Pa. House passes 'click-to-cancel' subscription bills

https://www.pennlive.com/news/2025/07/pa-house-passes-click-to-cancel-subscription-bills-as-court-throws-out-federal-rule.html

by bikenaga • 1 year ago

270 95 1 year ago

pennlive.com

toomuchtodo3• 1 year ago

With the recent federal block of click to cancel, states implementing this will be the way to go.

Both bills passed the House with broad bipartisan support. If the legislation is agreed to by the state Senate and signed by Gov Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania would join several other states that have moved to create such laws over the past year since the FTC began working on its now-defunct rule.
New York, California, Minnesota, Tennessee, and Virginia have all enacted state-level policies that include provisions similar to Ciresi and Borowski’s bills.

If you live in a state that has not passed such legislation, I would encourage you to hound your reps until they do. 45 states to go.

swesour• 1 year ago

Tennessee

Rare red state w.

ProllyInfamous• 1 year ago

I live here. We actually have fairly decent consumer protections... at least against product misrepresenation.

For example, our state constitution prohibits products being sold in containers which misrepresent the amount of their contents (albeit, it still happens).

Conversely, we also founded the pay-day-loan industry, which is just disgraceful (about a dozen states have banned entirely). Only passed because Allan Jones ("father of payday loans") donated $30,000 to PACs in the mid-90s.

I'm currently looking for greener pastures, up-to-and-including expatriation. This state overall has politicians' heads so far up their own...

amendegree2• 1 year ago

Just to be clear the block was due to a procedural issue and I wouldn’t at all be surprised to see this sorta thing have bipartisan support at the federal level, seeing as it enjoys bipartisan support at the state level in every jurisdiction it is attempted. The main hurdle at the federal level would be getting it out of committee.

sokoloff• 1 year ago

FTC can still do it without the legislature. They just have to follow a more rigorous process in rule-making.

janalsncm3• 1 year ago

To add some color to the regulatory issue as I understand it, the court ruled that the impact of this rule would be over $100M so they’re required to assess cost/benefits of alternatives and submit them during the public comment period.

I don’t even know what the alternative would be apart from doing nothing. Making it more of a pain for consumers to cancel is zero sum on first order analysis (if I lose a dollar because I can’t cancel the company gets a dollar) but at a second order makes our economy less dynamic by entrenching incumbent companies and making it harder for consumers to allocate their money towards better alternatives.

If a company can trap your money in a labyrinth of process they don’t have to compete on quality or price. Simple as that.

dfxm122• 1 year ago

When you look at what is happening in Washington, it is disingenuous to say something was blocked because of a procedural issue. It was blocked because the party that controls all three branches of the Federal government didn't want it to pass.

stronglikedan• 1 year ago

With the recent federal block of click to cancel, states implementing this will be the way to go.

State's rights is just about always the best way to go. It's nice to see the power being returned to the people.

toomuchtodo3• 1 year ago

Usually, it’s only “states rights” when conservatives want something. To be determined if this sticks as it rolls out to more states, or the federal government attempts to infringe on state authority. No different than the Missouri governor overriding voters and repealing voter-approved paid sick leave and minimum wage law, Ohio conservatives attempting to override voters on reproductive healthcare, Florida raising the bar for ballot initiatives, Texas gerrymandering efforts currently in progress, etc.

“Maybe you do not care much about the future of the Republican Party. You should. Conservatives will always be with us. If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy.” -― David Frum

https://www.google.com/search?q=hypocrisy+of+states+rights

__turbobrew__5• 1 year ago

State's rights is just about always the best way to go

Generally agreed. I live in Canada and think we would be much better off if we pushed more legislation away from the feds and to the provinces. The needs/wants of Alberta/Saskatchewan is much different than Quebec for example.

Gun control is a major divisive issue in Canada as gun control is 100% at the federal level, but the preferences of how it is handles varies hugely between provinces, so much so that some provinces are threatening to not enforce the federal laws.

Im fine with the feds managing border enforcement, immigration, and military — and collecting taxes to fund those programs — but other than that they should leave to the provinces.

The other alternative is that everyone is subject to the mob rule of the major population centers which have much different needs/wants then those outside of the centers. Why not just give the population centers what they want and those in rural areas what they want?

nkrisc3• 1 year ago

That’s good and all for things that begin and end within a single state. Some things really should be done at the federal level. I don’t think a single service I subscribe to is based in the state in which I live.

dfxm122• 1 year ago

State's rights doesn't give power to the people. It gives power to mostly gerrymandered state legislatures and to appointed judges.

