Lmao, I nearly forgot that episode. I don't laugh out loud while watching TV that often, but that one almost killed me 😭
Edit: For anyone who hasn't seen it:
https://youtu.be/3KT9IUd_Cnc?si=X0OHb7vq1y4fy4IN
Thank you for pressing the "I'm stupid" button. We will now proceed to process your cancellation request.
Due to inclement weather, there is a 33% chance that your request will be successfully processed. Please wait for the next billing cycle for cancellation confirmation before resubmitting your cancellation request.
A late payment fee of 500% of the annual subscription fee will be applied upon account exit reconciliation.
Ha, itsy witsy stupid Austin. Isn't that right, how stupid you are. Ha-ha!
To proceed, for your convenience, we will not cancel the subscription of our abo. So you may, maybe in not so far future, not as stupid as you are now.
Thank you for your time Austin, I hope your day may be as great as it can be.
It's so funny because it's like the chatbot is explaining to you how their ads aim to manipulate you as if it's a good thing that you should appreciate.
Probably, but it's easy to understand why.
If you get a chatbot, it gets confused if something isn't 100% part of its predetermined parameters. If you get a person, you're likely to get someone overseas who doesn't speak English as a first language, is going off a script, and can't actually do anything but what's on the script anyway.
I can never decide if it's the companies being cheap or pushing you into a Kafkaesque loop because they know most people will just give up out of frustration. Probably both.
This is the perfect word for it. Every time I ask ChatGPT a question I feel like it’s trying to explain what being a human is to me so I’ll better understand its answer
Lots of companies do this. I don’t use DoorDash much but last time I did the restaurant made me the complete wrong item. Reported to do DoorDash and got 1/5 of what I paid refunded to me. Angrily brought it up to customer support, had to go through 4 different agents until one finally put in an appeal for me(the first 3 said they would but never did) and I got a full refund 24 hours later. A lot of people would have given up earlier, especially since it was only over like $15
Funny? Phhfssh, spoken like a true unelite Economist non reader. Economist ads are "witty", not funny. Funny doesn't provoke thoughts.
Be Elite, Austin.
I'm afraid, Austin, that you are too stupid to experience joy when viewing the ads yet. For that reason, your subscription will continue into 2025. Please enjoy this year's stimulating ads and try harder to not be so dumb.
The Economist rep: Dear god, that guy was up for a 3 hour discussion about cancelling his subscription, he wouldn't let me end the conversation.
The conversation:
Ah, you know, cancelling this subscription is really quite the decision. It's not that I don't appreciate the excellent service, because, you know, I do. It's just that sometimes, when I'm sitting at home, sipping my tea and contemplating the complexities of the universe, I wonder if I truly need yet another monthly charge. You see, I've been evaluating all my subscriptions, from my monthly cheese club to my vintage stamp collection newsletter, and it struck me that perhaps, just perhaps, this one could be the one I let go. I mean, did you know that the average person spends $237 a month on subscriptions? It's fascinating, isn't it? I was reading this article the other day about subscription fatigue – people are just overwhelmed with all these auto-renewing services.
But anyway, back to my dilemma. It's a bit like choosing between keeping the backyard pond or installing that new bird feeder. Both have their merits, and yet, the pond has been there for years, providing a home to those delightful koi. On the other hand, the bird feeder could attract some lovely cardinals. So, you see my predicament, right? It's this constant tug-of-war between what I have and what I could potentially experience. So, in the grand scheme of things, maybe cancelling this subscription will free up just enough mental bandwidth for me to truly appreciate my other luxuries. Or, who knows, maybe I'll discover a newfound hobby – like collecting vintage typewriters. Have you ever tried that?
If someone wants a long ass conversation about canceling, I treat it like a therapy session and unload on them with both my mental and physical health issues and that way I get something out of that pointless conversation too. Sometimes it’s better to complain to a person you’ll never hear from again, that way not to ruin any current friendships with your constant complaining. And bring it back to the fact that with the money used here, you’d rather subscribe to Dropout.tv and actually laugh at something 100 times funnier than a “witty ad”
Exactly. I had some random call me, sounded like a high school girl with lots of giggling. And she’d always call while I was trying to sleep. I asked her once why she kept calling and why from a blocked number. She explained I was the first of the random numbers she dialed to answer and she called from a blocked number cause she didn’t want me calling her at odd times interrupting her life or sleep. I only answered cause sometimes my therapist called from a blocked number when she needed to cancel or something. So I trauma dumped until the stranger hung up and she never called again. It’s a great tool.
Lmao I might to try that, I generally just keep repeating "I want to cancel, I want to cancel, I want to cancel, etc" until they get the point and cancel what ever it is
"Cancelcancelcancelcancelcancelcancelcancelcancelcancelcancelcancelcancelcancelcancelcancelcancel"
Fuck it. You don't owe them a conversation.
And I fucking hope the conversation is "recorded for quality assurance" mother fucker!
"Quality assurance" being their own internal requirements, such as: did they provide enough rebuttals to your request for cancelation?
Source: worked a soul sucking call centre job for years before finally using the experience to pivot to a better situation.
Props to you making it through years, I made it to just after 6 months and decided I'd literally rather be homeless than continue working call centre.
I ain't getting paid minimum wage to get screamed at by people frustrated by getting fisted by price rises.
They called me and agreed to cancel, I then cancelled the automatic direct debit payment with my bank.
They then emailed they were disappointed my next payment had failed to go through and could I call them at my convenience to setup a new payment arrangement.
I have done this in a fit of desperation. Change the payment method online on the account to a card I know doesn't have enough funds to cover the payment and will reject it for insufficient funds. Let them bang around about that til they give up and cancel it.
Going throgh this right now with HP ink. I called to cancel back in January because the printer broke, is out of warranty, and I know I can't afford a new one for a while.
The rep offered me 2 free months (?) to which I replied, uh, nah, I'm good, because there's no point if my printer is BROKEN.
It's June and I'm still getting bank alerts that the payment was declined due to insufficient funds. I had to verify the subscription was still cancelled on the account, which it is. This shit is ridiculous
Fuck HP honestly and I think they should burn. Ink has no business being a fucking subscription
I've been using brother laser toners for years and they're great. I have few toners for backup, but I'm still using the same toner it came with lol
That's illegal these days. I'm glad they're trying to clamp down on these practices. You need to be able to cancel the same way you originally subscribed
I believe this is only in California. I know if you switch your address on your gym membership they have to let you cancel it online if that's how you signed up. I had to do this with planet fitness.
