The second a website harasses me to turn off my adblocker, I bail. Don't click the replies there's some brainlet battle going on down there. I have my ways of adblocking figure it out yourselves.
This reminds me of Hulu. First, they came out with shows you could watch free of charge online because there were ads (you know, like TV). Then they moved to a paid tier with no ads and a free tier with ads. Still makes sense, paying to remove ads. Then they moved to no free plan. Now you have to pay to access the content and still get ads, then pay even more to remove the ads. Lol. Also, a lot of people are too young to know this, but when cable was first debuted where you paid to access TV channels, literally all of cable had no ads, since, you know, you were already paying to access it. Then they added ads on top of paying for cable. Greed. Greed never changes.
@@Kobe-jz2zz For me, it's about supporting those involved with making the stuff I like. But back in the day when I didn't have enough money for that kind of shit, you're damn right I pirated it.
I detest sales. When I was jobless for a long time and at my rope's end, I applied for a sales manager position in a decently-sized company. It made me sick to my stomach to pester people, forcing onto them products they clearly stated they didn't want or need. And I was instructed to keep pressing until either they cave in and agree or hang up. I felt so uncomfortable, like I was an annoying douchebag hitting on a barista at a coffeeshop. I quit literally three days in.
That sounds terrible man, hope ur doing better now, I can’t really relate to that specifically, but I can relate to that feeling of extreme uncomfortably. I’ve had some situations kind of like that, the best we can do is just let time heal the wound.
Im a door to door advertiser so I dont neccesarily sell stuff but I have to get people to agree to get sold stuff later on, not as bad but still scummy, my script is a complete lie as to what actually happens (at least enough to where they can't be sued) our 1 time call is actually like 12 calls but different salesmen each time so they each are giving you a 1 time call. I'm currently looking for a New job. I hate it, like I'm luring people into a trap.
real asf dude i don’t even do sales just customer service front desk at a swim school, i like it but my last job struggled with retention/profit and started making us call the people who did a 2 week session and didn’t sign up for recurring lessons. and ofc 98% of the time they weren’t interested and i just felt like i was harassing them!! it sucked. and if they gave a vague “need to talk to spouse” or something we had to call them AGAIN a week later omg the worst
@@lasody1766 how new is that law? I do live in eu member country and when I had to cancel my union membership a few years ago they made me first first ask for cancelation, then they snail mailed me a form i had to fill out to snail mail that back to them. Edit: I joined online i just a few seconds.
It will be illegal soon in the USA. The FTC is tackling this problem. It's awful. I've personally obtained debt earlier in my life because the ability to cancel my xbox live sub back in 2010 was impossible. I removed my CC, canceled the service, and they still charged me "Well, we used the last CC on file." "But I canceled" "No, but your subscription ran out, so we paid for it with the last CC on file." "No, I canceled." "No, your subscription ran out." awful fucking shit.
something similar happened with me and Audible. I love reading and audiobooks, but I'm a slow reader in any format and $15 a month was just too much of a money drainer for me. I went on my laptop to cancel it and had to SCOUR almost every single part of my profile and account settings to find the cancellation button and eventually I just couldn't find it. It was super easy to UPGRADE my membership, but it felt impossible to cancel it. Eventually I went onto the live chat feature, and when I told the questionnaire that lets the representative know why you're reaching out that I wanted to cancel my membership, they kept me on hold for literally 30 minutes. I tried again, and I was on hold for ten before I decided to go back to the questionnaire and say my reason for a representative was "billing issues." I got a rep right away. I told him "Please cancel my membership. I have no billing issues. I cannot pay for this anymore and I don't want to be talked out of it." and he cancelled it right away. What a joke.
That's weird it's really easy to find on my account :o I just suspend for 3 months when I can't afford it, so I get to keep my saved credits etc. Could never go without my audible
As a college student studying Journalism (with hopes to work in broadcast, while maybe writing my own personal ad-free articles and publishing them for free access), I was thrilled when I got to write an op-ed for one of Orlando’s biggest newspapers. Except I had to pay to read it. The article I wrote. I had to pay for a monthly subscription. I couldn’t buy one copy. I HAD to subscribe. And then they called me forty seven million times after I cancelled to see if they could get me to come back.
Can't you just tell them to cancel the recurring payment. That's what i do. I don't even call my bank. I just open up the app and go to direct debits and click cancel
@@gooner7331Most bank apps don't have that feature built-in directly into their apps, hence why people need to either call or just mark it as fraudulent. One of the few good things about being in a state like California is that it's mandated for these crap sites to let you unsubscribe online from the website, like the New York Times.
The news industry never figured out how to make itself work on the internet. When I was a journalism major I decided to quit because of my intro to digital journalism class teacher who ran one of the states larger online news agencies said, "you'll get nowhere if you do not learn how to brand yourself." Mind you, up until that point, the whole thing was basically - no one should be able to tell who wrote the article because it only covers the facts. So yeah, journalism is a dumpster fire.
@@wesshiflet2214 In an ideal world. That's why the BBC exists, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation exists etc. But because of the internet it's impossible for journalism to be completely publicly funded
I used to work for a media company focused on 'journalism'. You wouldn't believe what they told retention agents to say when they were faced with a deceased persons account. Many stories from that place.
@@Gilbert_Dice_Gottfried Aside from the strange ID rules they had (first a relative could alter or cancel the account, then that wasn't allowed, then it was allowed again) but retentions were advised to ask if anyone else in the family wanted the account/subscription and highlight all features/benefits, and argue the point to exhaustion. No refunds were to be offered even if they had paid 3 months in advance if they managed to cancel the subscription. Then again retention was dodgy AF anyway and they would pause subscriptions while telling customers they'd cancelled them to save their retention rate. No one really got brought up on that either. The goal is to make it was hard as possible to cancel to inflate subscription numbers. Someone misspelled their email address and had two accounts because of it? No refund, try and convince them to give the account to someone else. You got charged twice? You can wait 3 months for a refund. The payment system for a subscription service is double charging customers which the company has known about for months? It'll get fixed...eventually...
Best way to avoid half of this, when they ask why your canceling just say "I am going to prison." Your head will spin at how fast they will cancel you.
I feel like just contacting the bank to cancel the payments is easier. Their policies aren't legally binding, so if they try to force you into anything that doesn't automatically stop the payments, you should also be able to report the additional unwanted charges as fraud. They can't do anything about it without losing a LOT of money even if they win. They'll just give up and bend the knee to you if you put up a fight- or they'll learn to do so the hard way.
And that just highlights how much of a fucking problem it is. How the hell have world leaders NOT step- Oh wait I know. Stupid, pathetic. Worthless Lobbyists that are on the company’s payroll. The only lobbyists that should be allowed to exist are lobbyists that lobby for laws to BETTER our lives. Not just feed greed.
With some banks you can just tell them you unsubscribed but they fraudulently charged you. Bam now they can’t charge your card and you get your money back.
I did this with Chegg. After I graduated from college I cancelled my subscription but kept getting charged. I kept trying to cancel but nothing happened, so I called my bank and told them and they immediately stopped all charges. That’s the way to go imo. Screw these companies they are literally robbing you.
I said it before and I'll say it again: Write your congressman, write your state representatives, write your state attorney general. Flood their inboxes every single day. Subscription services should be as easy as it is to sign up for, so if it takes less than three minutes for me to sign up for a subscription, it should be the same amount of clicks to unsubscribe. The fact that you have to write a registered letter to the corporation requesting cancellation, where it will be reviewed, takes five to fifteen business days and either approved or denied is BS. This is how we got Magnuson-Moss put in place. And we can do it again. We just have to annoy the shit out of our representatives. Don't be mean, don't curse, don't blame any political party over another. They're both guilty for this. Just explain to them why consumer laws that make it as easy to cancel as it is to sign up is the only way for true fairness and fundamentally needed consumer protection. If you can sign up online then you should be able to unsubscribe online with the same number of clicks and no approvals. I mean it's not like these companies. Send me A registered letter 5 days after I subscribe to something and go are sure you want to sign up
"Ads help pay the journalists" is such a stupid angle when the subscriber is directly paying the website. Pay the journalists with the money I'm giving you.
@@pixlhoundits an automated comment, so many are left the creator will never see your reply... youre only feeding their engagement, even if you think youre sticking it to them somehow
I've read a story from an ex-employee from a cable service that she got _fired_ after not trying all their avenues possible to convince a costumer to stay on their service during a phone call after this costumer called to cancel The costumer in question was a grieving daughter who was trying to cancel the cable service that her recently-passed mother was subscribed to
Top tip: if you ever have any issues unsubscribing just cancel the payment in your banking app, or phone the bank. They deal with this stuff all the time and will be happy to help you cancel. Also if enough people are complaining to their bank about a particular company or service, sometimes banks will start treating that company as suspicious or even pressure them to stop scamming people.
Banks, in my experience, have the best customer service of all, they are just like "Hi whats your problem, oh sorry to hear that I´ll take care of it" 5 minutes later that problem it´s solved.
This sort of works, it depends on where you live [specifically, in the US] as to whether you also must notify the merchant of cancellation. Chargebacks cost the merchant money so... if you can arrange a cancellation in writing - in good faith - PLUS a chargeback - if the merchant changes you again after receiving your cancellation notice - from your credit card company then this tactic can work. It just doesn't scale, unfortunately, and isn't going to change the behavior of these sorts of schemes. The problem is if you live in a state [in the US] that doesn't protect consumers, you can end up getting recharged after the merchant disputes the chargeback. Or if you've agreed to some terms of service where you have to pay out some contract for some set period of time (Adobe) or something else more draconian. In regards to a bank with an ACH transaction, yes you can stop it at the bank (or, preferably a credit union) but depending on where you live [in the US] the merchant may be able to show that you received a service and in fact owe the money they were attempting to debit your account for, and the bank will pay that amount from your account unless its contested. This could happen *months* after you've thought you've won and you've washed your hands of that subscription service once and for all.
What they are doing is actually illegal. In 2010 they passed the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) "Click to Cancel" provision and the 2010 Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act (ROSCA). It states that if the process to subscribe is as simple as a few clicks, than the unsubscribe process needs to be the same. They are violating federal law by even asking any questions and not just processing the cancel and being done with it. And the reason they passed the law was to stop this exact type of stuff.
A law that is shoddily enforced might as well not exist to these companies. I've even encountered spam 'newsletters' with no unsubscribe option at all, on their site or in the emails
To everyone who's saying it's not enforced: even if it's not, if you directly mention ROSCA and "Click to Cancel" to the chat person and specify that they are breaking the law, they will probably fold.
My favorite was when I tried to cancel my internet because I was moving to another state that didn't have the service. The number of times they offered to change to my new apartment was ridiculous. They even offered to bundle TV with it and were so confused that I didn't have a TV. And this was 2016/2017. Can't imagine how bad they are now.
Reminds me of gym memberships. They would purposely obfuscate the process, have no links or references to cancellation on their websites, if you contacted them by phone they would put you on hold for a long time after you mentioned cancellation and they would then tell you you have to do the request by snail mail. And on top of that they would want you to subscribe using a direct bank account line (no debit or credit cards). This was most commercial gyms. It only changed recently when California passed a law prohibiting such practices.
