| > just because it's inconvenient for you doesn't make it their obligation to stop Yeah, the thing is, having to cancel services tends to be inconvenient by nature. Usually when someone signs up for something it's because a) they're trying it out to see if it makes sense for them or b) they intend to be a paying customer. It seems like MasterCard is addressing "a" here which is massively commendable. Companies don't need to auto-charge after a trial period ends, and it seems dishonest to do so. Services like Pandora will just take some functionality and inject advertisements after the trial payment ends or you miss your monthly payment. Regarding "b", churn is a massive problem for businesses and if my company is doing something to alienate my customers, I would be trying to figure out how to reconcile the issue and retain them instead of trying to force payment on a single month of service and potentially drive them to file complaints against my business. It sounds like Twiddla might be the exception to the rule and is commendable for that - I've never heard of a company offering to refund months of service fees, but most businesses aren't like that. And to a consumer, that unexpected $5 charge might include $35 of overdraft/NSF fees from their bank that they have to reconcile - to people on a budget, that might be a lot. And some companies will try to recharge the account again and again. I know from experience that DigitalOcean reattempts charges every 2 days for a missed payment without any reference to that in the TOS, even if you have emailed them agreeing to pay the full balance before their account suspension deadline and request that they stop the arbitrary recharge attempts, which can end up costing hundreds for a missed $10 payment. And these sorts of practices don't generate any extra revenue for the service provider, but they may generate needless churn. It ends up turning into a massive headache for something that was totally avoidable - and it usually ends up hurting the people with the least money the most. The current government shutdown is a perfect example of why we should be careful about our billing practices. |