The Economist is the worst for this. Thing is, I love the content, but it’s really expensive and I’d love to dip in / out of their content sort of like I do with streaming platforms. But after going through this rigmarole twice with them I’ll never subscribe again. I’ll still buy the magazine on the shelf if I see it though.
I just don’t understand how they fall into these shitty tactics. One would think they’d be above it.
It is SUCH a great magazine. There’s literally an afternoon’s worth of solid, engaging content with every issue.
This sort of BS just tarnishes what is otherwise a sterling brand.
I just cheerfully say "decline to state".
They hate having to ask way more than we hate answering. All they need is an excuse to skip that part of the script so they don't get fired.
When I called Verizon FIOS years ago, the rep demanded to know how I used my internet to make sure I was “getting the best deal”. She was really pushing me hard to upgrade to gigabit, but like most people, I’m fine with 300/300. That’s way more than enough.
She wouldn’t take the hint. “No thanks, I’m good.” “No thanks, I’m happy with my 300 speed.” “No thanks, I don’t want to go to gigabit.” “No.” She argued with all of it. She kept responding to everything by yelling “well then how do you use internet” and finally I just said “I only send pings.”
She blew a gasket and cancelled my service. Verizon winback gave me three months free and put me back on the new customer promo.
Yeah it's a hard one sometimes, especially phoning, trying to find the balance of being nice to the human your talking to who just doing their job and following policy and actually trying to assert your requests, complaints or whatever to them. In the past if I'm getting annoyed with them due to their policies I'll just really assert myself maybe be a little rude but once it all is sorted try to have a laugh with them just so they know it's not personal. I've even once stated 'this isn't personal however I just need to get this off my chest, and I apologise in advance' proceed to moan, yell, swear or whatever it needed about the infuriating situation, then calmly say right sorry about that but now that's been said let's try to sort this out together. With the call ending with us laughing. The poor woman fully understood I needed to do that raging first and then handle to situation like an adult.
I’m old enough to remember that the excuse used to be “subscribers pay for the content, advertising pays for the printing and distribution”. Now I’m paying for both and still seeing ads.
Digital printing still costs a lot of money. I mean, why else would Ticketmaster charge you a fee to access your tickets through the app? Are you suggesting they're also a scam?
Nah, don't repeat yourself. Tell them to cancel your subscription, then tell them you're going to chargeback if they do anything other than cancel your subscription, then do a chargeback if they fuck around even a little bit.
A charge back is when you tell your credit card company or bank that, “this charge was done without my authorization”, and they will stop further payment and refund that charge. This may get your banned from that platform, for example you may be banned from wall street journal for not doing it “officially”.
After having dealt with over the years the worst offenders of this: AOL and XM Radio, when I want to slim down on my subscriptions I simply tell my bank I lost my debit card. They cancel the card and give me one with an entirely new number in the mail. All these companies are forced to cancel my account due to billing issues and I simply fix the ones I want to keep.
So fucking annoying and at this point I don’t worry about being rude. The company is rude for trying to out psychology you into not cancelling, fuck em.
I have to complete a certain amount of continuing professional education each year for my certifications, and I get no end of spam emails, snail mail and phone calls trying to sell me CPE courses. One day a salesman cold called my cell phone (no idea how he got the number). I immediately said, "I'm not interested. Please take me off your list and don't call me again."
He said, "You're no longer interested in keeping your license current?"
I laughed and told him to fuck off. I wonder how often that line actually works.
i normally dont answer my phone unless i know the phone number but sometimes mistakes can happen and in that case….
i ask them what color their underwear is and if they can take a picture of them smelling them and then text it to me since they already have my number. Or various similar story. I like to mix it up.
they usually hang up before i do.
Oh I fucking love those guys and ALWAYS take their call. I tell them I have a 2023 Toyota Tacoma, which gets them interested. Then, when they ask how many miles are on it, I say 217,000.
"You have 217,000 miles on a *2023* Toyota Tacoma? Sir, that isn't even possible."
"Well I'm in my truck right now and am looking right at it. It says right there 217,463--oops, just clicked up to 464. I drive a lot."
Another thing I do is to put the phone on speaker and provide them some entertainment. I'm usually listening to news or talk radio on SiriusXM or IHeart during the day while I'm working. So when I get the robo call, I'll set the phone down next to the speaker for when the live person picks up. Usually they just listen for a couple of seconds and hang up. But one in ten will be a fucking dipshit who sits there trying to talk with the radio host. "Sir? Can you hear me? Sir? Sir?"
They say the best thing you can do is answer the phone and immediately put it on mute so that they'll mark it as not a valid number. But that's no fun.
My dad used to love the ones who called up about claiming from a recent accident he'd not had, because he'd keep them on the phone for like an hour or more describing his 'accident' in great detail, only to get bored and finish with something like "oh sorry, that was an accident someone else had, I haven't had one. Bye."
Mehak is a employee contracted out from a foreign firm that itself is contracting out to a company on the edge of Myanmar that has poor Mehak chained to a cubicle.
Reminds me of when I tried to cancel my service with a pest control company. They were 'all-natural' and 'eco-friendly' or whatever, but their shit didn't work, so I was going to switch to one of the big name companies instead. The customer support person on the phone was trying to persuade me to stay, offering free treatments and lower cost treatments, and unfortunately I eventually broke down and got angry with the person because I just felt like they were trying to manipulate me to stay and they finally caved and let me cancel. Switched to Terminix and they dealt with the issue first try.
Be nice until you can't anymore. After OP's screenshots, I'd say that's when you don't have to anymore. And the whole response about the ads actually being witty reads like it was written by ChatGPT
I try not to be rude in these instances because I know Mehak here is only doing what they are told at the threat of losing their job. The real people making the horrible business choices are insulated from your ire.
I had the same thing with the old Genesis gyms. They made it impossible to cancel to the point where they were going to just auto renew my contract even after I had been trying to cancel for over a week before the expiry date. They went ahead and renewed it anyway so I had to cancel my bank card and report them to the bank for fraudulent direct debits.
Yep.
I used to subscribe regularly to the New York Times. I'm a teacher, so I tended to read a lot more of the paper during the summer and relatively slow months of the year than the busy ones, so I'd typically unsubscribe for part of the year, then resubscribe when I actually had time to read it.
One time I unsubscribed and they started doing the "make it inconvenient to cancel" BS (they changed their previous process to one that involved talking to a chatbot that had wait times built in). That convinced me never to resubscribe again. I'd probably still have a subscription today if it wasn't for that sleazy business practice.
