Fuck New York Times, I had to go through this chaos once and promised to never ever use any of their services ever again. I even went to the pain of making sure all my ad blockers were in full force when visiting the NYT. I developed a strong sense of hatred after realize what kind of slimy tactics they used to stop you from cancelling a subscription.
One day, I found a loophole. I would email them requesting a cancellation for my record and initiated a chargeback against them via my credit card company. I had no hopes of getting the money back, but then I also had evidence that I tried to reach out to them via calls and emails to make them cancel my subscription and the chargeback went through and I got a full refund. I really enjoyed that feeling knowing that the NYT lost more than they made from me as for every chargeback, the credit card company would penalize the merchant with a fixed fee - usually anywhere from $20 to $50 per chargeback if I'm not wrong.
I wish all those who had been scammed by NYT raises a chargeback and burn them to the ground. God, I never realized how passionately I could hate a company like this.
There's been a lot of talk about how newspapers are dying because nobody wants to pay for digital subscriptions. I think this industry seriously gets to blame themselves for this. I've tried subscribing to a couple of magazines back in the days and with every one of them it was a living nightmare to get out of the subscriptions. Once ending the subscription one even started sending what looked like regular invoices with due date in red and everything, but if you read the fine print at the bottom of the page it just said that "this is to start a subscription, if you are not interested ignore this mail".
Generally I don't have a problem paying for culture, and I also like reading both news papers and magazines but now days I always buy them at the local news stand. I've got enough proof that newspapers and magazines can't handle the trust with personal information and payment details.
I've also always admired journalists and the craft of good investigative journalism. It's sad that these creatives are stuck with the most hostile sales people in probably any industry (except maybe phone companies).
This. To give you an example I signed up for a local Gannett newspaper subscription for $17 per month delivered. I have since learned...
-twice a moth they claim they send premium content newspapers charged at $7 each extra. This content is trivial mass produced garbage.
-there is no billing statement detailing monthly charges. You can pay $5 a month to get an detailed billing statement.
-if you go on vacation there is no credit since they claim all the content is online.
-the newspaper shows up at my house some days at 12:15 am, so it is devoid of most news from the previous day.
I only get this for an elderly family member who reads it cover to cover everyday or I would be long gone.
I fell for this trap once, and instead of going through their rigamarole, I reported my credit card lost and got a new one with a new number. Of course I had to update the subscriptions I wanted to keep with the new number, but that was less hassle than cancelling that one service.
I subscribed to NYT via apple pay (through their website not the app) to avoid these shenanigans but the subscription won’t show up in Apple pay. Does anyone know why?
Apple Pay is just a one-time payment authorization mechanism; it does not keep track of subscriptions and doesn't have a way to cancel them. You may have been confused with App Store subscriptions which are mediated by Apple (and they take a cut) and do allow you to cancel there.
Reading about opposing viewpoints broaden your horizons, and surrounding yourself with media that reinforces your own world view does nothing to make your life better.
One day, I found a loophole. I would email them requesting a cancellation for my record and initiated a chargeback against them via my credit card company. I had no hopes of getting the money back, but then I also had evidence that I tried to reach out to them via calls and emails to make them cancel my subscription and the chargeback went through and I got a full refund. I really enjoyed that feeling knowing that the NYT lost more than they made from me as for every chargeback, the credit card company would penalize the merchant with a fixed fee - usually anywhere from $20 to $50 per chargeback if I'm not wrong.
I wish all those who had been scammed by NYT raises a chargeback and burn them to the ground. God, I never realized how passionately I could hate a company like this.