S/O Dodgy practices, dark patterns and subscription traps: who is getting it right and who, wrong?

[Shoeless]

5 hours ago, Clarita said:

XM Radio was really hard to cancel. I got lucky and a year after I wanted to cancel my CC expired and I changed to a whole new CC (for other reasons). I felt that was the only way I unsubscribed myself from that. I remember making multiple cancel this phone calls. Somehow I remember it wouldn't let me delete my CC information unless I entered a different one.  

We had trouble with XM Radio several years ago. I let the free trial from my car purchase expire and XM Radio hounded me for months and months to get me to sign up. I stopped answering and always sent them to voicemail. The phone rep left a huffy message on my vm! "This is my 34th attempt to reach you!" Um, you're a stooge if you didn't take the hint 30-odd messages ago.  

A friend worked for XM and I had to get him involved to make the calls stop.   

[Shoeless]

At this point, I don't sign up for any subscription services. It all feels like a scam. If your business depends on harrassing your customers into continuing to pay, then you're more mafia than business and I want no part of it. 

[mum]

On 4/27/2023 at 5:41 AM, Kidlit said:

Here, hear to the graduation cr@p!  I have back-to-back seniors.  Why must we have two of everything??

Can you buy for the first and the second re-use? I had 2 at the same school, we bought for one and the second wore the same gown, we got her her own cap so she would have a momento. We've gone even more economical with college graduation gowns. My husband graduated college in 2004 ( he didn't go as an 18 year old, but went in his 30's). We kept his gown and 2 of our kids that attended their own college graduations also wore his gown. It has such memories now. I love it.

[Lady Florida.]

On 4/27/2023 at 11:28 AM, BronzeTurtle said:

. Remember buying 12 CDs for 1 cent or whatever? then you got one cd a month for like 25 or 30 dollars until you yelled at them or the card didn't work anymore.

 

I got trapped in that years ago but it was albums. Yeah, I'm that old lol. Cancelling was extremely difficult in the days before internet. 

On 4/27/2023 at 11:01 AM, smstjohn said:

We haven't used their services in a while, but Chewy was fantastic to deal with. They're easy to work with and it seems like their company cares about their pet clientele.

I've only ordered from them a few times but we might need to start regularly ordering insulin from them for our cat. The vet is considering switching her to a long acting type their office doesn't carry. She said Chewy does. Everyone I know who uses Chewy for any reason likes it.

On 4/28/2023 at 9:14 AM, Wheres Toto said:

We had the opposite from Paramount Plus.  We actually wanted to upgrade our account and we couldn't do it from the website or a phone.  Because it was set up through our Roku, we had to do the update through our Roku.   I don't know what would have happened if we no longer had our Roku.  We have it but never use it anymore.    There was no option shown for that.  

We had Disney Plus through Roku but we don't have Roku TV's anymore. When they started offering a Disney/Hulu package I found out I first had to cancel through Roku and resubsribe through Disney. I understand the reason and it's not dodgy, but it was still a hassle.