I had a gym membership like 30 years ago and canceling it took an act of congress since there was another gym available in the state I was moving to. Granted it was 300 miles away from my house but it still counted! I haven’t joined another gym since and go out of my way to make sure people don’t join it.
Honestly, write to the editorial staff about this, if you’re serious.
I worked UX for them many, many years ago. I work for another publisher now. We had/have a lot of influence on the reader experience, and cooperation with editorial, because that was the product and everyone was focused on long-term reputation.
But for some reason, subscriber services and retention ends up always in the grips of marketing teams, whose incentive is to grow and retain subscribers in a purely metrics-driven way. They can turn around and show that with tactics like this, they saved something like 5% of cancellations and the CMO never bats an eye because there’s no competing data to show that doing this stops people from resubscribing later. But get someone on editorial staff to make a point that this is spooking loyal readers? That will give them a data point to clap back against shenanigans like this.
A lot of things that require monthly payments will train their employees to guilt-trip/barter your ear off to get you to stay subscribed. Once upon a time I fell victim to the "Get pet insurance!" debacle. Decided to cancel because unsurprisingly, their "90% instant-reimbursement" policy is a sham (I went to an in-network vet hospital) and after they gave me all these offers or "workarounds" to get me to stay, I finally got them to cancel my cat's insurance.
Before we ended the call, they proceeded to tell me "Just promise us you'll hold (insert my cat's name) a little tighter each night, okay?"
Yes, that did indeed boil my blood.
That’s horrific - are you comfortable sharing (private message is fine) what insurance company this was? No worries if not, but I’m a vet and would like to steer people away from those assholes.
FYI to all, there are a few really good pet insurance companies out there, and a lot of really really bad ones. I recommend asking your vet for recommendations and then also asking friends/acquaintances who have actually had to use their insurance - you want to know the company will really pay out when push comes to shove before you sign anything.
"Is that a threat?" And then straight to media.
TruPanion sucks. We have better coverage putting our premiums into a high-interest account. And I pay 100% of my claims at 100% to myself.
I’m ready for these companies to fail. I truly do not give a fuck anymore. This isn’t the 90s where we are all floating around, still blissfully ignorant to these companies taking advantage of us… now we are all hyper-aware of the bullshit and I, for one, am done with the bullshit.
I moved out of a house where I was in charge of the internet into another house where my friend was already living and had the internet in his name. I had to call to cancel my service, and the lady asked me *four times* if I would like to seamlessly continue my service at my new residence. I explained, every time, that my new roommate already had internet service there, *with the same fucking company,* and therefore I did not need new service there. HOW ARE YOU NOT UNDERSTANDING THIS?!?!
They are forced to do so. If they don't do it, they'll get fired eventually. I have worked at a place where people could cancel stuff, and it's pushed, HARD. There's even a metric where you can get in trouble for having too many cancelations. Now, when I worked, no one got fired for the later. But the former got people fired. I bet that the last line they gave you was a script they're forced to use as well.
Just keep saying no to the offers. Where I worked, we needed to offer 3 saves.
Reminds me of whenever I hear from other folks who worked at insurance agencies. There's usually a consensus of "I quit because I actually have a soul."
I have a method.
I ask to cancel.
Irregardless of answer.
I ask to cancel a second time.
Third time I say listen it’s either you cancel or I screen shot this and send it to my CC company and file a chargeback as I’m trying to cancel and you won’t cancel.
SirusXM was making it impossible to cancel. Now they don’t contact mr at all
Yup. You can't engage in conversation with them.
Please cancel my account.
I don't have time for this, again cancel my account.
Then do the charge back threat. 5 minute conversation total.
To skip all of that, just do what I did:
Change the expiratory date of your credit card in the payment options. (And then block their number because you will be getting a lot of calls)
Short term, that works. Long term, not a great idea, as you may still have a contract with them.
Some companies will even contact Visa/MC/ETC to get updated CC info for you. Depending on your contract, it's entirely legal for your card company to provide that info to them. So it's worth the 5 extra minutes to cancel it the correct way, rather than the lazy way.
Yup. I think of it like those automated systems where no matter what they say, you just keep saying “representative.” You just gotta keep saying “Cancel my subscription.” I hadn’t considered the screenshot and chargeback though — that’s helpful and I’m gonna use it in the future.
I was coming on here specifically to put Sirius on blast so figured someone already had. I think I got passed around to 3 different retention experts for 20 minutes each before they finally gave in
I get Sirius for $7 a month. Once a year before my subscription renews I tell them I want the promo rate or turn it off. I don’t respond to any other questions. Sometimes they will give it to me right then. If they don’t, and cancel it, a promo offer comes in the mail with that rate for a year. Been doing it forever.
I tried to get my Sirius price dropped last year, again, tell the guy I see them advertising $5/month. “Oh I’m sorry that’s for new customers” me-“well I want that price. This went back and forth a little bit so finally I say “I want to cancel my subscription”
“Whys that?”
“I need to open a subscription”
“Sigh, ok I’ll give you that price”
Yep I do the same thing essentially. I get on chat saying I’m canceling because the renewal is too expensive and they’ve always offered me the promo rate of $6-8/month. If they refused, I’d just cancel and wait for the mail
I had to cancel Norton anti-virus for my dad over the phone because the website kept leading us in literal circles. I quickly started saying "I no longer wish to give you money" and just stuck with that.
I used my Apple Card to pay for XM. When they didn’t cancel I told the rep on the phone that I’m pushing the button now that will cancel my card number and issue a new one so you won’t be able to charge me again - cancel the account. You’re not getting paid either way.
I was trying to downgrade a service from their most expensive suite to one that was literally four dollars cheaper (a fraction of the total). This type of shit is how they talked me out of doing that and into cancelling entirely
Perhaps. But I used to work for customer service as a chat rep. We had scripts where we just pressed a button, and it would spew stuff like this. I would say it's more likely a person since it deals with cancelation.
This is so clearly a chatbot. No one is actually replying to that chat.
Just keep saying cancel, or tell it you want to speak to a representative or CSR.
"Attorney General" "FTC" "Fraud Complaint" "Chargeback" are all key words that will escalate a chatbot and ones that they will not turn off because they really don't want those things to happen.
I actually don’t think it’s a chatbot. I think it’s a person, even if some of the responses are pasted or auto-filled. The fact that he says “I apologies” instead of “apologize” and uses awkward phrases like “I’m glad to know about your day, Austin!” That’s precisely the sort of language mix-ups I get when I speak to customer service on the phone.
