The FTC has passed new regulations making it easier to cancel online subscriptions. In a 2-1 split decision, Scott, Steve and Bill try to decide if this is along-overdue correction to shady websites that make it almost impossible to cut off regular deductions from your bank account, or just more unwanted, unnecessary interference on the part of an overreaching government agency?
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Bill, political texts should include a $10.00 “gift” with every one they send. I got so many pandering for “just $5 or “5 times matching” for every office from President to local dog catcher I turned off notifications. Went 30 days letting them pile up and ended up with “500 unanswered texts.” In that mess was notification that an 89 year old cousin had passed, and her 94 year old sister had a stroke while attending to funeral arrangements.
The “text STOP2end” is as worthless as the “No call” list. Just another verification that the number is good.
Somebody in MI put an incorrect phone number down (accidentally? maybe not) and I have been getting text messages and phone calls on my cell for years. Every time I “block” the caller, but that doesn’t work as the robobank is many phone numbers. And they must sell their lists frequently. Friday night I signed up with my phone for an upcoming Trump rally (we’ve already voted but thought it might be fun) and now I have gotten close to 30 texts asking for money or to buy merch since then. None from any other candidate though. Not the guy… Read more »
Now, if they can only do same for a gym memberships or even just make the @#$%^&* Fed “No-Call-list” just simply work – at all. I wish there was a Fed “No text” list as well, although it’d probably work as well as no-call-list does. I also have to delete & block tons of “robot” text messages, each and every day. Sooooo many more during political season. Extremely irritating and annoying! LOL, snarky time: Scott ‘saved money’ That’s like the gal who comes home one day and tells her husband that she saved him $50,000 by buying a Sable (mink)… Read more »
I think in order to make a no-call / no-text list work with the carve-outs of “can be shared with partners and subsidiaries” is adding a requirement that permission must be re-acquired every X months.
Uncompensated commercial use of the finite seconds, minutes, hours and days of my life, without my explicit, direct, easily and immutably revocable consent, should be against the law. It’s my time and I only have so much of it. If you want to use it for your own gainful purposes you pay me for it. Compensation can take the form of direct remunerative payments or by offering me something that I want for the time I’m willing to allocate. Forcing me to jump through hoops and burn up my time to get to where I want to be is abuse.… Read more »
I suppose clicking the “read more” on your posts is a form of opting my limited life minutes in 😀 My thought when Bill (I think) mentioned how the free market was supposed work was “but we’re not in a free market, that’s why it works this way.” The most egregious offenders of these cancel hoops seem to be those in a monopoly situation, like cable companies, or companies that think they are, like the “purveyors of truth” aka bird cage liner. The companies that have been around so long that think they are fixtures and staples fit in too.… Read more »
As for Scott’s position about getting steep discounts from a vendor to avoid your cancellation … That is a function of the breakdown of legitimate capitalism. IF the vendor CAN offer that deal in the first place then they SHOULD do so in order to retain me as a paying customer. This past week I had Glo-fiber installed as my internet provider and returned my Cox modem. My reason to change was quite simple. Last month I received an email from Cox stating that my new bill was going to be increasing by 25%. The next hour I received another email from Cox asking me to… Read more »
Yeah, Cox is a monopoly where I live for HSI so I’m stuck with it. I live in a fairly rural area and I’m just glad I have cable here. Fiber is out of the question at least for now. Occasionally I’ll do what I can to knock the bill down by threatening to go with AT&T U-verse or Starlink but that down-bump never lasts more than a few months. We recently (during the last year or a little more) dropped everything with Cox except the internet connection. That saved about half and I don’t miss it at all. When… Read more »
If they can discount your rate to keep you, why did they charge so much to begin with? Those discount deals make my blood boil. Another thing that makes my blood boil is the CAD program I have used to earn my incomes for 20 years. I have the basic program and have paid their “maintenance” fee every year. However, IF I am a non-user and wish to purchase their program, every year during the month of February NEW subscribers receive a FREE upgrade to the premium version. Forget them giving a loyal customer of 20 years the free upgrade.… Read more »
I am 100% behind Bill on this issue. The arguments that Steve and Scott make are not germane to this situation. Steve’s argument about toilet paper labeling is, indeed, a stupid regulation, but has nothing to do with what’s being talked about. If the toilet paper company was delivering to your house (or place of business) on a regular schedule, and you no longer needed the deliveries, you should be able to stop the deliveries easily. But if they insist that you still must accept delivery against your wishes, that’s wrong. And Scott’s example is even sillier. He said that… Read more »
Rather than have the law monitor complaints about which sites are easy to disconnect from, forming a new non-elected group to monitor the situation, why not just make it legal to sue if the site is not easy to disconnect from? You would need no enforcement as every site would RUSH to make their site the easiest to disconnect from!
Yeah. I’m deluged with political wheedling, begging, pleading, obsequious text messages that I do not read and delete immediately or ASAP. What this accomplishes in my case is my refusal to donate, even if I might want to if I weren’t being egregiously pestered. Texting “Stop” is as worthless as the non-existant no-call list. The phone calls are relentless, too. I’ve never taken one of these calls. Worse still, I have to delete them separately from my Mac computer, iPhone and iPad. At one time, seems like eons ago, all my devices were synced. Do something on one and it… Read more »
I had the same experience. Judging that the last election merited an all-out effort I contributed to Trump’s campaign. Just $10 a month for three months. The first, last and only time I’ve ever sent a campaign money and I’ll never, ever do it again. I’ve been paying much more in my time than that $30 was worth ever since. I have no doubt that way more has been spent on texts, calls, mailings and spam to me than that $30 could ever hope to cover. I’m so glad Bill brought this up because when I pointed out what an… Read more »
I choose being annoyed over another intrusion of the government..
Bill and Steve can be right at the same time. While these are nuisance issues, hitting them is not without merit. As much as I despise Fauxcahontas’ CFPB, they got one thing really right. If you look at your credit card bill compared to 15 years ago, they’re way easier to read. As someone who spent a few years working in credit cards and had to explain card holder’s statements to them, I’m glad that statements are more legible to your average Joe/Jane.