FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

Amazon is the worst in this regard.

You should try cancelling the New York Times, Bon Appetite, or Planet Fitness

What about Adobe?

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/06/...

every single time you buy something it's a minefield to avoid subscribing to prime.

Cancelling The Economist was pretty terrible too.

Not sure why you're downvoted they have multiple beg screens and manipulative language. There might be worse overall like NYT making you contact support but Amazon is for sure "worst in class" in the category of services that can be cancelled online.

[ ] Tick if you don't not unapprove of getting a free Prime trial when you purchase goods without checking the above box for not being completed. /s

I went through the cancellation process for NYT once before.

Which is the entire reason I am not a subscriber at my current address. It's too bad, I'd pay for it otherwise.

I still receive (paper!) letters semi regularly about subscribing after I cancelled. It was so hard to do too, cancelling my NYT subscription was a breeze in comparison.

They took me for a year of student-prime during a brief time period (UI bug?) where there was a button that only asked if I wanted free shipping on the current order and didn't have any of the other normal language/links/... suggesting that I was subscribing to a service in the process. I don't think it's an accident that the default payment period was 1yr either.

I cancelled in May with their chatbox and not only was it hassle-free but instead of refunding the remaining pro rata portion of the year I got the entire year's subscription fee refunded without even asking for it.

The NYT was the worst. Had to call them on the phone. The guy I was talking to offered progressively better deals, until he basically offered me a year for next to nothing. I was angry at that point and determined to cancel, and said "No, JUST CANCEL" and he laughed out loud at me. Instant, permanent never-a-NYT-customer again.

I often wonder how these companies predict the expected permanent loss of customers over time due to their tactics and factor that against the expected gain of wearing people down until they just keep paying.

I'm so butthurt about NYT's treatment of me when I wanted to cancel that I won't even consider it through their iOS app, which would be a subscription controlled by Apple (and therefore trivial to cancel).

Ahh, okay, glad to see they've updated the process. Previously you had to call and find your way through a maze of disinterested people putting you on hold.

Plus it's wild they staff an entire agency to handle these types of calls. Talk about a loser's mindset.

Yeah, I would happily subscribe for a month to read an article I'm interested in if it weren't so hard to cancel.

This is basically what I do with The Guardian where I donate after reading.

having to go in physically to cancel for Planet Fitness was absurd and infuriating. but it worked, i delayed it for months out of procrastination

I cancelled through the “sound very angry and know what charge back means” when I wrote to their customer service. That was years ago. I would likely resub when I can do so through Apple Store.

Planet Fitness pisses me off just in that they require giving them your checking account number to sign up instead of accepting credit cards. The only excuse I've heard for why that's a legitimate decision is that "some people are rude and will cancel a credit card instead of just saying they want to cancel their membership." But given that Planet Fitness can immediately shut off access for that person's app/QR code the instant a payment gets rejected, I simply do not believe the number of cancelled credit cards they'd have to deal with justifies the security risk and hassle (and lock-in, like you said) that their solution causes.

The fact that even with the Black Card (any location) membership, you still have to be tied to one "home" location and can only manage your plan at that one location is also predatory. I've read stories of people calling into Planet Fitness corporate and eventually getting a customer service rep to cancel their plan (when the location refused to do so remotely), so it's not a limitation of their system and it's not a legal restriction, it's just another way they make it difficult to cancel.

I will mention, one loophole for at least getting around a bad Planet Fitness location (e.g. a manager pretending they're not receiving the cancellation form in the mail) is going to another location, having them transfer your membership there, and then cancelling with them. I've done the store-and-back thing for changing plans before, and the managers oftentimes don't care/are happy to help with it.

Between their reporting and these billing stories I'm never trusting NYT with anything again.

Perhaps they've changed their process, but I canceled my New York times subscription about 2 weeks ago was able to do it online with absolutely no problem. It was a very easy process. They did offer me much better deal when I tried to cancel but I still went through with it.