[sago]

Unfortunately, you're risking your credit score. If you signed (or agreed to) a contract with a specific termination procedure, then just cancel your payments without going through that procedure, they are within their rights to recover the money.

There's no law to say that you can terminate by email. Most companies won't bother chasing, but there's nothing to stop them really hurting you.

[kuschku]

> There's no law to say that you can terminate by email. Most companies won't bother chasing, but there's nothing to stop them really hurting you.

In most of Europe, there is.

In Germany, for example, the business has to allow cancelling via the same way as you signed up.

[Silhouette]

In Germany, for example, the business has to allow cancelling via the same way as you signed up.

That seems reasonable.

Do you know a lot of companies that will let someone sign up via e-mail? I don't.

[madeofpalk]

I do know of lots of companies that let you sign up via website though.

[Silhouette]

And IMHO those companies should also let you cancel the same way, whether or not the law requires it. To me, that seems reasonable and fair.

[hvidgaard]

There is no such thing as a credit score in Denmark. I can be put in a register called RKI, but only if I acknowledge that I owe them money, or the court has ruled that I do.

[sago]

That sounds incredibly reasonable. So reasonable, in fact, that I can't see it ever being law in the US or UK.

[alphapapa]

Recover what money? Payment for services not yet rendered? In perpetuity until the customer makes a phone call?

[sago]

Yes, they are providing a service: access to their content. Whether you read it or not is not their fault.

It's a silly situation that arises because of the (almost) zero marginal cost of providing digital media. It makes sense in the physical world: you can't claim your money back because you didn't read the magazine they sent. But these laws are much the same in the virtual world.

If they provided and you agreed to a way to cancel, and you don't use that way, they are totally within their rights to continue (passively) providing access, and charging for it. In perpetuity, yes.

[alphapapa]

An analogy to a magazine subscription would be a for-pay email newsletter. In that case, if the newsletter was sent, obviously the company is owed.

But in the case of a passive web site subscription, if the customer stops accessing the site and stops the method of payment, no services have been rendered, and no cost has been incurred by the company. Web server logs could even prove this (although the company could also falsify them).

So a better analogy would probably be a gym membership. Imagine a gym refuses to allow a customer to cancel in-person or on the phone, instead requiring the customer to mail a letter. So a customer, justifiably angry at this, calls his bank or credit card and stops future payments, and never sets foot in the gym again. Now, no services have been rendered after that date, and no costs have been incurred by the gym. They are owed nothing--if not legally in all jurisdictions, then ethically and morally, and therefore legally it should be the same.

I would like to see this tested in court, even a small claims court. In the case of a company intentionally making it difficult and time-consuming to unsubscribe, and a customer cancelling the payment method due to that difficulty, I have a feeling that most judges would side with the former customer. And as has been pointed out, in many places this is not legal, and I would not be surprised if that included several U.S. states.

[sago]

> if not legally in all jurisdictions

Yep, you'd be screwed there too. If your agreement with the gym said you would unsubscribe by mail, and you just stop paying without doing so, they could recover the money.

Gyms make their money by having people pay without using the gym, so they wouldn't care that they aren't 'rendering services'. That's a big reason many companies, and most gyms, use subscriptions.

You could fight it in court if you want to. You might even win. You might even win the following battle to recover your credit score. But all that's going to be a lot more of a hassle than picking up the phone and cancelling in the first place. It takes a special kind of person to willfully seek such a pyrrhic victory.

[JoeAltmaier]

Its not sensible, but it might be real.

[tamana]

That's a scare myth. Cancelling a $50 contract won't meaningfully hurt your credit score. Missing your rent and credit card payments for 3 months will hurt your credit score.