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I use privacy.com for throw-away cards and you can set spending limits and close them at any time.


> close them at any time

Closing your card doesn't have any impact on legal obligations you had, or a merchant thinks you had, or any impact on whether a merchant will choose to do business with you in the future.


In terms of legal obligations, sure - however, for SaaS, it's almost never worth it. If it's "we charge you at the start of the period", then you received no goods, they received no payment, there is no legal obligation. If it's "we provide the service and charge you at the end of the period", then there is a legal obligation, but the cost to them to collect is probably too large; they could always send it to a debt collector, but good luck proving that debt ("the issuer of the debt provided access to a service" "...that I was unaware of and never used? Sounds fraudulent").

In terms of merchant choosing to do business with you in the future, they may or may not have a choice; depends what they use to identify you with. Certainly, if they don't make canceling easy, it's probably not the kind of business you want to deal with.

All that said, this is why anything that auto-renews, that I don't know if I want to keep renewing (i.e., will I still be using it at the end of the trial period, end of the month, end of the year), I immediately cancel. If it's a trial and that terminates access, I will take that as a sign not to use them. If it's paid and that terminates access, I will also take that as a sign not to use them, but I'll also email them and basically say "hey; I paid for X period, wish to use it for X period, but am unable to use the service for X period. I either need you to reinstate my account, sans auto-renewal, or I expect a refund". That tends to get a response, since otherwise -they- are legally on the hook.


Yeah, and a software provider hiding a non-cancel clause somewhere in a dozens of pages after the deal "contrat" doesn't impact on your legal obligations either.


I would guess that ‘annual plan’ is presumed to be clear enough, you didn’t have to read the contract.


Hum... Annual plan is not stated on any of the large text. It is stated on the "review order before you buy" as part of the name of the product, what makes it nothing any similar to "clear". "Completely confusing" is more apt.

Near it the price information carries the monthly price only, with no indication that you are signing up to 12 times that amount.

The only saving feature is that you don't need to read dozens of pages. If you open the contract, it is confusing from page 1. But it's also not clear at all what is going there.


kind of hard to have legal obligations when you use junk PII (which Privacy accepts; they allow any address and zip to be used)


No, that's just fraud, and it'll get you in way more trouble


That's not correct. At least not in this context.

This will invariably lead to a terminated account and a bunch of declined emails , but thats as far as it goes.




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