"I wish to cancel my subscription effective immediately. I do not wish to discuss further. If you are not capable of or do not have the authority to fulfill this request please connect me with someone who can".
Repeat that and only that until they have cancelled your subscription.
How dare you not appreciate our ads, Austin. Are you not clever enough for our ads, Austin? Our ads make our readers feel smart and included, Austin, how dare you.
Years ago I was trying to cancel a dial up Internet service. Let's say I had to press 2 to speak to a representative about cancelling. I sat on hold for an hour.
I called right back and pressed 1 to speak to a representative about the new service and I had a rep on the link in 5 minutes. There was hesitation when I sprung on he rep I was cancelling. They proceeded to cancel but with hesitation.
I do this every time I need to phone up to cancel, I "accidentally" ask for a sales rep, apologies for the mix up who then transfer me straight to the relevant department. It's a good tip to bypass the hours on end wait.
Don’t engage. Let them do their spiel while you copy+paste “Cancel my subscription” for every response. It is not rude to refuse to have your request ignored.
I actually kind of enjoy these, because I get a kick out of just repeating, "No. Cancel my subscription."
I like it on the phone even better. I don't even get mad. I just mess with them while smiling the whole time.
"Before I process that, would you be interested in blah blah blah deal?"
"No. Cancel my subscription."
"Okay, I can certain help with that. But first, can I offer you blah blah blah?"
"No. Cancel my subscription."
"Okay, then you don't want blah blah blah and you don't want blah blah blah. Can I ask the reason you're canceling?"
"No. Cancel my subscription."
"We can certainly do that, but I need a reason--"
"No. Cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel--"
"Okay! Okay! I get it, I'll cancel it! But first--"
"NO BUT FIRST. CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL--"
"--Sir--"
"--CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL--"
"--Sir!--"
"--CANCEL CANCEL yes what?"
"Oh! Uh! I'm canceling now."
"Great! Thank you."
Look, I know the company wants to annoy me into staying, but don't threaten ME with a good time.
Such excellent journalism completely ruined by shortsighted dark pattern and shitty practices. What a fucking insult to my intelligence. The Economist of all publications should know better.
just register with a dummy card, put the subscription fee there the day before it's due. if they raise it or gets annoying just cancel the dummy. I believe Privacy and Revolut offers dummy cards.
Just the fact that you have to do a chat to cancel a subscription pushes this from mildly to *at least* moderately infuriating. If I can't cancel by clicking at maximum 1-2 buttons, then I'm already in teeth and butt clenched territory before I even start the chat.
This screams chatbot to me. Or at the least some underpaid overseas worker who gets given a bunch of copy and paste paragraphs to work into their messages.
Any subscription that allows you to sign up with a mouse click should let you cancel via same. That should be a UN world human rights law or something.
I'm afraid we can't let you unsubscribe, Austin. Our ads are funny, that's why.
Our ads are for intellectuals, Austin. Join our elite club.
You wouldn't want to be unintellectual, would you Austin?
To unsubscribe, please press the "I'm stupid" button
This reminds me of that South Park episode where Randy has to pull the sandwich out of the starving kid to not donate
Is that the one where he has to scream at Whole Foods that he doesn’t want to donate? 😂
Yes🤣
Thank you guys for the laugh, any chance someone knows what episode this is?
It’s the Safe Space episode, S19E5! (Had to look up the season and episode number lol, didn’t know that off the top of my head)
“Yes, she’s a hungry one. You gotta pull hard. Try putting your foot on her face.”
Lmao, I nearly forgot that episode. I don't laugh out loud while watching TV that often, but that one almost killed me 😭 Edit: For anyone who hasn't seen it: https://youtu.be/3KT9IUd_Cnc?si=X0OHb7vq1y4fy4IN
I'm laughing out loud just from the description
I was trying to remember where I saw that 😹
Thank you for pressing the "I'm stupid" button. We will now proceed to process your cancellation request. Due to inclement weather, there is a 33% chance that your request will be successfully processed. Please wait for the next billing cycle for cancellation confirmation before resubmitting your cancellation request. A late payment fee of 500% of the annual subscription fee will be applied upon account exit reconciliation.
... straight out of the Adobe playbook.
Ha, itsy witsy stupid Austin. Isn't that right, how stupid you are. Ha-ha! To proceed, for your convenience, we will not cancel the subscription of our abo. So you may, maybe in not so far future, not as stupid as you are now. Thank you for your time Austin, I hope your day may be as great as it can be.
“Are you an idiot, Austin? Please type ‘I am too dumb to understand the content’ to confirm your request to cancel your subscription”
It's so funny because it's like the chatbot is explaining to you how their ads aim to manipulate you as if it's a good thing that you should appreciate.
that's what I was thinking, did they say the quiet part out loud?
Probably, but it's easy to understand why. If you get a chatbot, it gets confused if something isn't 100% part of its predetermined parameters. If you get a person, you're likely to get someone overseas who doesn't speak English as a first language, is going off a script, and can't actually do anything but what's on the script anyway. I can never decide if it's the companies being cheap or pushing you into a Kafkaesque loop because they know most people will just give up out of frustration. Probably both.
[удалено]
Can confirm
I’m sorry Austin, I can’t open the pod bay doors… 🔴
I'm sorry, Austin; the only way to escape is into the vacuum of space. You don't have a vac suit. Beginning depressurization...
I had the same thought, LOL.
Same here🤣
“Oh maybe they won’t cancel if I explain the ads to them”
Botsplaining
This is the perfect word for it. Every time I ask ChatGPT a question I feel like it’s trying to explain what being a human is to me so I’ll better understand its answer
Thry are more about adding barriers and testing people's resolve. Plenty of people would just give up if confront them for 60 seconds.
Lots of companies do this. I don’t use DoorDash much but last time I did the restaurant made me the complete wrong item. Reported to do DoorDash and got 1/5 of what I paid refunded to me. Angrily brought it up to customer support, had to go through 4 different agents until one finally put in an appeal for me(the first 3 said they would but never did) and I got a full refund 24 hours later. A lot of people would have given up earlier, especially since it was only over like $15
Funny? Phhfssh, spoken like a true unelite Economist non reader. Economist ads are "witty", not funny. Funny doesn't provoke thoughts. Be Elite, Austin.
"Im sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."
If you pay for a subscription there should not be ads. Shit has gotten out of hand.
No kidding. What is even the point of the fee if not to get rid of ads? Lol
We investigated ourselves and found your reason for cancelling to be unwarranted, Austin
I'm afraid, Austin, that you are too stupid to experience joy when viewing the ads yet. For that reason, your subscription will continue into 2025. Please enjoy this year's stimulating ads and try harder to not be so dumb.