Speak for yourself! When I pay to have more Ads I feel like an elite individual allowed into a special club for only the most gullible of idiots who enjoy Ads more than the content I subscribe to. It makes me feel like I have no idea of the value of money and am willing to waste it on the most trivial of things rather than a usable budget in which to live off of.
I feel so much smarter & more informed than everybody else when I see an ad for Ford trucks. I have this great opportunity that nobody else has to drive a Ford!
The worst cancellation I ever went through was with Regal Unlimited. You have to email them telling them you'd like to cancel, then 2-3 days later they email you back asking if you're sure and that if you don't reply they are just going to assume you changed your mind and continue to charge you. How shady is that!?
That’s sounds pretty bad. Without going into all the details of my worst cancellation ever I’ll just say DO NOT ever move to someplace out in the middle of nowhere where your only Internet provider option is HughesNet. It will be the worst customer service experience you’ll ever have, and then when you finally come to your sense and move back into civilization you’ll jump through more hoops than you could ever imagine to end your service with them. To add insult to injury, you’ll get monthly phone calls from other Internet providers who are “constantly expanding their service areas” trying to get you sign up for their service only to be told that their service isn’t currently available in your area.
@@Kc-ib8hzI’ve noticed almost anything sponsored by TH-camrs is gonna be predatory. The only TH-cam sponsorship I think was good was Raycon, mine lasted like 4 years
As you mentioned!!! A few months ago I got a membership from Planet Fitness and then forgot that I had it. I signed up and was approved from home. I never left my house. Signed up for a monthly payment and on the third month they charged me an extra $50 dollars for yearly maintenance which I wasnt aware of. Needless to say I chose to cancel and called them. The guy on the demanded that I come into the store to cancel in person or mail them a letter. Not an email, mail them a letter. Which I truly havent done in 17 years. He said its policy. We cant cancel online or over the phone. I argued with this fella over holding my card hostage for an hour before he finally asked me "Why cant you come in?" A very simple question. I told him I'd never even been inside the gym. Not even once, why would I come in now unless its for you to try to "trap" me into my membership. He finally caved and cancelled my membership. So much for policy. Dont let these companies bully you. Stand your ground or take it to your bank and have them block payments.
Planet told me the same. I moved to my college town before I found out they wanted me to be in store. But luckily, when I called my gym they made it super easy for me. I just had to send them an email saying why I want to cancel and they did it remotely. I got lucky.
Before Planet Fitness, Bally's had a similar strategy except that you had to cancel within 90 days of initial signup. If you didn't cancel before then, you were held to contract for 2 years. I made damn sure to print in very clear times on fine paper.
Ah yeah. I had the same experience. I told them "You've heard on a recorded line that I wish to cancel my membership. Y'all can either cancel the membership or the next communication will be a small claims filing." They didn't send another bill. Doesn't matter if I had a case or not; the account isn't worth the hassle.
24 hour fitness wouldn’t cancel my membership unless I went IN PERSON to talk to the manager who was only there during my work hours. No way in hell I would take time off work to cancel my membership. I got fed up and just called my bank and they put a stop to all future charges and even credited me for like 3 months of payments.
yeah I don't understand why more people don't do this, instead of going to who's getting the money to tell them to stop taking money why not tell the bank to not allow them to get anymore money??
@@exceptionalanimations1508 i recall it affecting people's credit score if they used a credit card to subscribe? not too sure how that works, never bothered getting anything outside of my debit card and paypal(before they started charging for inactivity)
Lmao, that reminds me of the Friends episode when they couldn't cancel their gym membership because they had to do it in person, so the gym got a sexy lady to come in to handle it. Then they tried to cancel their bank accounts, only to have a sexy bank lady going to help them quit lol. But forreal, I had to do the same thing with one of my old gym memberships because they outsourced the company that took payments so I had to go through them and I just said fuck it and put a stop payment to it all.
My favorite is when you try to cancel online or via frontline support call and they force you to speak with another department to close your account. Drives me nuts.
I used to do technical phone support for a ISP. After all tech support getting outsourced to India they moved us to the "Saves" department which is just trying to stop someone from cancelling their service. I've never had a more soul crushing job.
I worked in a call center for AT&T. When someone wanted to cancel, we’d have to signal our manager we had a cancellation then wait for them to come over. Meanwhile, we were gathering information from the customer before we escalated. After manager escalation, with her questions and retention offers, they get sent to the retention department where they have to speak to 3 more people (with more offers) before getting put on a callback schedule to cancel with a cancellation rep (who has yet more offers after making you wait up to 48 hours for the callback). That’s why most people just transfer their number to the new carrier rather than just canceling. That and it’s just easier to keep your old number.
@@FoxenPiano it is. And that was way back in 2009. I can’t imagine what it’s like now. I read somewhere they were beta testing a switch back program for the customers that switched away but kept their number. First it’s the hoops to get you to stay, then harassment when you finally leave. It’s like breaking up with a crazy person.
If a website: - Asks me to close my ad blocker - does not allow me to opt out of cookies within 2 clicks I automatically close it. The internet is HUUUUGE you will find what you need somewhere else whatever it is
Extra trick: most websites load the text an images before loading the pop up scripts, so if you refresh with shift+f5 (which ignores the cache when reloading, making the website load slower) then press esc to cancel before it finishes loading, most of the time you can browse without the pop up coming up.
@@ERECTED_MONUMENT Holy, am a programmer and I had no idea. My "smart" way was usually to inspect, and delete the overlay tag, but some websites are "smarter" than that, I'll definitely give this a try today !
@@ERECTED_MONUMENT Wow, I never knew that! That's super helpful. For me, this works best on the Washington Post, as it has a physical popup that doesn't block all the text from loading.
Dude I used to work for a massive journalism company (it covers most local newspapers) and while we did physical papers, when it came to cancelling it was impossible. You had to call in and we had to try and save the customer from cancelling and it was hell. People werent getting their newspapers for WEEKS on end, still being charged for it and then when they call to stop the madness, you got greeted with someone asking you to stay for credits for even more papers you wouldnt get! It was ridiculous! And the digital papers were no better either, I heard they barely worked too!
I have this same problem with some sites that you have to sign up for to see if their program works. Then, when it doesn't work as you hoped and try to delete your account, you have to contact someone to have your account deleted. Even if they say they deleted your account you still get emails and often the account doesn't actually get deleted. At the very least there needs to be a regulation for a disclaimer on these sites that you must request your account deleted or forces these places to let you delete your account on your own time... I don't know, something.
I used to work for a company that told us that we had to have a customer tell me "no" to a type of extended warranty 4 times before I stopped asking. I thought that was horrible customer service and that if you truly want to keep your customers, you treat them with respect. The Economist should be ashamed for that nonsense.
Yeah you should see the mentalfuckry OfficeDepot made us do to try and trap people into their tech and subscription services. The printer ink subscription was an absolute nightmare designed solely to anger the customers at the cashiers who have zero control over the policy
Generally the issue with these situations is how measurable something is. Selling one more warranty 1 out of a 100 times is measurable. The amount of goodwill lost on the other 99 occasions is a lot harder to capture. And if it is captured by like a review systems the blame is put on the employee and not on what the employee is asked to do.
This cancelling bs stuff is getting everywhere. I moved from my past renting apartament to other one and i decided to cancel my home internet provider in the last apartament. So i pressed to cancel the service in their site, then i got an email that i need to write a written document and then i got an answer that its only done through calling them. Later I had to repeat 5 times that i don’t need it anymore and there is internet in the new apartament already and no the past renter doesn’t want to take over my plan. Like how cancerous these companies are becoming.
i paid my internet service manually (or set automatically) using digital wallet instead of paying monthly via credit card these day. it's like our credit card was held captive by these companies whenever we want to unsubscribe.
Ugh I can relate to this as something similar happened to me with a famous shopping website in our country called Myntra. This is going to be long so if you have a short attention span, keep scrolling. A few years ago, I ordered a top from Myntra for which I had to register on their website with my phone number and email. Before creating the account, I forgot to uncheck the box that said that they'll send promotional stuff to our registered number and email. I was getting bombarded with their stupid sales ads 4 or 5 times a week. Considering I don't purchase new clothes often, let alone online, those ads were completely useless to me. So, I tried finding a way to turn them off on my Myntra account, and that's when I learnt that the only way to do it was to email their customer support ID, have them call me twice on separate occasions to confirm whether I want the promotional emails and messages cancelled, and then cancel it finally. The day after I sent the email, I got a call on my way to work, so I was able to pick it and confirm my cancellation. But they will cancel only after the second confirmation call, which came the next day during my work hours, so I couldn't pick them. It happened the day after also and again I couldn't pick them. So, they stopped calling me and continued bombarding my email and number with ads. So, I sent them a follow up email, suggesting that they call me during 1 pm to 2 pm lunch hour or after I got off of work at 5 pm. Their call timings are anytime between 9 am to 6 pm, so those timings were workable for them. Idk whether they were joking with me, because after sending that email, I began getting calls right after 2 pm and right before 5 pm, and never called me anytime after that. I got so furious that I sent them a strongly worded email, highlighting the time they were supposed to call me. I still got calls right after those timings. I couldn't care less anymore and sent them a few emails with a lot of insults. I got one more call during work hours after that and then they stopped. I think they finally got the clue because they stopped the promotional ads without any confirmation calls. It's crazy how all it took for me to get promotional emails and messages was not unchecking the consent box (yeah, it came checked and we had to uncheck it if we didn't want it) but to have them stop, I have to follow all these unnecessary steps.
yup this shit is getting rediculous at this point, and this is precisely why we need regulation to comabt this shit. but sadly in america most of all you have bloody morons who are "nurrr we need smoll Guberment.....anything more is Communism!!!!" but sadly some of this shit is begining to bleed into other countries.
I had a problem getting rid of a gym membership I had back then. I resorted to faking my death certificate and my 'next of kin' contacted them and sent the certificate. Bam - my membership was immediately cancelled without any questions. What are they going to do than cancel at this point? Start checking am I really dead or not and suing me for document forgery? No, they will just cancel and problem solved. Over the years, this gym was not the only place where I had to use this method. So I have a death certificate ready, I just open it in Photoshop, write a new date and I'm 'conveniently dead'.
Thank you for talking about this bro, I had the same type of trouble with canceling my spectrum internet service. They’re my number 1 op, I literally hate them. It took me months to get out of the loop holes of them transferring me around from person to person, telling me I have more and more fees, while doing their tricks to make me call back over and over. I finally got it canceled but gosh darn I hate this type of stuff 😭😭
lol my mom uses it in a kind of opposite way lol. She calls and tells them she’s gonna cancel and will wait them out until they offer her the lowest rate possible and then she resubscribes😭 she loves her SiriusXM
Call them out on whatever the American equivalent for Disability Discrimination Act is. I've had companies tell me that the only way to cancel is to call them up, I quote the DDA and tell them they need to accommodate for all disabilities, and me being deaf means I can't use the phone. It suddenly gets cancelled in a single email, just by suggesting that they could be in violation of a basic human rights act.
They can / could charge you a fee for breaking your contract. I recommend using a visa or master card prepaid gift card so it’s not clicked to your bank account.
@@Jonny2by4if you get black listed by jurno websites, it’s probably the best thing that will happen to you, imagine not ever dealing again with useless metro journalists.
