious since they make it look as if the cancellation is confirmed, even though you need to press another grayed-out button to finalize it. They've squeezed 2-3 months of extra payments from me this way.
Dropbox is a publicly traded company: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/DBX/?guccounter=1
What do you expect?
It's legal obligation to make as much money for the shareholders.
What do you expect?
It's legal obligation to make as much money for the shareholders.
Eww so they have a landing page when you want to cancel. Pretty slimy. If it’s too annoying just give them a chargeback, heck do it the next month if they don’t stop. That will fit the attention of at least their payment processor.
Does the cancellation involve loss of data? If so I think making it hard is fair.
It doesn't involve any loss of data, but it could degrade your data safety. If you cancel your subscription, your quota is reduced and, if you're now over quota your desktop client stops syncing. It may also prevent Camera Uploads from working on your phone. So you might delete a photo from your phone assuming it was uploaded to Dropbox but it wasn't because you were over quota.
As bad as this is, I'm OK if I don't have to call or fill out a form.
This is the reason why everyone should use privacy.com.
No need to cancel anything. You just shut down the payment card that is paying for the service lol. Once they see your card getting declined they will just close the account.
No need to cancel anything. You just shut down the payment card that is paying for the service lol. Once they see your card getting declined they will just close the account.
Others have pointed out that services are allowed to send you to collections. You’re still a subscriber.
Is there any way to know about this type of thing beforehand?
I've always wanted to have a site that showed me "moral" alternatives to websites and such but this type of information is difficult to normalize :)
I've always wanted to have a site that showed me "moral" alternatives to websites and such but this type of information is difficult to normalize :)
What’s a good alternative to Dropbox? I have been on pro (plus?) for a few years and was happy with it, but the constant nagging to buy a more expensive plan is really annoying
It's nothing compared to G2A:
https://www.pcgamesn.com/how-to-cancel-g2a-shield
https://www.pcgamesn.com/how-to-cancel-g2a-shield
I just cancelled my Dropbox Pro subscription and was, frankly, taken aback by the many steps I had to go through. It should be as easy to cancel as it is to sign up.
There might be some value in a service where you pay someone else to sit through all the phone calls and jump through all the hoops when canceling another service.
For someone who really wants to quit, it's annoying as hell. For someone who might want to stay, it helps retain them.
Which do you think the company cares about more?
Which do you think the company cares about more?
It took four clicks.
Yeah, that's the point. Not the dark patterns where there were 4 options presented way down a page to the user and only one would allow them to continue to something they had already indicated they would like to do.
A bit off topic, but as we usually have [pdf] in the title for pdf submissions, can we get [autoplaying fucking video] for autoplaying videos?
Try moving a domain off Network Solutions. 3 days to send me a computer generated code so I can transfer.
Recently, I have noticed that I use the colorless buttons more often than those '.primary' ones. Especially when it comes to GDPR layers.
Next time it might be better if the lawmakers would ask someone to design a proper API for them and the browser vendors should care of the GUI instead of the website providers. Otherwise, we will end up again with this superb user experience where every website tries a new pattern to convince you to take their tracking cookies.
Next time it might be better if the lawmakers would ask someone to design a proper API for them and the browser vendors should care of the GUI instead of the website providers. Otherwise, we will end up again with this superb user experience where every website tries a new pattern to convince you to take their tracking cookies.
This is one of the reasons I try to pay for most things with prepaid credit cards. Not only does it mitigate the risk of me having to change credit cards when their data is stolen, but it makes it very easy to cancel services, simply because there is no money left on the card for them to take.
dhouston (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863) anything to say?
Stamps.com requires a PHONE CALL to cancel. PHONE. in 2019.
if it takes more than 30min to cancel a service/account i just call my bank, explain the situation and reject all future transactions from that merchant.
30 minutes? You're quite patient. If it took longer than 5 minutes on the phone I'd probably call my bank.
Can you run into legal issues with this? If the company still thinks youre using the product/service but not paying? I would like to know because i want to use this strategy.
merchants are always notified of chargebacks and penalized. if a certain percent of your transactions have chargebacks you can have your merchant account cancelled.
this may not work if you have a contract, but if the business doesn't make it easy enough to cancel a service agreement they have no right to my money and i'm going to make sure my response affects their bottom line so they pay attention and cancel my account.
this may not work if you have a contract, but if the business doesn't make it easy enough to cancel a service agreement they have no right to my money and i'm going to make sure my response affects their bottom line so they pay attention and cancel my account.
[deleted]
“Hard” is a stretch. Annoying maybe.
in other words "while you are leaving, let us make sure you will never come back"
privacy.com breaks the back button in my browser. How do they do that?
1. Cancel payments
I was expecting a 500 server error.
The NYT at least lets you use PayPal. When I wanted to cancel I couldn't even get through to a rep, so I just switched my payment method to PayPal and then deauthorized the recurring payment from PayPal.
wasnthere(1)
Very funny indeed. :)
I subscribed to the New York Times with a simple one-step "put in your credit card deets". One year later I was going to leave the country so tried to cancel it. After several steps of forms you get the phone number of someone to call to cancel (remember phone calls?!). They put the hard sell to stay.
My plans changed, I stayed in the country. I really loved my NYTimes subscription (I miss my crosswords) - but ain't no way I'm signing up again until they make it equally easy to leave as it is to join. I apply that to every company I deal with now.