Oh my god yes. It's amazing the amount of BS the average customer puts up with, I'm just like, "y'all aren't even getting my real email, what makes you think you can have my CC number?"
It's very rare I use a free trial these days for these reasons.
Fun fact for people: you can use the prepaid Visa cards to sign up for these trials. It will recognize it as a card, but can’t actually charge the prepaid when your trial is up.
Not true for all services, some say they cancel immediately and you lose access. Just for the sweet last minute cancellation that you forget unless set a reminder.
Yep, that's me. I don't even get past the words - free trial - before clicking away. A free trial always insists on a credit card number up front. Which means the product is not free.
Discord charged me after a month of "free" Nitro and suspended my account after failing to respond after several days of me reaching out to them ; and I reported the transaction to PayPal 🫠
"Free" stuff is always a way to dupe people into paying for something, often against their will.
My iPhone was locked and I couldn’t download apps because I didn’t want to pay a dmv testing app after the free trial. Payed them then disputed the charge. You’re not getting shit out of me if I don’t want you to.
I tried waiting for the last moment so that was kinda on me. I still think this practice is shady though.
Worst part is it was a friend gifting me nitro.
I remember my stepmother signed for a free trail of Proactiv and canceled it online, but they didn't process it, i guess. So she fought them over the phone for weeks to get it canceled and the charges removed from her credit card.
The trick is to use a prepaid credit card, like Visa gift cards, that has nothing or almost nothing left on it, that way it can't charge you even if you forget to cancel the trial
The sign up agreement on the site seems to imply it's only for US citizens unfortunately, I'm in Canada, but totally could be something to look into for those in the US!
I've not faced any of those issues personally, since visa prepaid cards register as a normal visa. Maybe certain sites are picky? Google play has been just fine though, so long as you remember to not set up a back up payment method. I've been using the same old prepaid card for years haha
I would try so many more things if I didn't have to enter my information until after the month is over. I don't want to be autosibscribed to something im not even sure I want.
Check the webby/app of your preferred banking institution. A lot of the major ones let you create e-cards that expire after a few days or have a $1 limit.
It’s not my ‘regular’ bricks & mortar bank, it’s an online only bank that I use for transfers, not savings & stuff. It is “Revolut”, & operates in the UK & Australia & offers fee free internt’l transactions between its customers. Not sure if it or similar operates where you are.
a lot of people recommending virtual cards in here but i've never known a free trial that didn't let you just immediately cancel right after signing up (and still allow you to keep the trial time)
Oh yes, if you have to enter your credit card info they're going to make it hard to cancel before the free trial is up. Or just bank on you forgetting to cancel.
I usually don't have much of an issue canceling right away, but I do find it funny how most often these free trials I will end up using it a total of 1 time before never visiting the place again
I once got auto enrolled into a monthly subscription because Amazon auto logged me in, and signed me up for their Audible for clicking on a book link on a library site.
Use https://privacy.com and get a virtual card, set a limit of $1.
Enter the card number on the site. If you forget to cancel, it's okay because the charge will be declined.
I encourage everyone to do this. If they start seeing that people won't even bother trying their free trial because of that tactic, it means even more loss of potential new customers and they'll have to change their marketing strategy
oh this is the worst 🙀 Spotify stung me big time with this one. I listened one time, hated it so much i never opened the app again for the next 6 months. Until i noticed they'd been taking money from me every single month - all with absolutely zero email confirmation. "Evil business practice" imo.
I find a lot of software products that cost ex-amount of dollars there's a hidden automatic renewal at the end of the first year. Bull Shit, I'll be the judge. I just dropped two programs that did this to me. No one, no one looks after my money better than me. Who gives them the right?
I just started one of those pre-packaged meal subscription services and the meals I picked out are 14 meals a week for about $180. I got a first time discount of 40% off and whether I keep the program afterward or not depends on if I can just cancel and redo that 40% over and over... every week
Either way they win. Advertiser’s pay to have their ads inserted into the app. Paying only turns off the ads, and the app makes money its money regardless.
Yyyep. The plan is to get you to put in your info for auto-renewal, and then hope that you conveniently forget about it so you’ll get charged for it when the trial is over.
If this is an issue for you, try https://privacy.com! You get to make a temporary credit card for each subscription, and set charge limits by month / year / or all-time. Nice when you only want a subscription for a year.
To make sure you don't just constantly make new accounts and sign up for free trials. It's not hard to make a new email, but getting a whole new credit card is a larger barrier.
Because they're hoping you either forget about it or have a hard-to-use cancellation service. Basically they will charge you past the free trial and everyone who doesn't cancel lead to more money for them.
I love those calls from Microsoft Service people. They have Indian accents and names like David Smith. If they said their name was Jayesh Gupta, I might not hang up automatically. Sorry to all the Jayesh Guptas in the world. I know you aren't all scam callers.
I was going to just comment about how I loved the background colors changing along the panels, but also I've only now noticed how absolutely wonderful your alt texts have been
Several have failed for me. Easy for them to set min. expiration limit at (e.g.) +3 months & even min. available funds although of course you can change that the next day.
Comments
It's very rare I use a free trial these days for these reasons.
*No Sign-up needed
*credit card info required
Same old shit.
They're basically comping you 1 month so once you have it it's yours. Cancelling just stops you from automatically getting billed.
"Free" stuff is always a way to dupe people into paying for something, often against their will.
Worst part is it was a friend gifting me nitro.
Not all of them, but most I’ve seen anyway, but I still think its wrong of them to ask for card info
They should ask for it after the trial as like ‘did you want our service’
my condolences
I did it once and the bastards charged me to S50/month for the privilege.
Enter the card number on the site. If you forget to cancel, it's okay because the charge will be declined.
Unlike comics like yours, which are very worth looking at. 🤩
All the time.
If it's hard to change to a different card or to cancel, then that's on them not me.
Your move, “try this free thing” vendor.
"Give us access to your debit/credit card."
Get fucked, please.
They never want my opinion, just some money 😡
Still not too hard to get around though.