I hate to admit but I applied with an insurance scam; I thought my house insurance was expired so I signed on with some company that was bombarding my house with letters. $200 a month until my mom told me the insurance is already under the mortgage. The agent that said I can call any time didn't pick up his extention and calling or emailing to cancel was impossible. I told my bank to block payments and learned my lesson
i remember i signed up for FYE to get a disount on a purchase i made. i lost the pamphlet with my account code so i had to call customer service in order to cancel my subscription. the lady on the phone tried her absolute hardest to keep me on the subscription she even went as far as to discount the subscription. i understand its prolly part of her job but it felt pretty manipulating.
I have literally had websites crash my phone's web browser before, because they were loading in so many video ads, all at once, and each one was breaking the article up into small paragraphs of maybe 5 line (not sentences, lines) sections.
I want to try to get on the website. When I first logged in and started scrolling my phone froze. That website was loading so many ads it bricked my phone for like 10 minutes well I desperately tried to shut my phone down and restart. It’s just unbelievable.
I remember back in the late '90s you had annoying shit like fake windows popping up where the X in the top right corner was just a link to some pay day loan bullshit or some other scam. Feels like the internet is going back in that direction, but without as much of the cool content as there was back in those days.
When I was working for a call center for a phone service we basically got penalized for customers calling to cancel services. They basically told us TL “remind them the benefits of the services they’re cancelling.” Not only that but upsell them on other services too to keep them interested, and if we didn’t we would get “in trouble.” A lot of people had to cancel shit to save money, there was no way I was going to try to talk people into keeping stuff they were calling to get rid of in the first place.
That sucks. I used to work for a company that did this until they realized it fucked up the metrics. I really hate trying to upsell a service that I know for myself, having worked for the company that provides it, sucks balls because the stuff they make you say isn't genuine. Plus, trying to upsell only irritates the customers most of the time, and who gets the brunt of that? The agents, that's who. Call time is extended, you get negative survey scores, and you get low call completion rates because for sure the customer will come back for another round to have the issue settled with someone else. It's a complete waste of time and energy.
I also have a story to share. Albeit this one feels genuinely illegal. At the Customer Escalation Desk, I call up a customer wanting to get a refund of an accidental renewal of their grocery app wallet. The dude mistakenly transferred 30k instead of 3k to this grocery app wallet, and I was given no authorisation to actually tranfer it. I tried to convince him that this will be resolved and submitted the relevant information. 2 week later, the money is still there.
I made the mistake of paying for a corn subscription once that was part of a multi-site “thing”. They sneakily didn’t make it clear when signing up that they automatically signed you up for ALL of the sites instead of just the one you wanted AND charged you more because of it. What I didn’t know at the time was that the site i subscribed to was the only one with straight guy/girl content. All of the other ones were LGBTQ-focused mostly guy/guy which I have no problem with but not my preference. When I called to cancel, the lady on the other end said verbatim “Uhhh you want to cancel?! Why!? Did you NOT sign up for [proceeds to rattle off every gay affiliate site one-by-one in the most condescending tone in order to embarrass me into hanging up]?? Are you not into GAY CORN!?” I was absolutely livid. First because I actually was getting embarrassed but then I snapped and yelled back “THIS IS THE WORST GAY CORN I HAVE EVER HAD THE DISPLEASURE OF J*RKING OFF TO! CANCEL MY SUBSCRIPTION NOW OR I’LL HAVE MY BANK SETTLE IT!!” Never made that mistake again.
When you’re in high school writing a paper the night before it’s due, you find the best site ever for your argument and then you see a subscription button or millions of ads in your way
yeah youtube does this for me. usually i can reopen the video in another tab and it will pass through but not every time. better to do that than watch 2 unskiipable ads
@@meatsauce12 I started using adblocks on TH-cam like 10 years ago or something, when for some reason there were ads with SOUNDS at the top of the recommended videos. There was no way to turn the sound of the ads off, so it became literally impossible to watch the video without that annoying beep every 5 seconds. Never turned it off ever since, and shortly after, obligatory ads before the video started to pop, which I fortunately didn't witness.
You can disable Javascript to get rid of those "turn your ad block off" warnings. 😁 Works most of the time. There's a Disable Javascript extension for most browsers and uBlock Origin can also disable Javascript.
The more money a company spends on advertising, the more costs they cut with their product. There is an inverse relationship between how often you see a product advertised and it's quality. I literally avoid anything I see in an ad, anywhere. I look up what the good version of said product is.
The best way to get ride of a subscription that is not allowing you to unsub is to contact your bank and have them block any payments from that company
Tried to do that once some years ago and the bank told me “we can’t really do that, you should cancel the subscription”… I hung up, called again, talked to a new representative and told them I lost my card and to cancel the entire damn card. Ever since then I avoid subscriptions like the fucking plague
@@GravitasZeroSmart play. Tough when I needed to unsub from a service via bank contact, i was successful. Guess it depends on the service and bank institution.
when an article asks me to subscribe to view the article, if you just inspect the website and slowly delete parts of the site and remove the barrier and hopefully removes the block
You always have the secret third option - bank refund. If more people did bank refunds when businesses hassle them, you will see these practices die fairly quickly. Making people pay for something they don't want to pay for is kind of... not allowed these days. You can totally call your bank and say "I want to cancel my subscription, but they are not letting me, I tried everything with them, refund me my money". Enough people do that, The Economist loses its ability to process VISA/MasterCard, and then they either change or go bankrupt.
Visa and MC will never make a place like the economist not able to process their payments. LOL, THe economist and the like isnt a small business owner. THey dont need to follow those rules. WHo owns the economist? They can smooth it over with VIsa MC, they have been around since 1843. Visa MC wont shut down their processing LOL. Naive to think that.
@libertybelllocks7476 still wouldn't hurt to tell them to shove it by refunding. Like he said enough people do it and they will change. Visa will still suck them off I'm sure but things will still change for the better
@@BraydonAttoe-xs4yg I never disagreed that it wouldnt help invoke change. But the idea that their processing will get revoked by Visa MC if people do a whole bunch of chargebacks isnt reality. Dont try and strawman me.
Hopefully things on this front get better. About a month ago, I hadn’t touched my subscription to the NYT newsletter, and instead of emailing me the next newsletter, they actually auto unsubscribed me and sent out an email saying “We see you haven’t opened our newsletters recently, and will stop sending them.” I was so surprised because I was used to big services like this being horrible about unsubscribing, and this just made it seem so easy. The Email even had a one click way to resubscribe if I wouldn’t have wanted it cancelled. Really, all journalism outlets should do something along these lines, it felt like a breath of fresh air.
I had to cancel my free trial for the economist and it was miserable. I couldn’t do it from the app, and when I tried to do it on the website the support chat seemed to be the only way and the guy was not helping. Thankfully I was subscribed through PayPal so I could just turn off payments to the “service”.
Planet fitness has the worst cancellation. You either have to mail in your cancellation or have to walk into the gym and tell them you don’t want it anymore. Most people don’t wanna go through the trouble so they just never end up cancelling
loophole is closing your bank account, and getting a new one later. The reason they ask for your bank details is so that the customer can't just cancel their card(how I cancel most subscriptions) I just get a new card and it can't charge the old one anymore
Commenting this in case anyone needs it, California has a policy that prevents companies from doing this. If you change your PF home club to one in Cali on their website, you can cancel it online 24 hours later
Anything that requires an article that’s not Wikipedia is a nightmare. I was trying to read a baking recipe and it was borderline impossible with the incessant pop ups and video ads, I couldn’t even scroll or maintain a position on the article bc the ads were throwing me all over the place. Ik everyone likes to call wiki garbage, but how about a little appreciation they do not use advertising and politely ask users to donate instead? Some people say it’s annoying, but I far prefer that. It’s a far more pleasant experience than having unnecessary ads literally everywhere…
I’ll always take websites that ask for donations over websites filled with ads. Even the most “persistent” donation askers will still only put one banner at the top of the page once every couple of months for a week or something. Much better than websites with ads.
@blakksheep736 Some people have a belief that Wikipedia is unreliable since anyone can edit the articles. While that is true, there are also a lot of safeguards to keep it as legitimate as possible. You need sources for what you write, and if you don't provide them, it is clearly marked in the text. Plus, Wikipedia has a lot of volunteers who look through edits. Malicious or inaccurate edits usually don't last long.
@@blakksheep736 Some Wikipedia authors are way sloppier than others in terms of making sure everything is factual. Especially regarding any information which can be politically charged. The main problem though is people who take Wikipedia articles as gospel in situations that require more serious research. But literally all you have to do is go read the sources cited in the Wikipedia articles to see if they look legit, and then cite those sources rather than the Wikipedia article itself. It's a LOT less work than hunting down "real" sources from scratch. I remember one time I found some pretty comprehensive studies on the wear resistance and reliability of flash memory and mechanical hard drives this way. I looked like Mr. Smartypants when I handed in that assignment citing a bunch of research papers as sources, but all I'd done was check specifically where Wikipedia got its information from. It was really easy. Just a lot more reading.
Ive worked for customer service and I can tell you that the loyalty (cancellations department) of most companies is all the same, they fabricate excuses, lie to you, they try to shame you, theyll try to do ANYTHING to get you not to cancel, and at times theyll flat out tell you they cancelled your subscription when they did nothing. Thats not the employees fault, this companies will fire them for doing the only thing they are paid to do: cancel subscriptions. So they have 2 options, lie and do theyr job poorly to keep the customer, or loose theyr jobs, Its vile, and should be completely illegal.
If my job was to lie about cancelling accounts, I would begin the process of escalating the issue in the company and then probably try to go to court. Maybe I could get a few co-workers to join me. These are usually recorded calls, so there's proof of the customer's request. And the reason I'd first escalate the issue within the company because if you don't, they can say in court that they were never made aware of the issue. So, follow the (usually useless) escalation protocols, document everything, and then go to court if need be, and this is for anything related to your job.
@@BewareTheLilyOfTheValleykay, but customer service are low income/mid at best jobs. People with those jobs can't afford to fuck around with a big company in court, they need to eat
I tried cancelling a subscription for insurance and the lady on the call sounded desperate. She didnt say it, but her tone felt like "please dont unsubscribe or I am going to lose my job" sort of thing. I just kept my subscription for a day or two until I called back and got someone else and then unsubscribed.
@@BewareTheLilyOfTheValley why should it be the responsibility of a minimum wage employee to infiltrate and stop a corrupt company that's scamming people, that's what the LAW is for. It's not the fault of the employee that the government doesn't hold big buisnesses accountable
Few years back the only way I could've stop my payments for my gym membership was to send a physical letter to their HQ. Not through phone, live visit, or email. A physical letter.
Utilization of ad blocks is a moral obligation at this point. If the only way you can monetize your website is to cannibalize the content with over abundant advertising then your website does not produce enough value to exist in the market. At the point that they start making it harder to unsubscribe, That's where you was the consumer should just go call your bank and freeze all transactions with that company, flag them as a predatory service who is making unauthorized transactions. They have no grounds to argue with your bank when you explicitly ask for cancellation and they leave you on read.
