Bit of a rant here, but I am currently subscribed to a game development related Patreon because I wanted to follow the development of a project that was interesting to me. The reason I covered the name is that the developer is doing a fantastic job with the project, posting regularly and providing interesting and informative posts, but the main advantage of Patreon is simply that he also provides builds which I was interested in checking out.
Patreon rebilled at the beginning of the month and I thought “Fine I guess, but I don’t really want to pay $6 a month to get test builds of this game” and tried to cancel, assuming it would simply not rebill next month, but instead of cancelling rebilling, Patreon says I will immediately lose access to everything I can currently see on Patreon and new posts for this month, even though it billed me for this month literally three days ago.
There is no technical reason they can’t just cancel rebilling and allow me to access this subscription until the end of the month, but they are clearly hoping I’ll be scared to lose access to what I’ve paid for and will forget about cancelling later in the month, which would be the better time to do it, since I would benefit from access to more posts and development builds. There are a few other subscriptions I’ve used in the past that remove access to everything the instant you cancel, but even Amazon lets me continue free trials of Prime until the end of the trial period when I cancel it.
There are presumably no laws against this, or it was mentioned in some legal bullshit I ignored when signing up, but I do think that there should be a law that forces providers of subscription services to allow users to access their subscription for the entire period for which they have paid, regardless of whether they cancel their subscription if no refund is due.
This is a bad idea. Chargebacks are only meant to be used in cases of fraud, which isn’t the case for OP, who simply wanted to discontinue his subscription.
You also will usually get auto-banned from any platform you issue a chargeback against, because in issuing a chargeback, you’re making the claim that your payment was unauthorized, so the assumption is that your account is compromised somehow. So your account will get banned as a preventative measure to prevent further unauthorized access.
It’s meant to be a last resort option, not a first choice.
EDIT: Glad to see that LemmyWorlders never left their Redditor mindsets behind. Blows me away that, even on the Fediverse, people will downvote truths they don’t want to hear.
I’ve charged plenty of things back and never been banned. Pizza that never came, products they never delivered, subscription services that never provided value, still haven’t been banned. Maybe a US thing or at least YMMV. It’s not just unauthorised transactions, it’s also ones where you didn’t reciever the service you paid for or the company you paid refuses a refund.
Chargebacks are only meant to be used in cases of fraud
That’s simply not true. What are you doing giving advice when two minutes of Googling shows you don’t know what you’re talking about?
No, they’re primarily for fraud, or faulty/damaged products; but we’re not talking about physical items here, we’re talking about a digital subscription. Chargebacks aren’t meant for “I don’t like the way you’re handling your service”, they’re for “I have been wronged in some way”. OP hasn’t been wronged, he just doesn’t like losing access to something he no longer wishes to pay for.
There are chargeback codes that get used when filing these. For example, here’s Visa’s chargeback codes. Note that there isn’t a valid code for OP’s situation, because it’s not considered an appropriate reason for issuing a chargeback. You’re also required to make an effort to try to rectify the issue with the merchant directly first, which it does not appear that OP has attempted yet.
Two minutes of Googling. Though the Googling was unnecessary, since I already had experience previously working at a bank and processed chargebacks regularly.
13.7 Cancelled Merchandise/Services
[…]the customer misunderstood or was never clear on the return policy.
That’s not to far off from “paying for a month of service, but receiving only two days”, don’t you think?
he just doesn’t like losing access to something he no longer wishes to pay for.
No, he doesn’t like losing access to something he did pay for. He paid for the month and any reasonable person would expect a prorated refund or to retain access for the time that’s been paid for.
Both Walmart and McDonald’s tech teams have told me to file charge backs on double charges…
Right, because a double charge is considered unauthorized. That’s not OP’s situation.
He’s not getting the product he paid for. That’s a legitimate chargeback.
He’s not getting the product because he’s cancelling the product. That’s not fraud, that’s just the consequence of cancelling a subscription.
If he’s already paid for the month, then he’s paid for the month. I’m not sure what part of that you’re finding complicated.
If he’s cancelling, he’s choosing not to pay for any following months but as this month is already paid for, he should continue to get what he paid for for the remainder of the month.
If cancelling means that he doesn’t get what he paid for this month, then yes, Patreon is essentially stealing his money by not giving him what they agreed to. The only fair solution to that would be if Patreon were to give him a partial refund pro-rated by how far into the month he is, but the wording of their “warning” doesn’t imply that whatsoever.
