[keyle]

This doesn't seem like the right way to do business long terms. The off chance that someone actually take you up on it and pay your 'bill', you've destroyed a lot of goodwill and alerted the rest of the tech world of your scammy moves.

[mattcasmith]

Indeed. Have never used Blacksmith and maybe there’s a good reason why they do this, but it seems odd that in world where so much of the signup and onboarding process is fine tuned for optimal conversion, a business would take an approach to a free trial that risks leaving such a sour taste in a prospect’s mouth.

[dheera]

Also for those that require a credit card for a free trial, I always use a virtual card and cancel it. It's super fun to watch them cry when they can't actually charge you.

[greyb]

They will usually refund you if you end up getting charged because you forgot to cancel. It isn't worth the headache of a chargeback.

Plus they have to pay a fee for chargebacks regardless of whether they think it's valid or not, so strong disincentive.

[didntknowyou]

it's also not easy to just apply for a chargeback in some jurisdiction. they are betting you will just give up and chalk it up as an expensive lesson.

[Natsu]

Funny, I got a fraud call recently because CrunchyRoll decided to try to renew a subscription I abandoned years ago and the card they have is expired.

I know it wasn't me because I gave up entirely on the service after they changed something about their login systems to reject my password and I could no longer get in. Support wanted me to jump through a lot of hoops and I just refused, choosing instead to just stop doing business there because I wasn't really watching anything at that point anyway.

This was around 2022, mind you, so they tried to renew me after several years with no explanation.

[rcleveng]

This happens with me every year with Barnes and Noble bookstore. I canceled their annual membership back in like 2018, Starting in 2021 this zombie account started charging me for a renewal. I reached out to support and they disavowed any knowledge of how this could happen, had no record of charging me, and no clue how it could have happened.

Since Amex is nice about allowing someone who charged you in the past - keep charging you even as your card has changed, they allow the charge.

Every year I do a chargeback, every year. Amex can't figure out how to not allow it and B&N has no idea why they charge it. Hmmm...

[tristor]

I have this exact same thing happening with B&N. Did you ever figure out how to get it to stop?

[rcleveng]

I have not unfortunately, and spent several hours trying to get it sorted out -- all unsuccessfully.

I do a chargeback every year. <sigh>

[dheera]

It's way easier to just not give them a way they can charge you. That way you don't have to deal with a support representative fakely asking you how your weekend was, and who doesn't actually care about your weekend.