Paying for a service and still getting ads is a disgusting example of corporate greed. I don't care if it's $1/mo or $1k/mo. If you pay them you should see zero ads period
Why don't companies understand, consumers hate ads. They get in the way of what we want to do. Whether watching tv, or streaming, or reading, driving, you can't escape it. And they have the gall to call them witty, We detest them.
When I went to work overseas for 2 years I called to cancel my phone plan and had to go through this nonsense. They tried EVERYTHING to convince me to not cancel it - they tried to convince me it was viable to continue using their service after moving (it was not), tried to convince me it'd be worth it for trips back, tried to convince me it was necessary or I'd lose my phone number, and finally when it became clear that none of these reasons were going to convince me they resorted to asking if I maybe had a friend or family member who may want to take up the plan until I returned. I was stunned into silence with that one - I never thought I'd have a place trying to convince me to sell their service to one of my friends or family members to get out of paying for it myself. Eventually they did cancel, but only after I started replying to every question with "have you cancelled my plan yet?"
The worst is a website that pleads with you to turn off adblock to read thier article - but then immediately requires you to subscribe to continue reading. I instantly place those websites on a block list.
there's a trick that works on some sites that require you to pay a subscription or of you "run out" of "free" articles, you can go into the debug section of your browser and turn off javascript
Here's what I've done in this situation: I call my bank and say that company is refusing to cancel my subscription, and my bank can forcibly halt any payments they try to take regardless.
My grandpa has a date on his calendar every year where he calls his internet provider to tell them he's cancelling, and then insists on it until they give him a super steep discount, then says fine and keeps it going.
I remember a class back in college forcing us to get a subscription to the economist and we got a code for a free month of it but it still charged to us after the fact.
Just found out my bank can cancel subscriptions for me on my behalf. Same gym situation as you mentioned, wanted to cancel after not having time/energy to go, but had to go in person... which I didn't have time/energy to do. Ended up pushing it until I forgot I was still signed up. Turns out I can just go into the app, click on the latest transaction and cancel it. We need more banks to offer this
If you're with Truist though, you're screwed. I even planned to cancel a gym membership and I changed credit cards but didn't update it with the gym, but somehow they were able to go behind my back and get my new credit card number from the bank without my consent.
The first gym i ever got a pass for they were rude to me about my weight when i went, so i tried to cancel and they made all this random stuff up and tried to scare me out of it, then they said i had to talk to the gym owner to cancel. Then when i came in to try to they said he was on vacation and i had to send him a letter in the mail to cancel. Yes, a letter in the mail. And they told me thats standard practice at most gyms. Eventually my dad went in and basically threatened them and suddenly they were like "ohhh you wanna cancel? We can easily do that right now" and he did it in a few button clicks. But then i got charged the next month and we had to go in again and he said theres a recurring cancellation fee. Yes RECCURING CANCELATION FEE. we basically straight up said wed burn the place down and they finally stopped. This was fitness 19 btw. If you wanna avoid that hellhole.
I dont even run an ad blocker and a lot of sites will tell me to turn off my ad blocker and block me from using the website at all. The internet is rotted
when i was switching music distributors i had to email my old one to cancel. They sent back an automated response that basically said I don't pay them enough to care and that i'd have to wait a week+ just for them to read it, or upgrade my subscription for better customer service.
When a “news” website tells me “turn off adblocker” I just close the tab. I wouldn’t mind if there were some ads… but the sheer number of them isn’t even the biggest problem, in many cases they place the ads certain ways to make you click them or have videos playing which not only are distracting but also force you to look where the hell the video ad is playing to then mute it (because you often can’t even close it).
@@marcokalendileo7849 Why wouldn’t I defend the ability to charge for your own work? They blocked you from the website because they don’t want you there if your not paying. I don’t see it as an unreasonable request to be paid for the content you made . It cost money to host the website and create the content, people have to make money to live. Without one of the two (ads or subs) the site simply couldn’t exist and therefore the content also.
The way the customer service responded to the ads thing is literally 1984. “I’m leaving cuz I hate the ads” “No, that’s wrong. You’re wrong. You’re gonna stay cuz the ads are good”
Imagine buying a journalism subscription to read articles and they serve you ads I'm blocking that website, uninstalling the app, and changing my phone, no second thoughts... whatsoever
My grandma had to call, email, and physically mail a letter to her previous security system to cancel her subscription. The call took 2 hours to reach customer support, they asked her why she wanted to cancel, offered $5 off, and then asked if anyone else would be willing to take over her bill. Then, they told her she needed to email them a picture of a bank statement containing a payment towards them to prove she was the account owner. A few days later, they replied to her email, and she was told she needed to physically mail them a letter asking to cancel her subscription. What a nightmare.
Ads dont even make me want to buy the product. It makes me want to stay away from it.
IMALLEXX IS A GOOD PERSON AND I HAVE PROOF!!!
Nobody wants to be easily influenced!
This shit is literally 2077
Especially targeted ads.
Like you don't need to harass me with stuff I already plan on buying.
Even the bots are toxic as hell now...
The second a website harasses me to turn off my adblocker, I bail.
Don't click the replies there's some brainlet battle going on down there. I have my ways of adblocking figure it out yourselves.
IMALLEXX IS A GOOD PERSON AND I HAVE PROOF!!!
@UTubeTrollPoliceNWO shut up
@UTubeTrollPoliceNWO dude..
@@bagillionairedon't reply, just report.
I reported his comment lmao@@bagillionaire
This reminds me of Hulu. First, they came out with shows you could watch free of charge online because there were ads (you know, like TV). Then they moved to a paid tier with no ads and a free tier with ads. Still makes sense, paying to remove ads. Then they moved to no free plan. Now you have to pay to access the content and still get ads, then pay even more to remove the ads. Lol.
Also, a lot of people are too young to know this, but when cable was first debuted where you paid to access TV channels, literally all of cable had no ads, since, you know, you were already paying to access it. Then they added ads on top of paying for cable. Greed. Greed never changes.
I remember this. That's why I no longer use Hulu.
Best way to beat piracy is to provide a better service, and they failed.
Dude I’m so close to just unsubscribe from Hulu the add on that are awful now. I get 3 adds every 5 minutes.
I watch everything illegally
I'm not sure why more people don't lok
@@Kobe-jz2zz For me, it's about supporting those involved with making the stuff I like.
But back in the day when I didn't have enough money for that kind of shit, you're damn right I pirated it.
@@JesterAzazel good point good point
I detest sales. When I was jobless for a long time and at my rope's end, I applied for a sales manager position in a decently-sized company. It made me sick to my stomach to pester people, forcing onto them products they clearly stated they didn't want or need. And I was instructed to keep pressing until either they cave in and agree or hang up. I felt so uncomfortable, like I was an annoying douchebag hitting on a barista at a coffeeshop. I quit literally three days in.
That sounds terrible man, hope ur doing better now, I can’t really relate to that specifically, but I can relate to that feeling of extreme uncomfortably. I’ve had some situations kind of like that, the best we can do is just let time heal the wound.
Im a door to door advertiser so I dont neccesarily sell stuff but I have to get people to agree to get sold stuff later on, not as bad but still scummy, my script is a complete lie as to what actually happens (at least enough to where they can't be sued) our 1 time call is actually like 12 calls but different salesmen each time so they each are giving you a 1 time call. I'm currently looking for a New job. I hate it, like I'm luring people into a trap.
I used to do sales for a Verizon authorized retailer and they had us doing slimey shit. Shockingly they are no longer in business lol
Same! I put my pride aside at work but that type of job is so bad for confidence instead of really boosting it :(
real asf dude i don’t even do sales just customer service front desk at a swim school, i like it but my last job struggled with retention/profit and started making us call the people who did a 2 week session and didn’t sign up for recurring lessons. and ofc 98% of the time they weren’t interested and i just felt like i was harassing them!! it sucked. and if they gave a vague “need to talk to spouse” or something we had to call them AGAIN a week later omg the worst
It should be illegal for them to make it harder to cancel than subscribing.
It's illegal in EU .Also the reply section of every comment really shows how much the internet is corrupted with bots...
@Soundielolbruh1 Seethe
@@Goblinboyo162Don’t feed the 🤖 s
@@lasody1766 how new is that law? I do live in eu member country and when I had to cancel my union membership a few years ago they made me first first ask for cancelation, then they snail mailed me a form i had to fill out to snail mail that back to them.
Edit: I joined online i just a few seconds.
It will be illegal soon in the USA. The FTC is tackling this problem. It's awful. I've personally obtained debt earlier in my life because the ability to cancel my xbox live sub back in 2010 was impossible. I removed my CC, canceled the service, and they still charged me "Well, we used the last CC on file." "But I canceled" "No, but your subscription ran out, so we paid for it with the last CC on file." "No, I canceled." "No, your subscription ran out." awful fucking shit.
Switch your location in settings to California and a cancel button MAGICALLY APPEARS to conform with their laws. It's actually a joke.
rare Cali W
common Cali W
@@schm147 When people are fleeing a state in droves the W's can't really be said to be common.
@@sqrlmonger outdated talking point. Our population actually started growing again as of last year. Google it.
@@schm147 big fucking cope, only cali win is the weather. (from someone who lived there for 18 years)
something similar happened with me and Audible. I love reading and audiobooks, but I'm a slow reader in any format and $15 a month was just too much of a money drainer for me. I went on my laptop to cancel it and had to SCOUR almost every single part of my profile and account settings to find the cancellation button and eventually I just couldn't find it. It was super easy to UPGRADE my membership, but it felt impossible to cancel it. Eventually I went onto the live chat feature, and when I told the questionnaire that lets the representative know why you're reaching out that I wanted to cancel my membership, they kept me on hold for literally 30 minutes. I tried again, and I was on hold for ten before I decided to go back to the questionnaire and say my reason for a representative was "billing issues." I got a rep right away. I told him "Please cancel my membership. I have no billing issues. I cannot pay for this anymore and I don't want to be talked out of it." and he cancelled it right away.
What a joke.
I had this exact issue with audible too
That's weird it's really easy to find on my account :o I just suspend for 3 months when I can't afford it, so I get to keep my saved credits etc. Could never go without my audible
As a college student studying Journalism (with hopes to work in broadcast, while maybe writing my own personal ad-free articles and publishing them for free access), I was thrilled when I got to write an op-ed for one of Orlando’s biggest newspapers. Except I had to pay to read it. The article I wrote. I had to pay for a monthly subscription. I couldn’t buy one copy. I HAD to subscribe. And then they called me forty seven million times after I cancelled to see if they could get me to come back.
I’d bet it was Orlando Sentinel… I’m in Orlando and am always frustrated bc they have good articles that I can’t read.
Whenever they make it hard to cancel my subscription I just call my bank and flag the charges as fraudulent.
@Soundielolbruh1no dad
@Soundielolbruh1go suck a fart.
Can't you just tell them to cancel the recurring payment. That's what i do. I don't even call my bank. I just open up the app and go to direct debits and click cancel
@Soundielolbruh1are these like bots or what
@@gooner7331Most bank apps don't have that feature built-in directly into their apps, hence why people need to either call or just mark it as fraudulent. One of the few good things about being in a state like California is that it's mandated for these crap sites to let you unsubscribe online from the website, like the New York Times.
Imagine wanting to make money by holding people's money hostage rather than actually making a good fucking product.