Click to cancel is popular among the people. It was blocked despite this. If the people had power (as opposed to lobbyists, or big business), this would had passed federally.

kstrauser• 1 year ago

I confess to a lot of schadenfreude at the powers that be, like the US Chamber of Commerce, who fight against these federal bills and then find themselves fighting 50 slightly incompatible laws. Oh, you thought it was going to be hard to comply with that one, single pro-consumer regulation? Have fun!

See also: a patchwork of privacy laws[0] that are vastly harder to comply with than a national level GDPR-style law would be.

[0] https://pro.bloomberglaw.com/insights/privacy/state-privacy-...

ChrisArchitect• 1 year ago

Related background:

US Court nullifies FTC requirement for click-to-cancel

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44504699

xyst• 1 year ago

As a software engineer, this means job security, lol.

If a few more states pass similar legislation, the default would be to make it as easy as possible to unsubscribe/cancel.

15155• 1 year ago

As a software engineer, this means job security, lol.

My bro Claude would like a word with you.

breadwinner2• 1 year ago

One of the ways to prevent unauthorized charges is to use a virtual credit card. Many credit cards provide a way to create virtual credit card based on your real credit card, for example, Citibank [1] and Capital One [2]. Then if the merchant makes it hard for you to cancel, just delete your virtual credit card.

You can specify any expiration date for the virtual card (with at least 1 month validity). You can also set per-transaction limits on this credit card, which ensures the merchant can't charge more than the agreed amount.

[1] https://www.cardbenefits.citi.com/Products/Virtual-Account-N...

[2] https://www.capitalone.com/learn-grow/money-management/what-...

JumpCrisscross2• 1 year ago

One of the ways to prevent unauthorized charges is to use a virtual credit card

This prevents payments, not charges. I’ve met two totally separate funds that buy up these claims and litigate them because killing your card doesn’t void the purchase contract. (And your liability keeps actuating so long as it’s not cancelled.)

breadwinner2• 1 year ago

That's true. In addition to preventing payments, you also have to make a reasonable attempt to cancel service.

Recently in the case of Dish Network, I tried to call to cancel service, and the wait time is 45 minutes. There's no way I am doing that. (They don't let you cancel online or via chat, calling is the only option). Instead I contacted state attorney general's office and they made Dish cancel service.

If you can prove that you made reasonable attempt to cancel service then you're off the hook. In my case Dish sent my account to collections (for the 1 month it took to cancel service) and I wrote them back that I am not paying and why. Never heard back from them after that.

fuckinpuppers• 1 year ago

This sucks that it’s not federal. All these separate state regulations just create more burden on the company side to keep up, and we almost had it federally. :(

I am happy to see states still pushing forward. But it’s just so disappointing how much is being taken away for everyone.

scosman• 1 year ago

The company only has burden if they want to maintain maximally sketchy but legal business practices in every possible locale. Doing the right thing is easy to implement.

bee_rider2• 1 year ago

The companies have lots of money. If they are having trouble following the laws, they can just direct the lobbying they were going to do at passing a universal consumer protection law.

floatrock• 1 year ago

Creating more burden on the company side to keep up is the point -- feature, not a bug.

Who do you think lobbies against a federal-level pro-consumer bill? Hint: it's not the consumers.

The risk of a huge patchwork of not-completely-overlapping state level bills is one of the few checks consumers have against federal-level regulatory capture: if it's between a single set of federal-level rules vs. a patchwork of state-by-state rules, the profitable move becomes "okay, lets just let them have the federal-level rules."

The failure modes, of course, are:

- a completely-defanged federal rule which is worse than no rule (right-to-repair has continued to suffer this)

- further consolidation: if it's expensive to do business in multiple states, only the companies with the deepest pockets can continue to grow

Personally, though, my money is still on a growing patchwork of state laws will eventually necessitate a good-enough federal law.

ruralfam• 1 year ago

I have a good many subs or monthly plans. Only one sends me an email notifying me that I will be soon be billed and the amount billed. All the others never provide any notification whatsoever. Can PA also consider a bill that requires notification of billing via email?? I'd bet this rule combined with easy-to-cancel would be of great, great, benefit to the good citizens of PA.

account7213• 1 year ago

The article says this doesn't apply to entities regulated by the state utility commission, the FCC or specifically gym memberships. That would seem to exclude a lot of the worst offenders.

pclowes• 1 year ago

I wonder how hard it would be to generate synthetic credit card numbers for each subscription service and then just cancel that "card".

I feel there is a whole cadre of consumer tech that is defensive against corporate taxes/tolls on our time. Eg: auto phone tree navigator, only allowing calls from double opted in contacts etc.

