// THE VERGE — FINANZA
NYC is now the first city in America that bans sketchy subscriptions
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A new consumer portal promises not to send complaints into a “chatbot doom loop.”
A new consumer portal promises not to send complaints into a “chatbot doom loop.”
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New York City residents struggling to get out of recurring subscription fees can now submit complaints to the city government. As of Thursday, the city’s click-to-cancel rule has taken effect, which requires businesses to make it as easy to cancel a subscription as it is to sign up. That means a gym that lets you join online, for example, can’t make you call or go in person to end your subscription.
It’s the first municipality to see the rule take effect, after an appeals court struck down a federal version for procedural issues. The city expects it to save New Yorkers anywhere from $21.5 million to $162.5 million annually. And to NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) Commissioner Samuel Levine, it’s an example of how state and local governments can hold companies accountable when federal efforts fail. “No one should need 45 minutes of hold music to stop paying for something they never wanted,” NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a statement. “If a company can take your money with one click, you should be able to get your money back with one click. And now, if they won’t let you cancel, the City is coming for them.”
Levine was the Federal Trade Commission consumer protection chief under Lina Khan, and he tried to usher in the click-to-cancel rule at a national level. He says the experience of implementing the rule in NYC has been “night and day.”