This is sad how you have such an underrated comment and all you get are bots, this comment needs to be seen more
so other bots r copying utp bots now?
Sadly, that's pretty much how our society is these days. Why make a quality product or service when you can scam or trick people into buying trash.
Sums up the state of modern journalism pretty well.
@@SealX_Gaming Thanks man. Its the internet. Sadly nothing we can do.
The news industry never figured out how to make itself work on the internet. When I was a journalism major I decided to quit because of my intro to digital journalism class teacher who ran one of the states larger online news agencies said, "you'll get nowhere if you do not learn how to brand yourself."
Mind you, up until that point, the whole thing was basically - no one should be able to tell who wrote the article because it only covers the facts.
So yeah, journalism is a dumpster fire.
because it shouldn’t be a business. business interests are incompatible with journalism
@@wesshiflet2214 That's a bit of an odd and meaningless statement my guy. People need to be paid for any industry to exist in any meaningful capacity.
@@CaradocgThat doesn't mean business should be a central component. That's how they treat healthcare in the US, and look how well that's working out.
@@Caradocg It should be publicly funded lol
@@wesshiflet2214 In an ideal world. That's why the BBC exists, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation exists etc. But because of the internet it's impossible for journalism to be completely publicly funded
I used to work for a media company focused on 'journalism'. You wouldn't believe what they told retention agents to say when they were faced with a deceased persons account. Many stories from that place.
What did they say?
I bet it was emotionless and little empathy
@@Gilbert_Dice_Gottfried Aside from the strange ID rules they had (first a relative could alter or cancel the account, then that wasn't allowed, then it was allowed again) but retentions were advised to ask if anyone else in the family wanted the account/subscription and highlight all features/benefits, and argue the point to exhaustion. No refunds were to be offered even if they had paid 3 months in advance if they managed to cancel the subscription. Then again retention was dodgy AF anyway and they would pause subscriptions while telling customers they'd cancelled them to save their retention rate. No one really got brought up on that either.
The goal is to make it was hard as possible to cancel to inflate subscription numbers. Someone misspelled their email address and had two accounts because of it? No refund, try and convince them to give the account to someone else. You got charged twice? You can wait 3 months for a refund. The payment system for a subscription service is double charging customers which the company has known about for months? It'll get fixed...eventually...
@@MeatsMudkipdamn thats just greedy and messed up
Best way to avoid half of this, when they ask why your canceling just say "I am going to prison." Your head will spin at how fast they will cancel you.
LMFAO
@Soundielolbruh1go suck a fart.
Better yet "I am going to prison for murdering the previous employee who didn't cancel my subscription immediately"
@Soundielolbruh1gay
@Soundielolbruh1did you take your Depakote today?
The FTC actually proposed a law to make it as easy to cancel subscriptions as it is to sign up. Would help get rid of this ridiculous interaction
Yeah until the industry lobbyists bribe... I mean "donate" to political campaigns & it gets killed real quick.
**cough** adobe
lobbyists on their way to prevent this from getting passed:
Subscription to fish wrap.
The FTC doesn't make laws. They make rules.
Trust no one with your money. Predatory practices is becoming more common.
I’ll just cancel my card. I call this technique “scorched earth” 🤣
I used to have a bank that issued throw away card numbers that you could delete when you wanted. It was great for trials in case you forgot to cancel.
I did this once. Generally not a good idea because they could send you to collections.
I feel like just contacting the bank to cancel the payments is easier. Their policies aren't legally binding, so if they try to force you into anything that doesn't automatically stop the payments, you should also be able to report the additional unwanted charges as fraud. They can't do anything about it without losing a LOT of money even if they win. They'll just give up and bend the knee to you if you put up a fight- or they'll learn to do so the hard way.
@@Justin-pe9clnah, is a subscription, not like not paying a bill.
They're right, their ads are thought-provoking. Because they provoke thoughts of anger in the reader.
@Soundielolbruh1 loser
@Soundielolbruh1 get a life kid
Its a bot, dont interact with it@ThatC1official
@@ThatC1official just report the bot and move on
It provoked the cancellation of the subscription
Adblockers are literally the only thing that keeps the internet useable.
And that just highlights how much of a fucking problem it is. How the hell have world leaders NOT step-
Oh wait I know. Stupid, pathetic. Worthless Lobbyists that are on the company’s payroll.
The only lobbyists that should be allowed to exist are lobbyists that lobby for laws to BETTER our lives. Not just feed greed.
@Soundielolbruh1 We can tell...
@UTubeTrollPoliceNWO Prison is just a room, so fuck a child, will ya?
@AuroraFlakes Yeah...without it WWIII would happen
And I'm sorry your comment section is filled with bots
With some banks you can just tell them you unsubscribed but they fraudulently charged you. Bam now they can’t charge your card and you get your money back.
Yeah, don't forget to open a new account, because now you won't have access to your money for 2 weeks 🙄
@@CMStrawbridgehuh? I don’t think that’s how it works mate…
I did this with Chegg. After I graduated from college I cancelled my subscription but kept getting charged. I kept trying to cancel but nothing happened, so I called my bank and told them and they immediately stopped all charges. That’s the way to go imo. Screw these companies they are literally robbing you.
I said it before and I'll say it again: Write your congressman, write your state representatives, write your state attorney general. Flood their inboxes every single day.
Subscription services should be as easy as it is to sign up for, so if it takes less than three minutes for me to sign up for a subscription, it should be the same amount of clicks to unsubscribe.
The fact that you have to write a registered letter to the corporation requesting cancellation, where it will be reviewed, takes five to fifteen business days and either approved or denied is BS.
This is how we got Magnuson-Moss put in place.
And we can do it again. We just have to annoy the shit out of our representatives. Don't be mean, don't curse, don't blame any political party over another. They're both guilty for this. Just explain to them why consumer laws that make it as easy to cancel as it is to sign up is the only way for true fairness and fundamentally needed consumer protection.
If you can sign up online then you should be able to unsubscribe online with the same number of clicks and no approvals. I mean it's not like these companies. Send me A registered letter 5 days after I subscribe to something and go are sure you want to sign up
"Ads help pay the journalists" is such a stupid angle when the subscriber is directly paying the website. Pay the journalists with the money I'm giving you.
@@SharpasaVineAUTTP-mc9mfok
@Soundielolbruh1 if I wanted to scrape the bottom of the barrel, you still wouldn't be good enough to get on the list of creators to watch
@@pixlhound yall that reply to the bots are actually more annoying than the fucking bots at this point
@@skyethenerd1054f r the amount of times they've probably seen people tell others not to reply to the bots, too.
@@pixlhoundits an automated comment, so many are left the creator will never see your reply... youre only feeding their engagement, even if you think youre sticking it to them somehow
I've read a story from an ex-employee from a cable service that she got _fired_ after not trying all their avenues possible to convince a costumer to stay on their service during a phone call after this costumer called to cancel
The costumer in question was a grieving daughter who was trying to cancel the cable service that her recently-passed mother was subscribed to
.....it was Spectrum wasn't it?
Cable companies are the worst with canceling, prepare to be on the phone for like 1 hour with them it's so bad.
Comcast?
That ex-employee has a good heart!
We can only hope she got some good karma.
@@Sam-bz5zf when I cancelled comcast I actually had to scream at the lady to stop upselling me. lol
My go-to for these types of situations is that I threaten to go to my bank and claim the charge as fraud.
0:02 The movie: The Lorax.
Top tip: if you ever have any issues unsubscribing just cancel the payment in your banking app, or phone the bank. They deal with this stuff all the time and will be happy to help you cancel.
Also if enough people are complaining to their bank about a particular company or service, sometimes banks will start treating that company as suspicious or even pressure them to stop scamming people.
🎉 some banks are awesome
And use revolut disposable cards for free trials. Companies recently started to crack down on this but still works occasionally.
Banks, in my experience, have the best customer service of all, they are just like "Hi whats your problem, oh sorry to hear that I´ll take care of it" 5 minutes later that problem it´s solved.
This sort of works, it depends on where you live [specifically, in the US] as to whether you also must notify the merchant of cancellation. Chargebacks cost the merchant money so... if you can arrange a cancellation in writing - in good faith - PLUS a chargeback - if the merchant changes you again after receiving your cancellation notice - from your credit card company then this tactic can work. It just doesn't scale, unfortunately, and isn't going to change the behavior of these sorts of schemes.
The problem is if you live in a state [in the US] that doesn't protect consumers, you can end up getting recharged after the merchant disputes the chargeback. Or if you've agreed to some terms of service where you have to pay out some contract for some set period of time (Adobe) or something else more draconian.
In regards to a bank with an ACH transaction, yes you can stop it at the bank (or, preferably a credit union) but depending on where you live [in the US] the merchant may be able to show that you received a service and in fact owe the money they were attempting to debit your account for, and the bank will pay that amount from your account unless its contested. This could happen *months* after you've thought you've won and you've washed your hands of that subscription service once and for all.
Yeah careful with that I had to pay up 200 extra when I did this with Vodafone.
What they are doing is actually illegal. In 2010 they passed the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) "Click to Cancel" provision and the 2010 Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act (ROSCA). It states that if the process to subscribe is as simple as a few clicks, than the unsubscribe process needs to be the same. They are violating federal law by even asking any questions and not just processing the cancel and being done with it. And the reason they passed the law was to stop this exact type of stuff.
A law that is shoddily enforced might as well not exist to these companies. I've even encountered spam 'newsletters' with no unsubscribe option at all, on their site or in the emails
Bump
A law that isn't enforced is a law that doesn't exist.
yea but law enforcement are all senile so these "laws" are actually just "suggestions"
To everyone who's saying it's not enforced: even if it's not, if you directly mention ROSCA and "Click to Cancel" to the chat person and specify that they are breaking the law, they will probably fold.
My favorite was when I tried to cancel my internet because I was moving to another state that didn't have the service. The number of times they offered to change to my new apartment was ridiculous. They even offered to bundle TV with it and were so confused that I didn't have a TV. And this was 2016/2017. Can't imagine how bad they are now.
Reminds me of gym memberships. They would purposely obfuscate the process, have no links or references to cancellation on their websites, if you contacted them by phone they would put you on hold for a long time after you mentioned cancellation and they would then tell you you have to do the request by snail mail. And on top of that they would want you to subscribe using a direct bank account line (no debit or credit cards). This was most commercial gyms. It only changed recently when California passed a law prohibiting such practices.
The fact that they tell you how to feel about the ads is insane. No one feels like they are in a “elite club” when they have to pay for ads
It's genuinely one of the most delusional pieces of text I've ever read
Such a dystopian nightmare! Well, shouldn't of expected anything less from something called "The Economist"
People who worship money will tell you anything to get yours
Speak for yourself! When I pay to have more Ads I feel like an elite individual allowed into a special club for only the most gullible of idiots who enjoy Ads more than the content I subscribe to. It makes me feel like I have no idea of the value of money and am willing to waste it on the most trivial of things rather than a usable budget in which to live off of.
I feel so much smarter & more informed than everybody else when I see an ad for Ford trucks. I have this great opportunity that nobody else has to drive a Ford!
The worst cancellation I ever went through was with Regal Unlimited. You have to email them telling them you'd like to cancel, then 2-3 days later they email you back asking if you're sure and that if you don't reply they are just going to assume you changed your mind and continue to charge you. How shady is that!?