Buttons840• 1 year ago

Sometimes the company will continue to seek payment and put the missed payments on your credit report.

That should be illegal as well. If people stop paying for a continual service, like a streaming service or a magazine, then the service should just stop; companies shouldn't be able to accrue credit and continue seeking payment, just cancel the service and be done.

If something like a magazine wants a year payment upfront, then let them charge for a full year before the first magazine is delivered.

57473m3n7Fur7h3• 1 year ago

There are many banks that offer virtual cards. Meaning you can generate unique numbers and individually disable those card numbers.

A related thing is, with Revolut you have disposable cards that are only possible to charge a single time. Unfortunately I have had a bad time trying to use disposable cards. One time I tried it the merchant did a single reversible charge for like a dollar to verify the card and then they couldn’t charge the actual amount so the purchase failed. Another time for a subscription service (I wanted to try their free 30 day trial without forgetting to cancel in time) they apparently got metadata telling them the card was disposable and they refused it so I had to use the non-disposable card number after all.

DaSHacka2• 1 year ago

Can you not instead set the cap at a certain amount? You can do that on privacy, and can also set it to reset the cap after a certain amount of time (for subscriptions)

dewey• 1 year ago

There’s many services providing virtual credit cards for exactly that purpose: https://www.privacy.com/

ge96• 1 year ago

Interesting I thought it didn't pass (maybe was a different one for the entire country)

Yeah the gym cancellation thing where you have to drive to the location and sign a paper was annoying me/had to do it

Hope they do something similar with cookies where there has to be an option to say no/reject all

38362936482• 1 year ago

The FTC had a rule against it, but courts struck it down, so now states are doing it individually

apparent2• 1 year ago

The bills would also not cover gyms – notorious for arduous membership cancellation policies – which are controlled by the state Health Club Act. This could be amended into the legislation, which Ciresi said he was open to.

What possible good faith reason could there be for exempting gyms?

adamm255• 1 year ago

Good faith LOL

metalman• 1 year ago

fat people epidemic, and the idea that obesity is deadly, so make it harderfor people to give up on there resolutions

ironmagma• 1 year ago

We need some kind of antitrust gym laws. There are far too few gyms for the amount of demand they see.

justonceokay• 1 year ago

Creating a gym has relatively low barrier to entry. Buy heavy stuff and put it in an ugly warehouse: now you have a gym! The proliferation of CrossFit is pretty much exactly this

brikym• 1 year ago

I should be able to cancel from my bank. Use the Visa/MC monopoly for good.

DaSHacka2• 1 year ago

I'd much rather just break up the monopoly

filoeleven2• 1 year ago

Yeah, this is the way. The charges ultimately get drawn from that account, so that should be the place where I can stop that from happening.

nektro• 1 year ago

yay! if only the FTC had implemented this nationally and not had it rolled back by this admin!

tritipsocial• 1 year ago

What are the most notorious offenders for hard to cancel services? I heard lots of horror stories in the early 2000s (AOL!) but I have not ran into this recently.

Macha• 1 year ago

Gyms and newspapers

FlamingMoe• 1 year ago

I buy a lot of plugins for WordPress sites, and there are definitely some companies in that ecosystem known to utilize dark patterns and have difficult cancellation processes.

apparent2• 1 year ago

Home security companies and newspapers.

noobermin• 1 year ago

Time for trump to declare click to cancel woke and communist so they can pass a federal law banning it like they are passing other similar laws.

grndn• 1 year ago

Personal anecdote: I had a subscription to the Philly Inquirer. They made it very easy to sign up online, but there was no way to cancel online. The website only said "call the sales team to cancel".

I changed my home address to California, and shortly after, a new "Cancel Subscription" button appeared on the PI website, which worked great.

aspenmayer• 1 year ago

Instructions unclear? Do I move to California before or after I cancel my subscription(s)?

larkost• 1 year ago

I think in this case you just need to change your mailing address with them. There is a California law (and from other comments it looks like 4 other states) that requires them to allow easy cancelations to CA residents. And since it is probably too much work for them to prove you are a CA resident, they just have the logic check if your address is in CA to enable the online cancelation (since they have online signup)

sometimes_all• 1 year ago

Somewhere in the mid-2010s, The Economist lost my trust when I noticed that they did not have a way to cancel their subscription directly, you had to call a number (I was not intending to cancel, but someone pointed that out to me). I called that number on the very same day and cancelled.

Any company which makes entry easy and exit difficult will not have my money. The more difficult the exit, the harder I will try to escape, even if I like their product/service.

Pa. House passes 'click-to-cancel' subscription bills

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