It’s extremely unethical to force users to do more to cancel a subscription than they did to sign up. I hope one day these types of shenanigans are outlawed in the US.

Life pro tip: Use https://privacy.com

You can simply burn the payment details you provided them.

Note that changing your payment details does not cancel your responsibility to make payments.

While I agree with you, I think there's a bit of nuance that is worth considering.

For post-paid subscriptions, e.g. AWS, you've already consumed the service and you are obligated (legally and ethically) to pay for it when the bill comes. You can't change your credit card details to get out of paying.

For pre-paid subscriptions, like a month-to-month SaaS application, I don't really see the issue with using burner accounts and cancelling them if the company makes it hard to cancel. From the company's perspective, don't they just cut off access when the payment doesn't go through? Its not conceptually much different from forgetting about a subscription until the card expires.

More to the point, if the company didn't implement dark patterns in an attempt to prevent users from cancelling, we wouldn't be here in the first place.

Preventing customers from canceling unwanted services does not mean they owe you money for that service.

Unfortunately, in most places with the rule of law that's for a court to decide -- that's the thing about entering into agreements (even onerous ones). Until a court frees you from your obligation, you're obliged.

Great. Take me to court for $9.99, because you think I wanted a prepaid service I tried to cancel.

They'll wait a few years then send you to collections over the $600, plus $5000 in late fees.

Hard to do with one time use cards that don't link back to a real name or address.

Where do you get such a card? All the virtual card providers I'm aware of use your real information. I'm actually dubious such a card would be legal.

Privacy works by purchasing blocks of prepaid cards and issuing them on demand. So while your bank is linked to the card, the issues cards are not linked to your identity. With privacy, you can use any name and address you like and it will be validated. They use the card number, the CVV and the expiration as the only means of validation.

So this means I can say my name is Fake Customer and I live at 404 Main St, 95111 and it will validate just fine.

This is the same as if you purchased a prepaid visa gift card.

Someone on Hacker News asserting how they believe something should work per their personal ethics and morals does not mean that someone is magically freed from any legal obligations.

This is why you should always use fake data when registering somewhere.

Do services like password managers help with this kind of data retrieval? I agree with this in theory and would strive for it but it seems near impossible in practice

This is usually a breach of ToS, they generally have this covered.

Oh no, the sacred ToS!

Depending on your jurisdiction, you might have some form of right of cancellation though?

Document everything you've tried so far and then do a charge back through your credit card company.

My problem with DocuSign(DS) is of user authentication:

A recruiter I work for created a document for me to sign and had DS sent me an email with a link to the document.

The document contained my full name. Browsing around in the UI I noticed a log-viewer. It showed "<Name> has logged in", "<Name> has opened <document>". However, there is no verification that it was me who received that link. There can't be any such verification as I never have created an account and had DS validate my identity.

Docusign might be very easy for that recruiting company, but the other party is only known by an email address.

I don't mind using electronic signatures if a site implements them, for example, using text that says "By clicking below, you are electronically signing blah, blah, blah". I've used financial sites like that.

But I will never use DocuSign, because they create a fake signature for me and then I certify that this fake signature is my legal signature. And yes, they have the option to use your mouse to make a signature. But my point is, they store this signature and then can use it anywhere to sign anything. Nope, ain't gonna happen.

In fact, I was buying a car through Carvana (another horrible company, I found out!), and told them at the beginning I would not use DocuSign, which Carvana normally uses. Their rep on the phone said, "It's fine, you can sign paper". So they transfer this car from somewhere out west to within 1 mile of here, then call me and say "Oh, you haven't electronically signed the legal documents yet, and we need that before final delivery of the car." They were scheduled to deliver the car 5 minutes ago. I told the rep that I was assured I didn't have to use DocuSign and they said, "No, you have to." I told the rep I wouldn't and they could keep their car. Which they did. Then they wouldn't remove my information from their computer systems - social securty number, image of driver's licence, etc. - even though I didn't even do a transaction with them! They would only do that if I lived in CA because it's a law there. I hate Carvana and DocuSign.

Funny, we've just replaced DocuSign with a custom-built solution that will achieve full ROI in less than one year, thanks to recent price hikes on the contract.

Can you share more about what it takes to build something that'll digitally sign documents that'll be recognized by most countries?

I wasn't involved in the legal side and am not a lawyer, but in my limited understanding of US contract law (where this is exclusively used) it is quite simple to create a binding contract that will stand up in court. Building it, if anything, showed how simple the process can actually be.

You can cancel your subscription in the Settings page. Why were you forced to contact support?

Documentation says you can cancel it through settings:

https://support.docusign.com/s/articles/How-to-Cancel-Your-D...

In any case, your title is inappropriate (please report facts but please don't tell people what to do), and your last sentence is extreme exaggeration if it's based on a single case of difficulty cancelling, which doesn't seem to be representative.

"Do you have a screenshot you could share? That would go a long way towards making this post more verifiable. Also if you could provide the response from the support ticket about their explanation as to why it's missing, so we could all understand."

You're joking right?! Now I have to respond to two Docusign people? lol

No, and very funny, but I have nothing to do with Docusign.

But you'll understand that when you make accusations on a public forum, it helps to actually have evidence of your case.

Because anybody can say anything about any company, even if it's all made up.

I've seen totally false accusations made here on HN that the moderators had to take down to prevent them from continuing reputational harm to an otherwise well-regarded startup here (had reached over 100 points).

So when I see a "don't use X company because Y" post, I tend to be a bit more suspicious now if there aren't a reasonable amount of verifiable facts provided (screenshots of problem, screenshots of support ticket responses, etc.).

You haven't explained why you couldn't cancel it through settings.

The option was simply not there (contrary to the docs)! I literally needed to open a support ticket.

Do you have a screenshot you could share? That would go a long way towards making this post more verifiable.

Also if you could provide the response from the support ticket about their explanation as to why it's missing, so we could all understand.

Even if they lied a screenshot would prove nothing, it takes roughly 3 clicks to make any item on a website disappear using the dev tools.

And proving the absence of something with a picture tends to be difficult. Reminds me of that case where Aliexpress asked someone to send photographic proof that the package didn't arrive.

Wow, now this is flagged.

Poster: You need to email hn@ycombinator.com to get this sorted. They are often available even on weekends.

Seriously why is this flagged?

Likely because their workers likely use HN, and their HR sent out an email.

It's yet another company tactic.

Like steam pages being owned by the game publishers and so banning users for anything negative.

Or like movie producers having everyone who worked on the movie in any capacity rate it 10/10 on IMDB and some write 10/10 reviews that 'saw the movie at [obscure festival]', has full names of everyone involved '[ditector] was amazing and deserves all awards as does [actor 1]. [actor 2] was oscar worthy [1st-time actor] gave the performance of a lifetime! [gaffer] also worked on [obscure film].'

Three days after release it's now at 4/10 and only because of the high starting point of 10/10.

As was mine, now.

Proves the point, I suppose.

Oh man, that truly sounds awful!

Datadog is very difficult too. Including a call with your account rep…

Report for fraud.

I literally made a mistake, I thought it was needed for the free trial. This thing is a cesspool of dark patterns.

It is pretty normal to put payment details in place for a free trial.

Hmm, maybe you hoped it would fit your needs and then learned it didn't?

"Buyers remorse"is a thing.