If they didn't ask u if it is okay to charge you for 3 more years , they aren't professionala ;p
That’s sounds pretty bad.
Without going into all the details of my worst cancellation ever I’ll just say DO NOT ever move to someplace out in the middle of nowhere where your only Internet provider option is HughesNet. It will be the worst customer service experience you’ll ever have, and then when you finally come to your sense and move back into civilization you’ll jump through more hoops than you could ever imagine to end your service with them.
To add insult to injury, you’ll get monthly phone calls from other Internet providers who are “constantly expanding their service areas” trying to get you sign up for their service only to be told that their service isn’t currently available in your area.
Huh? That’s not “shady” at all. You just suck at life.
@@Kc-ib8hzI’ve noticed almost anything sponsored by TH-camrs is gonna be predatory. The only TH-cam sponsorship I think was good was Raycon, mine lasted like 4 years
I've literally had news sites where the in paragraph ads block the article below them because they clip out of where they should be contained to.
I'm so glad somebody is talking about this, it's not just article's. I feel like in the future cars will have ad breaks
must have not heard about things like the brand that had subscriptions for basic features
As you mentioned!!!
A few months ago I got a membership from Planet Fitness and then forgot that I had it. I signed up and was approved from home. I never left my house. Signed up for a monthly payment and on the third month they charged me an extra $50 dollars for yearly maintenance which I wasnt aware of. Needless to say I chose to cancel and called them. The guy on the demanded that I come into the store to cancel in person or mail them a letter. Not an email, mail them a letter. Which I truly havent done in 17 years. He said its policy. We cant cancel online or over the phone. I argued with this fella over holding my card hostage for an hour before he finally asked me "Why cant you come in?" A very simple question. I told him I'd never even been inside the gym. Not even once, why would I come in now unless its for you to try to "trap" me into my membership. He finally caved and cancelled my membership.
So much for policy.
Dont let these companies bully you. Stand your ground or take it to your bank and have them block payments.
Planet told me the same. I moved to my college town before I found out they wanted me to be in store. But luckily, when I called my gym they made it super easy for me. I just had to send them an email saying why I want to cancel and they did it remotely. I got lucky.
Before Planet Fitness, Bally's had a similar strategy except that you had to cancel within 90 days of initial signup. If you didn't cancel before then, you were held to contract for 2 years. I made damn sure to print in very clear times on fine paper.
Ah yeah. I had the same experience. I told them "You've heard on a recorded line that I wish to cancel my membership. Y'all can either cancel the membership or the next communication will be a small claims filing."
They didn't send another bill. Doesn't matter if I had a case or not; the account isn't worth the hassle.
I've heard that if you tell them you're going to prison or you can't come in for health reasons they cave pretty quick.
@@SerinCloudeye i may use this for other purpose
24 hour fitness wouldn’t cancel my membership unless I went IN PERSON to talk to the manager who was only there during my work hours. No way in hell I would take time off work to cancel my membership. I got fed up and just called my bank and they put a stop to all future charges and even credited me for like 3 months of payments.
yeah I don't understand why more people don't do this, instead of going to who's getting the money to tell them to stop taking money why not tell the bank to not allow them to get anymore money??
@@exceptionalanimations1508 i recall it affecting people's credit score if they used a credit card to subscribe?
not too sure how that works, never bothered getting anything outside of my debit card and paypal(before they started charging for inactivity)
Lmao, that reminds me of the Friends episode when they couldn't cancel their gym membership because they had to do it in person, so the gym got a sexy lady to come in to handle it. Then they tried to cancel their bank accounts, only to have a sexy bank lady going to help them quit lol.
But forreal, I had to do the same thing with one of my old gym memberships because they outsourced the company that took payments so I had to go through them and I just said fuck it and put a stop payment to it all.
"I WANNA QUIT THE GYM!"
same for planet fitness. afterwards i went out of my way to tell anyone looking for a gym to avoid pf
They tried to frustrate the guy into not unsubscribing This should be a crime
My favorite is when you try to cancel online or via frontline support call and they force you to speak with another department to close your account. Drives me nuts.
I used to do technical phone support for a ISP. After all tech support getting outsourced to India they moved us to the "Saves" department which is just trying to stop someone from cancelling their service. I've never had a more soul crushing job.
🙏🏽
Dude that sounds so fucked. Hope you’ve moved onto something better for your own sake my friend :)
I worked in a call center for AT&T. When someone wanted to cancel, we’d have to signal our manager we had a cancellation then wait for them to come over. Meanwhile, we were gathering information from the customer before we escalated. After manager escalation, with her questions and retention offers, they get sent to the retention department where they have to speak to 3 more people (with more offers) before getting put on a callback schedule to cancel with a cancellation rep (who has yet more offers after making you wait up to 48 hours for the callback). That’s why most people just transfer their number to the new carrier rather than just canceling. That and it’s just easier to keep your old number.
@@bdb89That's disgusting, god damn.
@@FoxenPiano it is. And that was way back in 2009. I can’t imagine what it’s like now. I read somewhere they were beta testing a switch back program for the customers that switched away but kept their number. First it’s the hoops to get you to stay, then harassment when you finally leave. It’s like breaking up with a crazy person.
If a website:
- Asks me to close my ad blocker
- does not allow me to opt out of cookies within 2 clicks
I automatically close it.
The internet is HUUUUGE you will find what you need somewhere else whatever it is
Hey, not every place has "big Booty ghetto ass #6" only certain people have that 😒
Extra trick: most websites load the text an images before loading the pop up scripts, so if you refresh with shift+f5 (which ignores the cache when reloading, making the website load slower) then press esc to cancel before it finishes loading, most of the time you can browse without the pop up coming up.
@@ERECTED_MONUMENT neat trick, thanks
@@ERECTED_MONUMENT Holy, am a programmer and I had no idea.
My "smart" way was usually to inspect, and delete the overlay tag, but some websites are "smarter" than that, I'll definitely give this a try today !
@@ERECTED_MONUMENT Wow, I never knew that! That's super helpful. For me, this works best on the Washington Post, as it has a physical popup that doesn't block all the text from loading.
Dude I used to work for a massive journalism company (it covers most local newspapers) and while we did physical papers, when it came to cancelling it was impossible. You had to call in and we had to try and save the customer from cancelling and it was hell. People werent getting their newspapers for WEEKS on end, still being charged for it and then when they call to stop the madness, you got greeted with someone asking you to stay for credits for even more papers you wouldnt get! It was ridiculous! And the digital papers were no better either, I heard they barely worked too!
I have this same problem with some sites that you have to sign up for to see if their program works. Then, when it doesn't work as you hoped and try to delete your account, you have to contact someone to have your account deleted. Even if they say they deleted your account you still get emails and often the account doesn't actually get deleted. At the very least there needs to be a regulation for a disclaimer on these sites that you must request your account deleted or forces these places to let you delete your account on your own time... I don't know, something.
I used to work for a company that told us that we had to have a customer tell me "no" to a type of extended warranty 4 times before I stopped asking. I thought that was horrible customer service and that if you truly want to keep your customers, you treat them with respect. The Economist should be ashamed for that nonsense.
damn i feel bad for you, cause id bet you were treated like shit during that time, for a decision you couldnt even take
Yeah you should see the mentalfuckry OfficeDepot made us do to try and trap people into their tech and subscription services. The printer ink subscription was an absolute nightmare designed solely to anger the customers at the cashiers who have zero control over the policy
Generally the issue with these situations is how measurable something is. Selling one more warranty 1 out of a 100 times is measurable. The amount of goodwill lost on the other 99 occasions is a lot harder to capture. And if it is captured by like a review systems the blame is put on the employee and not on what the employee is asked to do.
seems like the only way to stay sane in such a job is to learn to enjoy making your customers suffer.
Your ex-boss graduated from hustlers university no doubt. With honours.
This cancelling bs stuff is getting everywhere. I moved from my past renting apartament to other one and i decided to cancel my home internet provider in the last apartament. So i pressed to cancel the service in their site, then i got an email that i need to write a written document and then i got an answer that its only done through calling them. Later I had to repeat 5 times that i don’t need it anymore and there is internet in the new apartament already and no the past renter doesn’t want to take over my plan. Like how cancerous these companies are becoming.
Cancel it through your bank next time bro
My ISP also only accepts cancellations via phone despite easy sign-up online. It's absolute bullshit and we all know it.
i paid my internet service manually (or set automatically) using digital wallet instead of paying monthly via credit card these day.
it's like our credit card was held captive by these companies whenever we want to unsubscribe.
Ugh I can relate to this as something similar happened to me with a famous shopping website in our country called Myntra. This is going to be long so if you have a short attention span, keep scrolling.
A few years ago, I ordered a top from Myntra for which I had to register on their website with my phone number and email. Before creating the account, I forgot to uncheck the box that said that they'll send promotional stuff to our registered number and email. I was getting bombarded with their stupid sales ads 4 or 5 times a week. Considering I don't purchase new clothes often, let alone online, those ads were completely useless to me. So, I tried finding a way to turn them off on my Myntra account, and that's when I learnt that the only way to do it was to email their customer support ID, have them call me twice on separate occasions to confirm whether I want the promotional emails and messages cancelled, and then cancel it finally. The day after I sent the email, I got a call on my way to work, so I was able to pick it and confirm my cancellation. But they will cancel only after the second confirmation call, which came the next day during my work hours, so I couldn't pick them. It happened the day after also and again I couldn't pick them. So, they stopped calling me and continued bombarding my email and number with ads. So, I sent them a follow up email, suggesting that they call me during 1 pm to 2 pm lunch hour or after I got off of work at 5 pm. Their call timings are anytime between 9 am to 6 pm, so those timings were workable for them. Idk whether they were joking with me, because after sending that email, I began getting calls right after 2 pm and right before 5 pm, and never called me anytime after that. I got so furious that I sent them a strongly worded email, highlighting the time they were supposed to call me. I still got calls right after those timings. I couldn't care less anymore and sent them a few emails with a lot of insults. I got one more call during work hours after that and then they stopped. I think they finally got the clue because they stopped the promotional ads without any confirmation calls.
It's crazy how all it took for me to get promotional emails and messages was not unchecking the consent box (yeah, it came checked and we had to uncheck it if we didn't want it) but to have them stop, I have to follow all these unnecessary steps.
yup this shit is getting rediculous at this point, and this is precisely why we need regulation to comabt this shit.
but sadly in america most of all you have bloody morons who are "nurrr we need smoll Guberment.....anything more is Communism!!!!"
but sadly some of this shit is begining to bleed into other countries.
I had a problem getting rid of a gym membership I had back then. I resorted to faking my death certificate and my 'next of kin' contacted them and sent the certificate. Bam - my membership was immediately cancelled without any questions. What are they going to do than cancel at this point? Start checking am I really dead or not and suing me for document forgery? No, they will just cancel and problem solved. Over the years, this gym was not the only place where I had to use this method. So I have a death certificate ready, I just open it in Photoshop, write a new date and I'm 'conveniently dead'.
