Corporate subscription scams.

[cbeast]

More and more I am seeing big companies acting like scammers. Seeming cool subscription services are actually scams. Here's what happens: you order a subscription and they require a credit/debit card, PayPal, or Bank routing. I've never used Bank routing except for payment processors like Dwolla and PayPal, but even now they have to go. Anyway, so you start using the subscription service and enjoy it for awhile. Then you decide you don't want it anymore and guess what? There is no option to cancel the service. None. Some have the option to cancel, but it simply doesn't work. I've lost nearly a thousand dollars to this scam from companies like Microsoft, VistaPrints, VirginMobileUSA, and others. Some of them have customer service lines where I've been able to reach a settlement, but they still come out ahead. It's getting to the point of becoming a nuisance. I've posted this here because it's just another reason to be your own bank so you don't give control of your money to thieves.

[nevafuse]

Anyone that has tried to cancel an xbox live subscription knows this concept well.  Now I only purchase membership cards so I don't have to give microsoft my credit card number (or any real information for that matter).

[Stephen Gornick]

I've lost nearly a thousand dollars to this scam from companies like Microsoft, VistaPrints, VirginMobileUSA, and others.

The list could go on and on.  My most recent one was Clear, earlier this year. These companies force you to use their "customer retention" call center to cancel.  Of course, there are long wait for this and the first month I just gave up and let it renew figuring I'ld have a better chance to get through another time.  Fool me once.

I used to combat this with a one-time use virtual card number.  Then I learned that these were not really one time use, that the same merchant can make repeated charges against the same card. 

Another method I use is to keep a $1 balance on my PayPal debit card.  The $1 authorization goes through but the charge doesn't (as there aren't enough funds) until I've added sufficient funds.  Having the ability to quickly add funds to my PayPal cash-out (e.g., FastCash4Bitcoins.com ) makes this less inconvenient.  But this doesn't work if you want to actually use your PayPal debit card as a normal debit card.

The problem is a "pull" payments system (where permission is given to pull funds from your account) rather than a "push" payments system (where a funds transfer occurs only after the account holder initiates and/or authorizes the transfers) ... like Bitcoin.