[WalterBright]

> I told the representative I wanted to cancel. Then I was offered reasons not to. I responded with “no thanks” each time. Then, I waited for the representative to reply and come back with several rounds of offers to get me not to cancel. On and on, the process went until I was finally allowed to leave.

That's fairly easy to deal with. Answer every question, argument, and pitch from the representative with "please cancel my subscription".

[bozzcl]

True, but it’s still crappy of them to waste people’s time.

[WalterBright]

Sure, but you can waste less time by going as far as interrupting their questions, arguments and pitches with a firm "please cancel my subscription."

That gets 'em through their script faster.

[contriban]

Indeed, I was planning to find a California VPN to avoid the chat/call, but really it took maybe 2 minutes of idle chat to deal with it. Even my low bar for BS wasn’t that triggered. honestly I was more hopefully that they’d renew the $1/month offer instead, but nothing.

[kilburn]

Right after the first question, someone should try replying in the lines of:

I have expressed in no unclear terms that I want to cancel my subscription and I don't want to answer any further non-essential questions about it. Any further questions that are not legally necessary to terminate our relationship will be considered usage of my professional consulting services at the rate of 10$/minute for which I will send you a bill after the call finishes. How may we proceed?

I'd love to know what would happen next.

[CogitoCogito]

It's a nice thought, but nothing would happen. They might even just cancel the chat to annoy you. Or they might continue asking you questions. In either case they wouldn't owe you money for it. They didn't engage into a contract with you just because you sent them that message.

That said you might have certain consumer protections you're not aware of. I had cell phone plan with Comviq here in Sweden that I wanted to cancel and they said on their website that I needed to call. Swedish law requires my being able to cancel in various ways (e.g. sending a letter, or sending an email, etc.) regardless of what they said in their initial contract. So I found an address and just sent them an email stating I wanted to cancel. In a day or two it was done. I presume they know they are legally required to do so and so they did what I said, but I'm also sure they happy to provide conflicting information making consumers unaware of their rights. I reported their website to our consumer protection authorities, but I never heard back.