<story><title>Before buying a NYT subscription, here&apos;s what it&apos;ll take to cancel it</title><url>https://imgur.com/a/K8m7p2t</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>oliwarner</author><text>Incidents like this make me wonder why there isn&amp;#x27;t an appetite for better consumer rights in the US.&lt;p&gt;If this had happened in the UK, you&amp;#x27;d have the option to pro-actively block the payment, recover it, and legal standing to defend getting your money back.&lt;p&gt;Letting companies redefine the rights of their customers seems bizarre to me.</text></item><item><author>pottertheotter</author><text>I had a similar issue with the Wall Street Journal a few years back, and despite having spent the majority of my career working on Wall Street, I’ll never buy a subscription again.&lt;p&gt;I signed up for a really good deal for 6 months of digital + paper delivery, but my paper always arrived a day or two late, so before my 6 months were up I tried to cancel, but couldn’t figure out a way to do so on their website. I messaged support asking them to not renew my subscription, and told them that the paper always arrived late. They responded back that they were going to give me a free subscription until they could figure out the paper delivery. I should have held firm and cancelled, but it seemed lke they were trying to provide good customer service.&lt;p&gt;Nothing changed with delivery, and I followed up a few times to see what was going on. I was told they were looking into it.&lt;p&gt;One day, out of the blue, I received a large bill from them. I called to see what was going on and I was told that my trial was up and since I hadn’t cancelled that it had renewed. A proceeded to tell the about my problems with delivery and that customer service was supposedly working on fixing the problem and not charging me until they could. The person on the phone told me that that’s not possible since they don’t provide same-day delivery to my address. I recounted exactly what had happened, and they basically told me I was a liar, and would not refund the charge because the user agreement says they don’t have to, even though I called within a few hours of the new charge and subscription renewal.&lt;p&gt;The part that really stung was that I was a PhD student and could get an entire year for less than what they charged me for a month. I’ve never had a company treat me so poorly before.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>joncrane</author><text>&amp;gt;Letting companies redefine the rights of their customers seems bizarre to me.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m sure it&amp;#x27;s obvious by now but perhaps it&amp;#x27;s worth restating:&lt;p&gt;Those companies have large budgets for contributing to elected officials&amp;#x27; campaigns.  The individual consumers negatively affected by these practices can&amp;#x27;t band together as efficiently as the large business on the other side of the abusive behavior.&lt;p&gt;As long as enough elected officials entertain these businesses in visits, allow them to help write legislation, and accept contributions from them, it won&amp;#x27;t change.&lt;p&gt;Also, executive agencies have to put out proposals for new rule making and allow a period of public comment.  The business in the sector have entire staffs and&amp;#x2F;or contract with firms whose job it is to watch these publications and craft intelligent responses backed up by fudged data to &amp;quot;prove&amp;quot; how &amp;quot;damaging&amp;quot; these policies would be to the industry.&lt;p&gt;The individuals who respond are mostly retired people&amp;#x2F;activist citizens who can only say &amp;quot;this is a bad idea and I don&amp;#x27;t like it at all.&amp;quot;</text></comment>
<story><title>Before buying a NYT subscription, here&apos;s what it&apos;ll take to cancel it</title><url>https://imgur.com/a/K8m7p2t</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>oliwarner</author><text>Incidents like this make me wonder why there isn&amp;#x27;t an appetite for better consumer rights in the US.&lt;p&gt;If this had happened in the UK, you&amp;#x27;d have the option to pro-actively block the payment, recover it, and legal standing to defend getting your money back.&lt;p&gt;Letting companies redefine the rights of their customers seems bizarre to me.</text></item><item><author>pottertheotter</author><text>I had a similar issue with the Wall Street Journal a few years back, and despite having spent the majority of my career working on Wall Street, I’ll never buy a subscription again.&lt;p&gt;I signed up for a really good deal for 6 months of digital + paper delivery, but my paper always arrived a day or two late, so before my 6 months were up I tried to cancel, but couldn’t figure out a way to do so on their website. I messaged support asking them to not renew my subscription, and told them that the paper always arrived late. They responded back that they were going to give me a free subscription until they could figure out the paper delivery. I should have held firm and cancelled, but it seemed lke they were trying to provide good customer service.&lt;p&gt;Nothing changed with delivery, and I followed up a few times to see what was going on. I was told they were looking into it.&lt;p&gt;One day, out of the blue, I received a large bill from them. I called to see what was going on and I was told that my trial was up and since I hadn’t cancelled that it had renewed. A proceeded to tell the about my problems with delivery and that customer service was supposedly working on fixing the problem and not charging me until they could. The person on the phone told me that that’s not possible since they don’t provide same-day delivery to my address. I recounted exactly what had happened, and they basically told me I was a liar, and would not refund the charge because the user agreement says they don’t have to, even though I called within a few hours of the new charge and subscription renewal.&lt;p&gt;The part that really stung was that I was a PhD student and could get an entire year for less than what they charged me for a month. I’ve never had a company treat me so poorly before.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>vinay427</author><text>This does exist for credit cards in the US. There are guidelines by which credit card issuers must abide by customer requests, and they&amp;#x27;re seemingly always happy to side with the consumer when it&amp;#x27;s even somewhat reasonable.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Letting companies redefine the rights of their customers seems bizarre to me.&lt;p&gt;Maybe it&amp;#x27;s just what I was used to, but I think it&amp;#x27;s far more annoying in many European countries (not sure about the UK but at least the one I live in) where it&amp;#x27;s harder to return products without specific proof and following strict guidelines, virtually impossible to get a credit or debit card that covers all fees for normal international use, difficult to get a fraud or improper charge on a card statement immediately rescinded, etc.</text></comment>