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Companies Must Let Customers Cancel Subscriptions Online, California Law Says (cnet.com)
A California law that went into effect July 1 is aimed at making it easier for customers to cancel their subscriptions online. From a report: The law states that customers who accept an automatic renewal or continuous service offer online must be able to cancel the service online. That could include a pre-written "termination email" provided by the company that can be sent by the consumer without the need for more information. The law means you won't have to make anymore phone calls to obscure customer service hotlines to cancel services like news subscriptions, music streaming or meal plans, for example. One person tweeted about trying to cancel a New York Times subscription on the phone and being put on hold for 15 minutes -- twice.
It's too difficult to cancel services. Anything that makes it easier is good.
Yes... all too many times, the only way to cancel a service is be on hold for an hour- and then listen to a "retain the customer" sales pitch for 10 minutes- tell them no, I'm not interested a dozen times- wait another 30 minutes to be transferred to the real person who can cancel the service... etc. - and you can't just hang up on them because you NEED them to cancel the service.
Companies know what they're doing when they make it nearly impossible to cancel.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Where possible I use PayPal as the payment method for an automatic renewal service.
Then I cancel the payment agreement on PayPal, which is very easy to do.