When I go to my account -> subscriptions on an iPhone, I can see all of the subscriptions that I have. Oh, hey, I've got a subscription to Microsoft Office 365 Personal. Annual billing, next date May 4, 2021. I click on that, and I see how much it is and I can click "cancel subscription".
I've also got a subscription with Washington Post... somewhere... on some card. To cancel that involves going into WaPo's site and navigating to the account, and trying to find the billing and cancel and turn that off.
Additionally, I can see "This subscription for Microsoft Office 365 Personal". Compare seeing a charge on March 4th show up that is for "Microsoft" - where did that come from? How do I find out what service its associated with? How do I cancel it? What account do I log in to to cancel it?
Microsoft would be fairly clear... but what if it was for "Some Random Developer" - who even makes something that I'm getting billed for? What was it for? The name that something shows up for billing purposes doesn't always reflect the company that the billing is from. I've done "move everything off the card, and cancel the card" in the past to try to find out what reoccurring billing line item was hitting me for $20/month (years and years ago). I never figured it out as everything that I knew that I used that I transferred off didn't break or send me a "your monthly subscription didn't go through" ... it was probably for some service that I subscribed to but forgot about (though they didn't forget about me).
Their not that great as far as payment processors go, but a sketchy app is going to chose the payment processor that’s the best fit for them and thus the worst for the consumer.
A larger threat IMO is teaching people to enter CC info or worse banking info into apps.
When I go to my account -> subscriptions on an iPhone, I can see all of the subscriptions that I have. Oh, hey, I've got a subscription to Microsoft Office 365 Personal. Annual billing, next date May 4, 2021. I click on that, and I see how much it is and I can click "cancel subscription".
I've also got a subscription with Washington Post... somewhere... on some card. To cancel that involves going into WaPo's site and navigating to the account, and trying to find the billing and cancel and turn that off.
Additionally, I can see "This subscription for Microsoft Office 365 Personal". Compare seeing a charge on March 4th show up that is for "Microsoft" - where did that come from? How do I find out what service its associated with? How do I cancel it? What account do I log in to to cancel it?
Microsoft would be fairly clear... but what if it was for "Some Random Developer" - who even makes something that I'm getting billed for? What was it for? The name that something shows up for billing purposes doesn't always reflect the company that the billing is from. I've done "move everything off the card, and cancel the card" in the past to try to find out what reoccurring billing line item was hitting me for $20/month (years and years ago). I never figured it out as everything that I knew that I used that I transferred off didn't break or send me a "your monthly subscription didn't go through" ... it was probably for some service that I subscribed to but forgot about (though they didn't forget about me).