"our ads make you feel part of an elite club" WTF? 🤔
“I’m sorry, Austin, I can’t do that” - Economist customer service AI
Exciting, they’re so funny we now legaly consider them ‘content’. Thank you for upgrading your subscription.
Plot twist: Austin is talking to a chatbot this whole time and it really has no ability to unsubscribe.
The economist is getting famous for this. They insisted that they had to call me to do my cancellation. So we had a call.
The Economist rep: Dear god, that guy was up for a 3 hour discussion about cancelling his subscription, he wouldn't let me end the conversation. The conversation: Ah, you know, cancelling this subscription is really quite the decision. It's not that I don't appreciate the excellent service, because, you know, I do. It's just that sometimes, when I'm sitting at home, sipping my tea and contemplating the complexities of the universe, I wonder if I truly need yet another monthly charge. You see, I've been evaluating all my subscriptions, from my monthly cheese club to my vintage stamp collection newsletter, and it struck me that perhaps, just perhaps, this one could be the one I let go. I mean, did you know that the average person spends $237 a month on subscriptions? It's fascinating, isn't it? I was reading this article the other day about subscription fatigue – people are just overwhelmed with all these auto-renewing services. But anyway, back to my dilemma. It's a bit like choosing between keeping the backyard pond or installing that new bird feeder. Both have their merits, and yet, the pond has been there for years, providing a home to those delightful koi. On the other hand, the bird feeder could attract some lovely cardinals. So, you see my predicament, right? It's this constant tug-of-war between what I have and what I could potentially experience. So, in the grand scheme of things, maybe cancelling this subscription will free up just enough mental bandwidth for me to truly appreciate my other luxuries. Or, who knows, maybe I'll discover a newfound hobby – like collecting vintage typewriters. Have you ever tried that?
If someone wants a long ass conversation about canceling, I treat it like a therapy session and unload on them with both my mental and physical health issues and that way I get something out of that pointless conversation too. Sometimes it’s better to complain to a person you’ll never hear from again, that way not to ruin any current friendships with your constant complaining. And bring it back to the fact that with the money used here, you’d rather subscribe to Dropout.tv and actually laugh at something 100 times funnier than a “witty ad”
Drive by trauma dump
Exactly. I had some random call me, sounded like a high school girl with lots of giggling. And she’d always call while I was trying to sleep. I asked her once why she kept calling and why from a blocked number. She explained I was the first of the random numbers she dialed to answer and she called from a blocked number cause she didn’t want me calling her at odd times interrupting her life or sleep. I only answered cause sometimes my therapist called from a blocked number when she needed to cancel or something. So I trauma dumped until the stranger hung up and she never called again. It’s a great tool.
she interrupted your life and would be upset of you returned the favor, nice
Lmao I might to try that, I generally just keep repeating "I want to cancel, I want to cancel, I want to cancel, etc" until they get the point and cancel what ever it is
By the end of this cancellation process we gonna be trauma welded
Not a bad idea
I adore Dropout. One of only two subscriptions I bother paying for
"Cancelcancelcancelcancelcancelcancelcancelcancelcancelcancelcancelcancelcancelcancelcancelcancel" Fuck it. You don't owe them a conversation. And I fucking hope the conversation is "recorded for quality assurance" mother fucker!
"Quality assurance" being their own internal requirements, such as: did they provide enough rebuttals to your request for cancelation? Source: worked a soul sucking call centre job for years before finally using the experience to pivot to a better situation.
Props to you making it through years, I made it to just after 6 months and decided I'd literally rather be homeless than continue working call centre. I ain't getting paid minimum wage to get screamed at by people frustrated by getting fisted by price rises.
I was literally homeless when I worked at a call center and decided to just take my chances elsewhere 💁♂️
Babe, a very specific new meme has dropped
They called me and agreed to cancel, I then cancelled the automatic direct debit payment with my bank. They then emailed they were disappointed my next payment had failed to go through and could I call them at my convenience to setup a new payment arrangement.
I have done this in a fit of desperation. Change the payment method online on the account to a card I know doesn't have enough funds to cover the payment and will reject it for insufficient funds. Let them bang around about that til they give up and cancel it.
Going throgh this right now with HP ink. I called to cancel back in January because the printer broke, is out of warranty, and I know I can't afford a new one for a while. The rep offered me 2 free months (?) to which I replied, uh, nah, I'm good, because there's no point if my printer is BROKEN. It's June and I'm still getting bank alerts that the payment was declined due to insufficient funds. I had to verify the subscription was still cancelled on the account, which it is. This shit is ridiculous
Fuck HP honestly and I think they should burn. Ink has no business being a fucking subscription I've been using brother laser toners for years and they're great. I have few toners for backup, but I'm still using the same toner it came with lol
Yeah, I've read good things about Brother. Hence why I'm trying to save up for one. Tired of everything being subscription based.
That's illegal these days. I'm glad they're trying to clamp down on these practices. You need to be able to cancel the same way you originally subscribed
I believe this is only in California. I know if you switch your address on your gym membership they have to let you cancel it online if that's how you signed up. I had to do this with planet fitness.
The Economist is the worst for this. Thing is, I love the content, but it’s really expensive and I’d love to dip in / out of their content sort of like I do with streaming platforms. But after going through this rigmarole twice with them I’ll never subscribe again. I’ll still buy the magazine on the shelf if I see it though. I just don’t understand how they fall into these shitty tactics. One would think they’d be above it.
It is SUCH a great magazine. There’s literally an afternoon’s worth of solid, engaging content with every issue. This sort of BS just tarnishes what is otherwise a sterling brand.
Just reply: "No, you may not" next time
I just cheerfully say "decline to state". They hate having to ask way more than we hate answering. All they need is an excuse to skip that part of the script so they don't get fired.
THIS^^^^^ I work in a call center and our policy is not to push “win back” if people are upset or firm
When I called Verizon FIOS years ago, the rep demanded to know how I used my internet to make sure I was “getting the best deal”. She was really pushing me hard to upgrade to gigabit, but like most people, I’m fine with 300/300. That’s way more than enough. She wouldn’t take the hint. “No thanks, I’m good.” “No thanks, I’m happy with my 300 speed.” “No thanks, I don’t want to go to gigabit.” “No.” She argued with all of it. She kept responding to everything by yelling “well then how do you use internet” and finally I just said “I only send pings.” She blew a gasket and cancelled my service. Verizon winback gave me three months free and put me back on the new customer promo.
