For years, customers trying to cancel their Amazon Prime subscriptions have complained about having to navigate a maze of confusing screens so they can ditch their monthly subscription fee. At Planet Fitness, one of the biggest gym chains in the country, people who want to quit pumping iron complain about the same thing.
From ditching a premium account to canceling your gym membership, critics of the business practices that make it hard to leave call them “subscription traps.” Customers hate them — so much so that they file 70 complaints a day at the Federal Trade Commission.
In response, the FTC unveiled the click-to-cancel rule last month that is designed to make it much harder for businesses to fleece customers. Ending a subscription should be just as easy as signing up for it in the first place, FTC Chair Lina Khan said.
Under the rule set to go into effect soon, companies have to be upfront about any fees that will pop up after a free trial period. And canceling a subscription or service must take as many steps as it took to sign up; consumers also cannot be forced to call a customer service line or send a letter to cancel a service they started online.
With Khan’s time at the FTC running out, the new leadership that Donald Trump installs at the agency could go either way.With Khan’s time at the FTC running out, the new leadership that Donald Trump installs at the agency could go either way on questions like the click-to-cancel rule.
That’s because Khan, a liberal appointed by a liberal president, has won some unlikely fans among conservatives: the “Khanservatives” who support cracking down on anti-competitive practices. On the other side of the debate are a more traditional GOP constituency: businesses and investors betting big on the........