PERSONAL FINANCE It’s easy, especially at election time, to lose sight of the fact that government, when it’s working at its best, really is looking out for you. Today we bring you a couple nice breaks for consumers, courtesy of the federal government. ‘Click to cancel’ finalized In June, I wrote about the ins and outs of subscription canceling , and mentioned that the Federal Trade Commission was in the process of finalizing a “click to cancel” rule that would require businesses to make it as easy to cancel a subscription as it is to get one.
A couple of weeks ago, that rule was finalized. Most of it goes into effect 180 days after it’s published in the Federal Register, which means not until late spring. I’ll give you a heads’ up when it happens.
The rule applies to almost all negative option programs. Those are the ones where you’re automatically enrolled unless you opt out. It also prohibits sellers from misrepresenting material facts while using negative option marketing, requires sellers to provide certain information before getting your billing information and charging you, and requires sellers to get your informed consent to negative option features before you’re charged.
You probably have at least one subscription like this – a free trial that kicks in with a monthly fee after a certain amount of time, a gym membership that you have to cancel in person, a newspaper subscription you paid for online to read one thing and have to call and deal wi.
