<story><title>DoNotPay&apos;s new service auto-cancels free trials</title><url>https://www.wired.com/story/free-trial-card/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>koolba</author><text>&amp;gt; The Free Trial Card is a virtual credit card you can use to sign up for free trials of any service anonymously, instead of using your real credit card. When the free trial period ends, the card automatically declines to be charged, thus ending your free trial. You don’t have to remember to cancel anything.&lt;p&gt;That’s not how it works. Just because they can’t bill your card does not mean you’re not on the hook. Anybody that’s forgotten about a gym membership on a expired card knows this first hand. Only reason they won’t go after you is that the LTV and PR isn’t worth it. If it is, they will.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; As he sees it, companies that require you to put in a credit card in order to sign up for a free trial are engaging in deceptive practices.&lt;p&gt;There’s nothing deceptive about it if the price is disclosed. Far from it. On the sell side it also has the advantage of filtering out people who cannot or would not pay for the service early on.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Waterluvian</author><text>I believe in Quebec it&amp;#x27;s illegal to automatically turn a free trial into a subscription via credit card. I&amp;#x27;d love to see that law proliferate elsewhere.</text></comment>
<story><title>DoNotPay&apos;s new service auto-cancels free trials</title><url>https://www.wired.com/story/free-trial-card/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>koolba</author><text>&amp;gt; The Free Trial Card is a virtual credit card you can use to sign up for free trials of any service anonymously, instead of using your real credit card. When the free trial period ends, the card automatically declines to be charged, thus ending your free trial. You don’t have to remember to cancel anything.&lt;p&gt;That’s not how it works. Just because they can’t bill your card does not mean you’re not on the hook. Anybody that’s forgotten about a gym membership on a expired card knows this first hand. Only reason they won’t go after you is that the LTV and PR isn’t worth it. If it is, they will.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; As he sees it, companies that require you to put in a credit card in order to sign up for a free trial are engaging in deceptive practices.&lt;p&gt;There’s nothing deceptive about it if the price is disclosed. Far from it. On the sell side it also has the advantage of filtering out people who cannot or would not pay for the service early on.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rdtwo</author><text>Yeah the gym people from la fitness hounded me for years after 21 year old me thought I could just let it expire and they would auto cancel</text></comment>