[creamyhorror]

It seems to me like it ought to be possible for the consumer to cancel a payment arrangement via their card provider.

Yet my banking app (here in Singapore) doesn't let me block any prior authorizations. It feels like the payment networks don't want to make it too easy to cancel periodic payments? Which isn't surprising, of course, but it feels like something I'd change banks for.

[Teever]

For a while now I’ve been thinking that the solution to this kind of stuff is a sort of consumer version of the SLAPP technique.

People need to start coordinating online the simultaneous action against particular corporate entities in whatever legal venues are available to them such as small claims court.

As I understand it you often win by default if the other side no-shows. It’s a little hard and cost prohibitive for an entity to send a representative to every courtroom if thousands of people coordinate to seek legal redress against unscrupulous behaviour at the same time.

[techjamie]

This was something Louis Rossman suggested at one point. Small claims courts don't typically allow lawyers and require a direct representative. And small claims courts are fairly cheap financially and judicially to file in.

I wager such an attack would be very costly since they'd likely be ordered to pay the court cost of around $100 per case if they left it to default. But if they didn't, they now need to take an employee from somewhere to represent them instead of doing their actual job, which is also costly. So getting even 100 people to do this simultaneously could cost upwards of $10,000 to the target company.

[deejaaymac]

Idk if you have something like this in Singapore but I use an app called 'privacy' that let's me make vendor specific digital cards, and I can pause them, set limits, etc.

[creamyhorror]

Nope, unlike in the US, there's no easy way to create virtual credit cards freely in Singapore (afaik). Might be a result of Singapore law, monopoly power of the banks, or just a lack of awareness that such a thing is possible.