[manfredo]

Sure, debt doesn't just go away. But there's no loan, so why are you talking about debt? The grandparent comment is talking about online subscriptions. If you stop paying your your subscription, then they'll terminate service. Likewise if you stop paying your insurance premium you won't be able to file any claims. But unpaid subscriptions don't magically become debt.

If you don't pay your electricity or water bill then that's a different story because utilities are not allowed to just stop service for things people's lives depend on. But utilities are more heavily regulated than normal subscriptions. For the most part, if a company tries to keep you from terminating a subscription and you say, "well, I'm not paying anymore. Do you still want to keep providing the service for free?" it's an effective way to get them to terminate service.

[hocuspocus]

> But unpaid subscriptions don't magically become debt.

There are things called debt collection agencies. They are widely used by service providers.

[manfredo]

So if you block your Netflix payments you really think there going to send debt collectors? No, they'd lose more money on hiring a collector than they'd gain back from recovering one month's subscription.

[mrep]

They probably could and I'm assuming they would just sell it to a collections agency for pennies on the dollar and the collections agency would just send an automated notice hoping the person would pay it. For example, I had wave internet in seattle and when I moved I obviously canceled. They screwed up setting the cancellation date though and ended up charging me the next month. Just got a collections notice for that 1 month of charges. I messaged them and apparently there is nothing they can do from their end at this point so now I'm disputing it with the collections agency.

Pretty dumb on their part if you ask me considering now I'm telling everyone not to use them because of their screwup and the fact that they would sell it to a collections agency over 1 months worth of payments.

[distances]

Like the other person said, here you have to explicitly end your subscriptions. Stopping payments will not end your subscriptions. You'll end up dealing with collection agencies.

Unless the company values their public image and return customers more than a small payment, which thankfully is the case for many. I just wouldn't count on it, ever.

[hocuspocus]

Netflix won't but I wouldn't take my chance with the average Germany company.

I assure you that an insurance or telco will send unpaid bills to collection agencies. Especially if we are talking about one or two years of service.