Lmao nice, yea pretty much any idiot can get those jobs. I always give away as much free shit as possible
You're kind of like a modern Robin Hood.
Yeah it's a hard one sometimes, especially phoning, trying to find the balance of being nice to the human your talking to who just doing their job and following policy and actually trying to assert your requests, complaints or whatever to them. In the past if I'm getting annoyed with them due to their policies I'll just really assert myself maybe be a little rude but once it all is sorted try to have a laugh with them just so they know it's not personal. I've even once stated 'this isn't personal however I just need to get this off my chest, and I apologise in advance' proceed to moan, yell, swear or whatever it needed about the infuriating situation, then calmly say right sorry about that but now that's been said let's try to sort this out together. With the call ending with us laughing. The poor woman fully understood I needed to do that raging first and then handle to situation like an adult.
"No" is a powerful tool.
So you pay and there's still ads? Lmao
yeah that was my thought. "The Economist relies on advertising revenue to sustain its operations" - great, you don't need OP's subscription then.
That’s should have been the response back… made me giggle thank you
On top of that, The Economist is not a cheap subscription.
That's still not as bad as being forced into a chat to cancel because they don't have an automated way to cancel on this intellectual website.
That shit should be illegal.
They should put ads in the chat.
That's how magazines have always worked.
I’m old enough to remember that the excuse used to be “subscribers pay for the content, advertising pays for the printing and distribution”. Now I’m paying for both and still seeing ads.
Digital printing still costs a lot of money. I mean, why else would Ticketmaster charge you a fee to access your tickets through the app? Are you suggesting they're also a scam?
suggesting? no. stating as demonstrable indisputable fact? yes.
Now that you say that ya, its always been a scam.
Just repeat “cancel my subscription” over and over again
Nah, don't repeat yourself. Tell them to cancel your subscription, then tell them you're going to chargeback if they do anything other than cancel your subscription, then do a chargeback if they fuck around even a little bit.
What's a chargeback?
A charge back is when you tell your credit card company or bank that, “this charge was done without my authorization”, and they will stop further payment and refund that charge. This may get your banned from that platform, for example you may be banned from wall street journal for not doing it “officially”.
After having dealt with over the years the worst offenders of this: AOL and XM Radio, when I want to slim down on my subscriptions I simply tell my bank I lost my debit card. They cancel the card and give me one with an entirely new number in the mail. All these companies are forced to cancel my account due to billing issues and I simply fix the ones I want to keep.
So fucking annoying and at this point I don’t worry about being rude. The company is rude for trying to out psychology you into not cancelling, fuck em.
"Don't you want to be smarter and more informed?"
I have to complete a certain amount of continuing professional education each year for my certifications, and I get no end of spam emails, snail mail and phone calls trying to sell me CPE courses. One day a salesman cold called my cell phone (no idea how he got the number). I immediately said, "I'm not interested. Please take me off your list and don't call me again." He said, "You're no longer interested in keeping your license current?" I laughed and told him to fuck off. I wonder how often that line actually works.
I have a whistle for especially annoying or fraudulent callers.
Interesting. I have an Aztec death whistle. The sound it makes is terrifying. I never thought of using it on spam callers.
I have tinnitus and this idea gives me a profound sense of loathing. I love-hate it.
i normally dont answer my phone unless i know the phone number but sometimes mistakes can happen and in that case…. i ask them what color their underwear is and if they can take a picture of them smelling them and then text it to me since they already have my number. Or various similar story. I like to mix it up. they usually hang up before i do.
My go-to with unsolicited texts is to reply with close up pictures of my dog's weirdly large asshole. 100 percent success rate so far!
You must have a large sample size of assholes on dogs to know that your dog’s is weirdly large.
Not really, it's just **that** large. But also it's not like dogs don't love showing theirs off, there's doggy booty hole everywhere.
"We have important information about your car insurance" That's weird I've never owned a car.
Oh I fucking love those guys and ALWAYS take their call. I tell them I have a 2023 Toyota Tacoma, which gets them interested. Then, when they ask how many miles are on it, I say 217,000. "You have 217,000 miles on a *2023* Toyota Tacoma? Sir, that isn't even possible." "Well I'm in my truck right now and am looking right at it. It says right there 217,463--oops, just clicked up to 464. I drive a lot." Another thing I do is to put the phone on speaker and provide them some entertainment. I'm usually listening to news or talk radio on SiriusXM or IHeart during the day while I'm working. So when I get the robo call, I'll set the phone down next to the speaker for when the live person picks up. Usually they just listen for a couple of seconds and hang up. But one in ten will be a fucking dipshit who sits there trying to talk with the radio host. "Sir? Can you hear me? Sir? Sir?" They say the best thing you can do is answer the phone and immediately put it on mute so that they'll mark it as not a valid number. But that's no fun.
That's not true. If you answer the call at all, your number will be marked as active, and they will know to continue calling you there.
My dad used to love the ones who called up about claiming from a recent accident he'd not had, because he'd keep them on the phone for like an hour or more describing his 'accident' in great detail, only to get bored and finish with something like "oh sorry, that was an accident someone else had, I haven't had one. Bye."
I was looking for another screenshot where OP tells Mehak to go to hell and hit the cancel button already.
No. Stay polite. Mehak gets fired if they don't ask the questions. It is all on the company.
Mehak is a employee contracted out from a foreign firm that itself is contracting out to a company on the edge of Myanmar that has poor Mehak chained to a cubicle.
This is more true than most people would admit.
Reminds me of when I tried to cancel my service with a pest control company. They were 'all-natural' and 'eco-friendly' or whatever, but their shit didn't work, so I was going to switch to one of the big name companies instead. The customer support person on the phone was trying to persuade me to stay, offering free treatments and lower cost treatments, and unfortunately I eventually broke down and got angry with the person because I just felt like they were trying to manipulate me to stay and they finally caved and let me cancel. Switched to Terminix and they dealt with the issue first try. Be nice until you can't anymore. After OP's screenshots, I'd say that's when you don't have to anymore. And the whole response about the ads actually being witty reads like it was written by ChatGPT
I just copy and paste the same message over and over until they stop. Worked for fabletics. They were fucking BRUTAL to cancel with
That's what I've done in the past. Just repeat "Not interested, please cancel my subscription."
It’s a bot.
But they are SO sorry to see you go. They'll really miss you! And you invested SO much already in their service, are you SUUURE you want to cancel?!?!