I had to do something similar 🤣🤣🤣🤣 some gym memberships are the WORST to cancel
Thank you for talking about this bro, I had the same type of trouble with canceling my spectrum internet service. They’re my number 1 op, I literally hate them. It took me months to get out of the loop holes of them transferring me around from person to person, telling me I have more and more fees, while doing their tricks to make me call back over and over. I finally got it canceled but gosh darn I hate this type of stuff 😭😭
SiriusXM is one of the worst offenders. You NEED to call to cancel and then they hold your leg for an hour.
YES! SiriusXM came to my mind immediately
lol my mom uses it in a kind of opposite way lol. She calls and tells them she’s gonna cancel and will wait them out until they offer her the lowest rate possible and then she resubscribes😭 she loves her SiriusXM
One of the first things I thought of.
@@Seaweadkthey still send me letters years later. if I actually used it it would be a killer deal what they offer me
Call them out on whatever the American equivalent for Disability Discrimination Act is.
I've had companies tell me that the only way to cancel is to call them up, I quote the DDA and tell them they need to accommodate for all disabilities, and me being deaf means I can't use the phone.
It suddenly gets cancelled in a single email, just by suggesting that they could be in violation of a basic human rights act.
Just call your bank and get them to block payments to them. No need to cancel.
unironically this is the easiest method. you may get blacklisted by that website, but if you're trying to leave who cares
They can / could charge you a fee for breaking your contract. I recommend using a visa or master card prepaid gift card so it’s not clicked to your bank account.
@@Jonny2by4if you get black listed by jurno websites, it’s probably the best thing that will happen to you, imagine not ever dealing again with useless metro journalists.
@@Handles_are_good_for_holding As long as you have proof of requesting to cancel i.e. emails, you shouldn't have an issue.
I hate to admit but I applied with an insurance scam; I thought my house insurance was expired so I signed on with some company that was bombarding my house with letters. $200 a month until my mom told me the insurance is already under the mortgage. The agent that said I can call any time didn't pick up his extention and calling or emailing to cancel was impossible. I told my bank to block payments and learned my lesson
i remember i signed up for FYE to get a disount on a purchase i made. i lost the pamphlet with my account code so i had to call customer service in order to cancel my subscription. the lady on the phone tried her absolute hardest to keep me on the subscription she even went as far as to discount the subscription. i understand its prolly part of her job but it felt pretty manipulating.
Some websites are so inundated with ads it literally crashes my browser.
I have literally had websites crash my phone's web browser before, because they were loading in so many video ads, all at once, and each one was breaking the article up into small paragraphs of maybe 5 line (not sentences, lines) sections.
Same, I can't even get on some with my damn computer without nearly freezing. It's bad.
I want to try to get on the website. When I first logged in and started scrolling my phone froze. That website was loading so many ads it bricked my phone for like 10 minutes well I desperately tried to shut my phone down and restart. It’s just unbelievable.
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I remember back in the late '90s you had annoying shit like fake windows popping up where the X in the top right corner was just a link to some pay day loan bullshit or some other scam. Feels like the internet is going back in that direction, but without as much of the cool content as there was back in those days.
@@David280GGantiuttp1 anti uttp bots(?) are so based
When I was working for a call center for a phone service we basically got penalized for customers calling to cancel services. They basically told us TL “remind them the benefits of the services they’re cancelling.” Not only that but upsell them on other services too to keep them interested, and if we didn’t we would get “in trouble.” A lot of people had to cancel shit to save money, there was no way I was going to try to talk people into keeping stuff they were calling to get rid of in the first place.
That sucks. I used to work for a company that did this until they realized it fucked up the metrics. I really hate trying to upsell a service that I know for myself, having worked for the company that provides it, sucks balls because the stuff they make you say isn't genuine. Plus, trying to upsell only irritates the customers most of the time, and who gets the brunt of that? The agents, that's who. Call time is extended, you get negative survey scores, and you get low call completion rates because for sure the customer will come back for another round to have the issue settled with someone else. It's a complete waste of time and energy.
I would like this comment but you have a pretty nice number of likes, so I’ll just leave this here.
👍
I also have a story to share. Albeit this one feels genuinely illegal. At the Customer Escalation Desk, I call up a customer wanting to get a refund of an accidental renewal of their grocery app wallet. The dude mistakenly transferred 30k instead of 3k to this grocery app wallet, and I was given no authorisation to actually tranfer it. I tried to convince him that this will be resolved and submitted the relevant information. 2 week later, the money is still there.
I like how they try to make it seem like it’s your fault they are cancelling and not for any other reason.
I made the mistake of paying for a corn subscription once that was part of a multi-site “thing”. They sneakily didn’t make it clear when signing up that they automatically signed you up for ALL of the sites instead of just the one you wanted AND charged you more because of it. What I didn’t know at the time was that the site i subscribed to was the only one with straight guy/girl content. All of the other ones were LGBTQ-focused mostly guy/guy which I have no problem with but not my preference. When I called to cancel, the lady on the other end said verbatim “Uhhh you want to cancel?! Why!? Did you NOT sign up for [proceeds to rattle off every gay affiliate site one-by-one in the most condescending tone in order to embarrass me into hanging up]?? Are you not into GAY CORN!?”
I was absolutely livid. First because I actually was getting embarrassed but then I snapped and yelled back “THIS IS THE WORST GAY CORN I HAVE EVER HAD THE DISPLEASURE OF J*RKING OFF TO! CANCEL MY SUBSCRIPTION NOW OR I’LL HAVE MY BANK SETTLE IT!!”
Never made that mistake again.
What I absolutely hate is when you are forced to make a phone call just to unsubscribe because it can't be done on the website.
When you’re in high school writing a paper the night before it’s due, you find the best site ever for your argument and then you see a subscription button or millions of ads in your way
If a website demands me to turn off my adblocker, I leave.
Sadly TH-cam has started doing this in some countries, though the UK has protection laws against it.
@@calvinjordan3624 they forget the battle adblock did to beat back their adblock bs.
yeah youtube does this for me. usually i can reopen the video in another tab and it will pass through but not every time. better to do that than watch 2 unskiipable ads
@@meatsauce12 I started using adblocks on TH-cam like 10 years ago or something, when for some reason there were ads with SOUNDS at the top of the recommended videos. There was no way to turn the sound of the ads off, so it became literally impossible to watch the video without that annoying beep every 5 seconds. Never turned it off ever since, and shortly after, obligatory ads before the video started to pop, which I fortunately didn't witness.
You can disable Javascript to get rid of those "turn your ad block off" warnings. 😁 Works most of the time. There's a Disable Javascript extension for most browsers and uBlock Origin can also disable Javascript.
i always take a mental note of what ads are unskippable because i will selectively avoid those products per month that i see an ad about it
The more money a company spends on advertising, the more costs they cut with their product. There is an inverse relationship between how often you see a product advertised and it's quality. I literally avoid anything I see in an ad, anywhere. I look up what the good version of said product is.
At that point you're better off just going to your bank and telling them to refuse payment
I can't wait for the economist's response with three in-video ads
If Adblock is ever discontinued, I'm leaving the internet.
Unlikely and they know it
Which is why they keep doing this stupid stuff
Chrome's Manifest V3, including TH-cam's new experimental server-side inserted ads, itll likely be quite a bit worse for a little while.
Pi-Hole guys! easy and the ultimate solution! (especially as DNS on local network)
@@Romalainenu-block is easier and better
Do you have an extension or something? I wanna get an adblock but lots of em don’t work.
The best way to get ride of a subscription that is not allowing you to unsub is to contact your bank and have them block any payments from that company
Tried to do that once some years ago and the bank told me “we can’t really do that, you should cancel the subscription”…
I hung up, called again, talked to a new representative and told them I lost my card and to cancel the entire damn card.
Ever since then I avoid subscriptions like the fucking plague
@UTubeTrollPoliceNWO bro wtf?
@@gamer-san8923 Don't give them the reaction they seek. Report and move on with your life with the joy that comes with knowing you aren't them.
@@GravitasZeroSmart play. Tough when I needed to unsub from a service via bank contact, i was successful. Guess it depends on the service and bank institution.
It's a bot. @@gamer-san8923
when an article asks me to subscribe to view the article, if you just inspect the website and slowly delete parts of the site and remove the barrier and hopefully removes the block
Thing about ads is absolutely everyone I’ve ever met hates them so they’re just being forced on everyone
You always have the secret third option - bank refund. If more people did bank refunds when businesses hassle them, you will see these practices die fairly quickly. Making people pay for something they don't want to pay for is kind of... not allowed these days. You can totally call your bank and say "I want to cancel my subscription, but they are not letting me, I tried everything with them, refund me my money". Enough people do that, The Economist loses its ability to process VISA/MasterCard, and then they either change or go bankrupt.
lack of education, people don't know what they're able to do with their properties and what rights they have.
Visa and MC will never make a place like the economist not able to process their payments. LOL, THe economist and the like isnt a small business owner. THey dont need to follow those rules. WHo owns the economist? They can smooth it over with VIsa MC, they have been around since 1843. Visa MC wont shut down their processing LOL. Naive to think that.
@libertybelllocks7476 still wouldn't hurt to tell them to shove it by refunding. Like he said enough people do it and they will change. Visa will still suck them off I'm sure but things will still change for the better
@@BraydonAttoe-xs4yg I never disagreed that it wouldnt help invoke change.
But the idea that their processing will get revoked by Visa MC if people do a whole bunch of chargebacks isnt reality.
Dont try and strawman me.
@libertybelllocks7476 oof. Just trying to focus on positives my dude.
Hopefully things on this front get better. About a month ago, I hadn’t touched my subscription to the NYT newsletter, and instead of emailing me the next newsletter, they actually auto unsubscribed me and sent out an email saying “We see you haven’t opened our newsletters recently, and will stop sending them.” I was so surprised because I was used to big services like this being horrible about unsubscribing, and this just made it seem so easy. The Email even had a one click way to resubscribe if I wouldn’t have wanted it cancelled.
Really, all journalism outlets should do something along these lines, it felt like a breath of fresh air.
This is sad how you have such an underrated comment and all you get are bots, this comment needs to be seen more
@Soundielolbruh1 who's this dickhead
@Soundielolbruh1 baby boy why you so pressed
@Soundielolbruh1I'm so sorry for whoever gave birth to you. Nine months wasted.
@Soundielolbruh1 damn bro why u talking in a mirror 😂🤣
I had to cancel my free trial for the economist and it was miserable. I couldn’t do it from the app, and when I tried to do it on the website the support chat seemed to be the only way and the guy was not helping. Thankfully I was subscribed through PayPal so I could just turn off payments to the “service”.
Surpise in the middle of the live chat an ad didn't appear
Planet fitness has the worst cancellation. You either have to mail in your cancellation or have to walk into the gym and tell them you don’t want it anymore. Most people don’t wanna go through the trouble so they just never end up cancelling
5 bots in 3 minutes, impressive
Wtf is tour reply section lmfao
loophole is closing your bank account, and getting a new one later. The reason they ask for your bank details is so that the customer can't just cancel their card(how I cancel most subscriptions) I just get a new card and it can't charge the old one anymore
Sorry you have to deal with the UTTP people. Yeah that’s stupid on how you have to cancel planet fitness.
Commenting this in case anyone needs it, California has a policy that prevents companies from doing this. If you change your PF home club to one in Cali on their website, you can cancel it online 24 hours later
Anything that requires an article that’s not Wikipedia is a nightmare. I was trying to read a baking recipe and it was borderline impossible with the incessant pop ups and video ads, I couldn’t even scroll or maintain a position on the article bc the ads were throwing me all over the
place.
