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A plan to make it easier to escape those online subscription or service plans that automatically bill you, and renew whether you want them to or not… will not happen after all.
A federal appeals court has thrown out the Federal Trade Commission’s new ‘Click to Cancel” rule.
“I think this is a major setback for consumer protection,” declared KTRH High Tech Texan Michael Garfield.
The rule was meant to make it just as easy to get out of a subscription, as it was to get into one, and it had been scheduled to take effect on July 14.
The practice, known as “negative option marketing,” means a seller can interpret a customer doing nothing as acceptance of subscriptions, and keep renewing a subscription pretty much indefinitely.
“It’s easy to subscribe,” Garfield explained. “You go on an email. You go on a website. You click to subscribe to a gym, to a streaming service. But to cancel it, you have to jump through hoops. That’s what the FTC was trying to stop.”
The court ruled that the FTC’s rule-making process in creating “Click to Cancel” was improper and it vacated the rule, sending the FTC back to the drawing board to reformulate it.
Garfield says consumers being denied that protection over a technicality is unfortunate. Until the rule comes up again, perhaps in another form, he says consumers must persevere and go through the necessary hoops, online or on the phone and don’t wait until that unwanted subscription is about to renew automatically
My advice is don’t wait until the last day to cancel something,” he urged. “At least a week, 10, 14 days before, start the process then.”