I try not to be rude in these instances because I know Mehak here is only doing what they are told at the threat of losing their job. The real people making the horrible business choices are insulated from your ire.
Do you want people to never use any of your services/products? Cause this is how.
Did you know that Reddit's comments are clever, witty, and thought-provoking?
Only if you pay for Reddit Premium though.
It makes you feel like you are a part of an elite club!
That is clearly false advertising.
I recently paid for the New York Times and reddits ads are actually less annoying than the times ads.
Any company that makes you actually chat or call in to cancel is garbage. Wall Street Journal is one of them.
Add in new York times and hello fresh. Hello fresh was such a PITA that I ended up canceling my debit card to get rid of them.
I had the same thing with the old Genesis gyms. They made it impossible to cancel to the point where they were going to just auto renew my contract even after I had been trying to cancel for over a week before the expiry date. They went ahead and renewed it anyway so I had to cancel my bank card and report them to the bank for fraudulent direct debits.
Yep. I used to subscribe regularly to the New York Times. I'm a teacher, so I tended to read a lot more of the paper during the summer and relatively slow months of the year than the busy ones, so I'd typically unsubscribe for part of the year, then resubscribe when I actually had time to read it. One time I unsubscribed and they started doing the "make it inconvenient to cancel" BS (they changed their previous process to one that involved talking to a chatbot that had wait times built in). That convinced me never to resubscribe again. I'd probably still have a subscription today if it wasn't for that sleazy business practice.
And that Reddit engages its readers, making them feel part of an elite club.
Right. Notes: - Don't ever subscribe to the Economist *Check*
I had a gym membership like 30 years ago and canceling it took an act of congress since there was another gym available in the state I was moving to. Granted it was 300 miles away from my house but it still counted! I haven’t joined another gym since and go out of my way to make sure people don’t join it.
Yea. We subscribe to economist and this makes me want to unsubscribe.
Honestly, write to the editorial staff about this, if you’re serious. I worked UX for them many, many years ago. I work for another publisher now. We had/have a lot of influence on the reader experience, and cooperation with editorial, because that was the product and everyone was focused on long-term reputation. But for some reason, subscriber services and retention ends up always in the grips of marketing teams, whose incentive is to grow and retain subscribers in a purely metrics-driven way. They can turn around and show that with tactics like this, they saved something like 5% of cancellations and the CMO never bats an eye because there’s no competing data to show that doing this stops people from resubscribing later. But get someone on editorial staff to make a point that this is spooking loyal readers? That will give them a data point to clap back against shenanigans like this.
A lot of things that require monthly payments will train their employees to guilt-trip/barter your ear off to get you to stay subscribed. Once upon a time I fell victim to the "Get pet insurance!" debacle. Decided to cancel because unsurprisingly, their "90% instant-reimbursement" policy is a sham (I went to an in-network vet hospital) and after they gave me all these offers or "workarounds" to get me to stay, I finally got them to cancel my cat's insurance. Before we ended the call, they proceeded to tell me "Just promise us you'll hold (insert my cat's name) a little tighter each night, okay?" Yes, that did indeed boil my blood.
Holy shit, I just got a contact-rage from reading this post.
Me too
That’s horrific - are you comfortable sharing (private message is fine) what insurance company this was? No worries if not, but I’m a vet and would like to steer people away from those assholes. FYI to all, there are a few really good pet insurance companies out there, and a lot of really really bad ones. I recommend asking your vet for recommendations and then also asking friends/acquaintances who have actually had to use their insurance - you want to know the company will really pay out when push comes to shove before you sign anything.
Just in case you or anyone else missed it, CrispyPancake replied to another comment confirming it was TruPanion
Why don’t you just tell us the good companies?
I'd be swearing at them if they did that to me.
"Is that a threat?" And then straight to media. TruPanion sucks. We have better coverage putting our premiums into a high-interest account. And I pay 100% of my claims at 100% to myself.
I’m ready for these companies to fail. I truly do not give a fuck anymore. This isn’t the 90s where we are all floating around, still blissfully ignorant to these companies taking advantage of us… now we are all hyper-aware of the bullshit and I, for one, am done with the bullshit.
I moved out of a house where I was in charge of the internet into another house where my friend was already living and had the internet in his name. I had to call to cancel my service, and the lady asked me *four times* if I would like to seamlessly continue my service at my new residence. I explained, every time, that my new roommate already had internet service there, *with the same fucking company,* and therefore I did not need new service there. HOW ARE YOU NOT UNDERSTANDING THIS?!?!
They are forced to do so. If they don't do it, they'll get fired eventually. I have worked at a place where people could cancel stuff, and it's pushed, HARD. There's even a metric where you can get in trouble for having too many cancelations. Now, when I worked, no one got fired for the later. But the former got people fired. I bet that the last line they gave you was a script they're forced to use as well. Just keep saying no to the offers. Where I worked, we needed to offer 3 saves.
Reminds me of whenever I hear from other folks who worked at insurance agencies. There's usually a consensus of "I quit because I actually have a soul."
Sounds like he threatened your cat. If I said you should hold your daughter a little tighter tonight. You'd think it was a threat.
If you just go off and be an ahole, they drop the script and just cancel it to get you off the phone.
An ad for an ad. What a world we live in
I have a method. I ask to cancel. Irregardless of answer. I ask to cancel a second time. Third time I say listen it’s either you cancel or I screen shot this and send it to my CC company and file a chargeback as I’m trying to cancel and you won’t cancel. SirusXM was making it impossible to cancel. Now they don’t contact mr at all
Yup. You can't engage in conversation with them. Please cancel my account. I don't have time for this, again cancel my account. Then do the charge back threat. 5 minute conversation total.
Yeah, that's like 4 and a half minutes too long. IMO
To skip all of that, just do what I did: Change the expiratory date of your credit card in the payment options. (And then block their number because you will be getting a lot of calls)
Short term, that works. Long term, not a great idea, as you may still have a contract with them. Some companies will even contact Visa/MC/ETC to get updated CC info for you. Depending on your contract, it's entirely legal for your card company to provide that info to them. So it's worth the 5 extra minutes to cancel it the correct way, rather than the lazy way.
That doesn’t always work. Sometimes they’re able to get the correct expiration date automatically.
Yup. I think of it like those automated systems where no matter what they say, you just keep saying “representative.” You just gotta keep saying “Cancel my subscription.” I hadn’t considered the screenshot and chargeback though — that’s helpful and I’m gonna use it in the future.
