[dovel]

I agree with this sentiment.

Here's some UX for you - the user owes you nothing.

Sure have an optional form or field for cancellations but 5 minutes? How is this beneficial for anyone?

So, it's a free product - they will just never cancel their account and you will have inactive users sitting there. Who is this good for?

So it's a paid product - they will cancel their account and tell everyone about the ridiculously long winded process they had to go through to cancel it.

[wtracy]

... or they'll just dispute the recurring credit card charges for your paid product, and you'll get your merchant account frozen after a few "cancellations".

We can argue over whether or not the original suggestion constitutes fraud, but the credit card companies will definitely treat it as fraud.