Are Subscriptions the New Junk Fees?
One of the fundamental rules of business is that companies charge customers as much money as they can get away with charging them. The difference between the amount of money needed to cover the cost of a product or to provide a service and the amount you pay is the company’s profit, so businesses look for every opportunity to overcharge customers. Of course, the more money you have, the more free time you have to find ways to avoid these rip offs. The rest of us spend all of our time scrambling from job to gig to family caregiving responsibilities, and by the time we find a chance to log into our gym website to cancel our membership at the gym where we never have time to work out, a new month has started and the gym has auto charged us for another month of membership. It isn’t fair, but it is just one of the many ways that it is prohibitively expensive not to be wealthy. The good news is that federal agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) have introduced measures this year to curb some of these unfair business practices. If you are still penniless even after doing the twelve labors of Hercules in order to cancel your subscriptions to services you never use, contact a Miami debt lawyer.
New Policies Make It Easier to Cancel Subscriptions and Get Refunds
If there is any good news on the financial front in 2024, it is that several federal agencies have set new regulations that make it easier for customers to get refunds for purchases that didn’t work out and to cancel subscriptions that automatically charge their credit cards or debit money from their bank accounts. These are some of the new rules:
- The Department of Transportation now requires airlines to refund customers’ money automatically when a flight gets canceled or experiences a major delay. You no longer have to spend hours on hold with the airline’s customer service line to get your money back.
- Companies that provide services on a subscription basis must cancel subscriptions at the customer’s first request. Gone are the days when you call customer service to cancel your subscription, and after the customer service rep spends half an hour trying to talk you out of canceling and eventually realizes that you aren’t going to budge, he or she tells you that it is only possible to cancel by email. Then, when you email, you get a response saying that you can only cancel by phone. Now you can cancel on the phone and get an email confirmation the same day saying that your subscription has been canceled.
- The FTC has ordered companies not to take customers through a “doom loop” of recorded messages when they call to cancel an order or subscription or to request a refund. The recorded message menus must provide a direct path to reach a customer service representative.
Work With a Debt Lawyer About Unsubscribing to Debt
A South Florida debt lawyer can help you if you are struggling with debt even after cutting all your avoidable expenses, such as subscription services. Contact Nowack & Olson, PLLC in Miami, Florida to discuss your case.
Source:
msn.com/en-us/money/companies/america-s-subscription-trap-nightmare-could-be-coming-to-an-end/ar-AA1oDXkA?ocid=msedgntp&pc=ACTS&cvid=eb28db8992f640fd9b083db6037e6dc3&ei=18
