I just signed up for (and later cancelled) the "Hacker" plan on Repl.it. When I was ready to cancel, I went to the "My Account" page. On that page, there was a "Billing" section, but it didn't list any record of my subscription. And there was no button on the page for cancelling my subscription. (I was logged in on the subscribed account and had access to my "private" REPLs, which is what the subscription lets you do.)
I emailed support and they cancelled it for me, and said:
"We are working on cancelling subscriptions being an automated process the user can do on their own."
Support didn't respond to my question as to why my subscription was not listed in the "Billing" section, but it was presumably for the same reason that there was no "Cancel" button.
According to Crunchbase.com, Repl.it has raised $24.6M. That they didn't have a self-serve cancel functionality (and they had a deceptive "Billing" section that omits actual subscriptions) on their Account page deserves community criticism. Please help spread the word so that they do better.
[EDIT]: Someone, seemingly from repl.it writes:
"Hey there, we upgraded our stripe library version and missed a part in our code the relied on the old behavior. That resulted in our billing info not rendering for about a day. Sorry about that! A deceptive "Billing" section is definitely not our intention."
Someone confirmed that they have indeed fixed this. The purpose was to get them to fix the issue (since support just gave me the run around). They appear to have done so, so this issue is closed for me.
by moudy on 3/4/21, 3:45 PM
Hey there, we upgraded our stripe library version and missed a part in our code the relied on the old behavior. That resulted in our billing info not rendering for about a day. Sorry about that! A deceptive "Billing" section is definitely not our intention.
by davidrusu on 3/4/21, 3:36 PM
These companies should realize they are playing an iterated prisoners dilemma game with their customers. Just because your services aren't right for me today, doesn't mean I won't come back in the future and pay for your services again now that I know what you do.
But I doubt I'd come back if my last experience with a company has been a bad cancellation procedure.
by kevinmchugh on 3/4/21, 3:38 PM
It is my understanding that Illinois and California both require that any subscription you can create online be cancellable online as well. People creating subscription services should be familiar with the relevant laws.
by merwanedr on 3/4/21, 3:50 PM
I don't understand how this post made it to top 10. Ironically, it even mentions that the company just raised their series A. I have a lot of respect for repl.it as a company and amjad/haya as founders. Surely there's a lot of jealousy and envy in the air.
by sixhobbits on 3/4/21, 3:48 PM
I have a Hacker subscription to Repl.it and there's a really large red "Cancel Subscription" button in the billing section.
https://cln.sh/wVN7n2+
by WesolyKubeczek on 3/4/21, 3:31 PM
Isn't this something that major card networks can ban and shitlist you for? They have pretty strict rules about such things, given the "trick into subscription" scams and all.
An elevated number of chargebacks could do it, for example.
I mean, what the hell, even products that haven't seen such a sum of money on their accounts ever somehow manage to have a self-serve cancel functionality.
by myth_drannon on 3/4/21, 3:32 PM
Is it not done on purpose as a growth hack, so you have to contact them and they can have a report?
I had a subscription to digital version of "The Globe & Mail", largest Canadian newspaper. I had to call them to cancel it because you can only subscribe online not cancel.
by qntty on 3/4/21, 3:23 PM
Has someone made a site yet where you can look up how easy it is to cancel a subscription before subscribing? Maybe there could be an extension that warns you before you sign up for a service without the ability to easily cancel online.
by raiyu on 3/4/21, 3:36 PM
Let’s not make this overly complicated, if it was important enough for them to charge you they should give you a way to cancel the only reason any company doesn’t is because they are f*ing customers.
by astuyvenberg on 3/4/21, 3:33 PM
That is unfortunate, the "call to cancel" dark pattern is so annoying.
I hope they do better.
by ericra on 3/4/21, 3:33 PM
I hope someone from the company will see this and respond.
I found the free version of their service to be compelling and have considered a paid subscription. Making cancellation difficult is an immediate red flag for me, though, and I would never pay to subscribe while this is the case.
by pjc50 on 3/4/21, 3:55 PM
by jakub_g on 3/4/21, 3:46 PM
This is bad, but FYI, the solution is to find a bank which offers virtual credit cards (ideally, virtual disposable credit cards) and use virtual CC for new subs.
You use virtual CC, and if it's too painful to unsub, you cancel the CC. They will call you themselves when they notice the $ is not there. And then you can tell them what you think about 'em.
by fortran77 on 3/4/21, 3:30 PM
by luplex on 3/4/21, 3:32 PM
Maybe there should be a law stating that cancelling a subscription needs to be as easy as sending a single email and then confirm for critical things.
by dvfjsdhgfv on 3/4/21, 4:28 PM
That's why we should use only prepaid cards.
by junke on 3/4/21, 3:34 PM
Wow, cancel culture in action
by johnwheeler on 3/4/21, 3:34 PM
...
by vinger on 3/4/21, 3:28 PM
There was a recent story about repl hiring process where they preferred inexperienced developers. Not surprised key things were missed.