Ik everyone likes to call wiki garbage, but how about a little appreciation they do not use advertising and politely ask users to donate instead? Some people say it’s annoying, but I far prefer that. It’s a far more pleasant experience than having unnecessary ads literally everywhere…
Wikipedia deserves far, far more respect than it gets these days.
@@MuzikBike what is people's issue with Wikipedia exactly? I like it.
I’ll always take websites that ask for donations over websites filled with ads. Even the most “persistent” donation askers will still only put one banner at the top of the page once every couple of months for a week or something. Much better than websites with ads.
@blakksheep736 Some people have a belief that Wikipedia is unreliable since anyone can edit the articles. While that is true, there are also a lot of safeguards to keep it as legitimate as possible. You need sources for what you write, and if you don't provide them, it is clearly marked in the text. Plus, Wikipedia has a lot of volunteers who look through edits. Malicious or inaccurate edits usually don't last long.
@@blakksheep736 Some Wikipedia authors are way sloppier than others in terms of making sure everything is factual. Especially regarding any information which can be politically charged. The main problem though is people who take Wikipedia articles as gospel in situations that require more serious research. But literally all you have to do is go read the sources cited in the Wikipedia articles to see if they look legit, and then cite those sources rather than the Wikipedia article itself. It's a LOT less work than hunting down "real" sources from scratch.
I remember one time I found some pretty comprehensive studies on the wear resistance and reliability of flash memory and mechanical hard drives this way. I looked like Mr. Smartypants when I handed in that assignment citing a bunch of research papers as sources, but all I'd done was check specifically where Wikipedia got its information from. It was really easy. Just a lot more reading.
The sheer balls to give you an ad during your complaint about ads
The worst thing in subscription ones is where you can’t reach your stuff without agreeing to new terms of service. Not even to cancel.
Ive worked for customer service and I can tell you that the loyalty (cancellations department) of most companies is all the same, they fabricate excuses, lie to you, they try to shame you, theyll try to do ANYTHING to get you not to cancel, and at times theyll flat out tell you they cancelled your subscription when they did nothing. Thats not the employees fault, this companies will fire them for doing the only thing they are paid to do: cancel subscriptions. So they have 2 options, lie and do theyr job poorly to keep the customer, or loose theyr jobs, Its vile, and should be completely illegal.
If my job was to lie about cancelling accounts, I would begin the process of escalating the issue in the company and then probably try to go to court. Maybe I could get a few co-workers to join me. These are usually recorded calls, so there's proof of the customer's request.
And the reason I'd first escalate the issue within the company because if you don't, they can say in court that they were never made aware of the issue. So, follow the (usually useless) escalation protocols, document everything, and then go to court if need be, and this is for anything related to your job.
@@BewareTheLilyOfTheValleykay, but customer service are low income/mid at best jobs. People with those jobs can't afford to fuck around with a big company in court, they need to eat
I tried cancelling a subscription for insurance and the lady on the call sounded desperate. She didnt say it, but her tone felt like "please dont unsubscribe or I am going to lose my job" sort of thing. I just kept my subscription for a day or two until I called back and got someone else and then unsubscribed.
@@BewareTheLilyOfTheValley why should it be the responsibility of a minimum wage employee to infiltrate and stop a corrupt company that's scamming people, that's what the LAW is for. It's not the fault of the employee that the government doesn't hold big buisnesses accountable
@@airlion1205that is still your fault for not cancelling it ? 😂
My favorite thing is when a website pops up about my adblocker and they ask me to “Disable adblocker” or “Continue without supporting us”
I grab the picker and block the message too lol
For real, and let me tell you I cannot click on that "Continue without supporting us," any faster whenever I see it.
@@canyonohara1764 holy shit i genuinely never thought of this, thank you so much
I swear, they play the world’s smallest violin for it, and every time I drink their sad, salty tears. It’s just pathetic.
I cant believe that newspaper companies and early online news were able to survive without ads.
Few years back the only way I could've stop my payments for my gym membership was to send a physical letter to their HQ. Not through phone, live visit, or email. A physical letter.
Utilization of ad blocks is a moral obligation at this point. If the only way you can monetize your website is to cannibalize the content with over abundant advertising then your website does not produce enough value to exist in the market. At the point that they start making it harder to unsubscribe, That's where you was the consumer should just go call your bank and freeze all transactions with that company, flag them as a predatory service who is making unauthorized transactions. They have no grounds to argue with your bank when you explicitly ask for cancellation and they leave you on read.
The FBI even recommended you use an adblock
@@Fnafan97 mmmhhhhhhh
I used to have an Economist subscription. After trying to unsubscribe, they called me twice asking why and trying to get me to stay subscribed.
As of this year the economist podcasts are behind a pay wall, knowing how much hassle it is to cancel, I definitely won't get a subscription now!
@UTubeTrollPoliceNWO Get a life bot
@@mcgeebag1 Same. And it doesn't help the cancelling that subscription is literal hell on earth
I love how they just have it in text that they are experiencing high call volumes lol
For my old gym I had to print something out, sign it, and physically mail it to the hq in order to cancel my membership 😭
Anytime i cant cancel easily the company gets to pay a nice juicy fee from my bank charge backs in response.
Paying for a service and still getting ads is a disgusting example of corporate greed. I don't care if it's $1/mo or $1k/mo. If you pay them you should see zero ads period
It used to be like that, but late stage capitalism
yeah for real "ads help pay our journalists", no my subscription helped pay your journalists, which you are now losing, because of ads.
If a websites demands you to turn off ad blocker, it’s not worth whatever is on there
it's so much simpler going through your account that you use to pay for these services to cancel the recurring payment
Why don't companies understand, consumers hate ads. They get in the way of what we want to do. Whether watching tv, or streaming, or reading, driving, you can't escape it. And they have the gall to call them witty, We detest them.
They know. They don't care.
@@NuchiAsakiand they never have
They're just hungry for money.
How should companies pay for the things they are providing you?
@@roymarshall_ By selling those things?
When I went to work overseas for 2 years I called to cancel my phone plan and had to go through this nonsense. They tried EVERYTHING to convince me to not cancel it - they tried to convince me it was viable to continue using their service after moving (it was not), tried to convince me it'd be worth it for trips back, tried to convince me it was necessary or I'd lose my phone number, and finally when it became clear that none of these reasons were going to convince me they resorted to asking if I maybe had a friend or family member who may want to take up the plan until I returned. I was stunned into silence with that one - I never thought I'd have a place trying to convince me to sell their service to one of my friends or family members to get out of paying for it myself. Eventually they did cancel, but only after I started replying to every question with "have you cancelled my plan yet?"
This chat reminds me of not having enough word count for your essay.
i still find it crazy that people pay for live tv just to be bombarded with 5 minutes of ads every 10 minutes
The worst is a website that pleads with you to turn off adblock to read thier article - but then immediately requires you to subscribe to continue reading.
I instantly place those websites on a block list.
there's a trick that works on some sites that require you to pay a subscription or of you "run out" of "free" articles, you can go into the debug section of your browser and turn off javascript
Here's what I've done in this situation: I call my bank and say that company is refusing to cancel my subscription, and my bank can forcibly halt any payments they try to take regardless.
My grandpa has a date on his calendar every year where he calls his internet provider to tell them he's cancelling, and then insists on it until they give him a super steep discount, then says fine and keeps it going.
I remember a class back in college forcing us to get a subscription to the economist and we got a code for a free month of it but it still charged to us after the fact.
Just found out my bank can cancel subscriptions for me on my behalf. Same gym situation as you mentioned, wanted to cancel after not having time/energy to go, but had to go in person... which I didn't have time/energy to do. Ended up pushing it until I forgot I was still signed up. Turns out I can just go into the app, click on the latest transaction and cancel it. We need more banks to offer this
What bank?
If you're with Truist though, you're screwed. I even planned to cancel a gym membership and I changed credit cards but didn't update it with the gym, but somehow they were able to go behind my back and get my new credit card number from the bank without my consent.
@@citizenofcorona8783look into taking legal action against them, and the bank as well if they gave them your card number
The first gym i ever got a pass for they were rude to me about my weight when i went, so i tried to cancel and they made all this random stuff up and tried to scare me out of it, then they said i had to talk to the gym owner to cancel. Then when i came in to try to they said he was on vacation and i had to send him a letter in the mail to cancel. Yes, a letter in the mail. And they told me thats standard practice at most gyms. Eventually my dad went in and basically threatened them and suddenly they were like "ohhh you wanna cancel? We can easily do that right now" and he did it in a few button clicks. But then i got charged the next month and we had to go in again and he said theres a recurring cancellation fee. Yes RECCURING CANCELATION FEE. we basically straight up said wed burn the place down and they finally stopped. This was fitness 19 btw. If you wanna avoid that hellhole.
I dont even run an ad blocker and a lot of sites will tell me to turn off my ad blocker and block me from using the website at all. The internet is rotted
when i was switching music distributors i had to email my old one to cancel. They sent back an automated response that basically said I don't pay them enough to care and that i'd have to wait a week+ just for them to read it, or upgrade my subscription for better customer service.
When a “news” website tells me “turn off adblocker” I just close the tab.
I wouldn’t mind if there were some ads… but the sheer number of them isn’t even the biggest problem, in many cases they place the ads certain ways to make you click them or have videos playing which not only are distracting but also force you to look where the hell the video ad is playing to then mute it (because you often can’t even close it).
well Im sure they want you to do that also. If you have adblock on and also have no sub, all you do is cost them money.
@@hivemind8817what
@@hivemind8817 oh, you unironically defend multi million dollar companies, lmao
@@marcokalendileo7849 read their name, hivemind indeed.
@@marcokalendileo7849 Why wouldn’t I defend the ability to charge for your own work? They blocked you from the website because they don’t want you there if your not paying. I don’t see it as an unreasonable request to be paid for the content you made . It cost money to host the website and create the content, people have to make money to live. Without one of the two (ads or subs) the site simply couldn’t exist and therefore the content also.
The way the customer service responded to the ads thing is literally 1984. “I’m leaving cuz I hate the ads”
“No, that’s wrong. You’re wrong. You’re gonna stay cuz the ads are good”
Imagine buying a journalism subscription to read articles and they serve you ads
I'm blocking that website, uninstalling the app, and changing my phone, no second thoughts... whatsoever
That whole conversation felt like chat gpt, like you asked it about why ads are good and it just started hallucinating.
What's worse are the "articles" that are actually just ads disguised as an article
My grandma had to call, email, and physically mail a letter to her previous security system to cancel her subscription. The call took 2 hours to reach customer support, they asked her why she wanted to cancel, offered $5 off, and then asked if anyone else would be willing to take over her bill. Then, they told her she needed to email them a picture of a bank statement containing a payment towards them to prove she was the account owner. A few days later, they replied to her email, and she was told she needed to physically mail them a letter asking to cancel her subscription. What a nightmare.
My therapy is calling those people that try to make it harder to cancel and I end up just yelling at them. It’s very cathartic.
When college tells you to print out the article and it’s 14 pages of ads and images and 2 pages of actual information