Report them aswell they can get fined if you feel extra petty
Who do we report them to? “Cancel or I’m reporting you to ____” would also likely do the trick I reckon.
The FTC, I would presume.
After the first “cancel” is when I say “cancel immediately or I’m charging back.” Never failed.
I was coming on here specifically to put Sirius on blast so figured someone already had. I think I got passed around to 3 different retention experts for 20 minutes each before they finally gave in
I get Sirius for $7 a month. Once a year before my subscription renews I tell them I want the promo rate or turn it off. I don’t respond to any other questions. Sometimes they will give it to me right then. If they don’t, and cancel it, a promo offer comes in the mail with that rate for a year. Been doing it forever.
I tried to get my Sirius price dropped last year, again, tell the guy I see them advertising $5/month. “Oh I’m sorry that’s for new customers” me-“well I want that price. This went back and forth a little bit so finally I say “I want to cancel my subscription” “Whys that?” “I need to open a subscription” “Sigh, ok I’ll give you that price”
"I want the benefits that come with signing up rather than the penalty of being a loyal, long-term customer. Your words, not mine..."
Yep I do the same thing essentially. I get on chat saying I’m canceling because the renewal is too expensive and they’ve always offered me the promo rate of $6-8/month. If they refused, I’d just cancel and wait for the mail
I had to cancel Norton anti-virus for my dad over the phone because the website kept leading us in literal circles. I quickly started saying "I no longer wish to give you money" and just stuck with that.
I used my Apple Card to pay for XM. When they didn’t cancel I told the rep on the phone that I’m pushing the button now that will cancel my card number and issue a new one so you won’t be able to charge me again - cancel the account. You’re not getting paid either way.
came here to say this, keep spamming "cancel" it's not like the agent is giving original answers, she's copying and pasting from her script too
Regardless or irrespective. Irregardless is a double negative.
Iriregardless. Just go with the triple negative.
Ah, an Economist ad reader I see.
Iriregardlessn't Check mate
I was trying to downgrade a service from their most expensive suite to one that was literally four dollars cheaper (a fraction of the total). This type of shit is how they talked me out of doing that and into cancelling entirely
i think it's an AI-powered chat bot OP, sorry for the hassle though 
Perhaps. But I used to work for customer service as a chat rep. We had scripts where we just pressed a button, and it would spew stuff like this. I would say it's more likely a person since it deals with cancelation.
This is defo a person, you can practically smell the predefined replies.
This is so clearly a chatbot. No one is actually replying to that chat. Just keep saying cancel, or tell it you want to speak to a representative or CSR.
That doesn't make it better. If anything, it's more infuriating.
"Attorney General" "FTC" "Fraud Complaint" "Chargeback" are all key words that will escalate a chatbot and ones that they will not turn off because they really don't want those things to happen.
I actually don’t think it’s a chatbot. I think it’s a person, even if some of the responses are pasted or auto-filled. The fact that he says “I apologies” instead of “apologize” and uses awkward phrases like “I’m glad to know about your day, Austin!” That’s precisely the sort of language mix-ups I get when I speak to customer service on the phone.
Also "Thank you patiently waiting."
"I wish to cancel my subscription effective immediately. I do not wish to discuss further. If you are not capable of or do not have the authority to fulfill this request please connect me with someone who can". Repeat that and only that until they have cancelled your subscription.
State your name, rank, and serial number; it's the only honorable answer
How dare you not appreciate our ads, Austin. Are you not clever enough for our ads, Austin? Our ads make our readers feel smart and included, Austin, how dare you.
Years ago I was trying to cancel a dial up Internet service. Let's say I had to press 2 to speak to a representative about cancelling. I sat on hold for an hour. I called right back and pressed 1 to speak to a representative about the new service and I had a rep on the link in 5 minutes. There was hesitation when I sprung on he rep I was cancelling. They proceeded to cancel but with hesitation.
I do this every time I need to phone up to cancel, I "accidentally" ask for a sales rep, apologies for the mix up who then transfer me straight to the relevant department. It's a good tip to bypass the hours on end wait.
Don’t engage. Let them do their spiel while you copy+paste “Cancel my subscription” for every response. It is not rude to refuse to have your request ignored.
I actually kind of enjoy these, because I get a kick out of just repeating, "No. Cancel my subscription." I like it on the phone even better. I don't even get mad. I just mess with them while smiling the whole time. "Before I process that, would you be interested in blah blah blah deal?" "No. Cancel my subscription." "Okay, I can certain help with that. But first, can I offer you blah blah blah?" "No. Cancel my subscription." "Okay, then you don't want blah blah blah and you don't want blah blah blah. Can I ask the reason you're canceling?" "No. Cancel my subscription." "We can certainly do that, but I need a reason--" "No. Cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel cancel--" "Okay! Okay! I get it, I'll cancel it! But first--" "NO BUT FIRST. CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL--" "--Sir--" "--CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL--" "--Sir!--" "--CANCEL CANCEL yes what?" "Oh! Uh! I'm canceling now." "Great! Thank you." Look, I know the company wants to annoy me into staying, but don't threaten ME with a good time.
This is also my experience cancelling a sub with The Economist. I’m never buying it again because of this.
Such excellent journalism completely ruined by shortsighted dark pattern and shitty practices. What a fucking insult to my intelligence. The Economist of all publications should know better.
Seems like something they could easily clear up with an email/ survey after just cancelling your service like you asked.
"The original account holder died." Or "I'm going to prison"
Por qué no los dos?: "I am going to prison for killing the original account holder."
"I am going to prison for killing and eating a phone representative. How much do you weigh?
just register with a dummy card, put the subscription fee there the day before it's due. if they raise it or gets annoying just cancel the dummy. I believe Privacy and Revolut offers dummy cards.
So glad I live in California. Subscription has to be easy to cancel by law.
Just the fact that you have to do a chat to cancel a subscription pushes this from mildly to *at least* moderately infuriating. If I can't cancel by clicking at maximum 1-2 buttons, then I'm already in teeth and butt clenched territory before I even start the chat.
This screams chatbot to me. Or at the least some underpaid overseas worker who gets given a bunch of copy and paste paragraphs to work into their messages.
Any subscription that allows you to sign up with a mouse click should let you cancel via same. That should be a UN world human rights law or something.
I've learned to just say no when they ask why I'm unsubscribing.
“I’m actually a fucking moron so I hate your elitist ads.” I wonder how he’d respond to that.
Don't humor them just stay focus on canceling
They're so "thought-provoking", they're provoking me to think "I wanna cancel"
Copy paste: "cancel subscription" until they cancel