
Tell HN: Pluralsight and the dark-pattern of auto-renewals - aosaigh
For anyone considering subscribing to Pluralsight, be aware that they will not inform you of their auto-renewal policy, and will charge you once your subscription is up for annual renewal without warning. In my case, this auto-renewal has cost me $300.<p>This is a serious dark-pattern and I&#x27;m surprised companies still employ it. It&#x27;s so short-sighted. I emailed their support and they offer a &quot;promotional&quot; $50 refund as a token.<p>Are there any other companies that do this? In contrast, Egghead.io (which in a similar space) sends an email in advance warning you of the renewal as well as how to cancel it.
======
Scooty
The other day I was stopped on the sidewalk by someone who told me they worked
for a large environmental non profit that helps save endangered species. He
asked if I would subscribe to help. I offered to make a donation and was told
they I can't do a one time donation and they "really need subscribers". He
even told me I could just cancel after the first payment.

Taking advantage of someone being forgetful is sleazy.

~~~
buckminster
In the UK a typical suggested donation might be £10 per month and the first
three payments will go to the sales person's employer - which is typically a
third party, not the charity. If you cancel after the first month they get
paid but the charity gets nothing. It's sleazier than you think!

~~~
bencollier49
I'm a member of a club in the UK which raises money for charity - we've
stopped giving money to corporate charities because their overheads are such a
high percentage of their takings - at this point they're largely just self-
perpetuating bureaucracy machines.

We give cash to small volunteer-run charities where we know that 100% of the
money raised goes to the cause in question.

~~~
reallydontask
What do you consider a high percentage?

Looking at Oxfam, it's 10% admin and 7% fundraising [1], which doesn't seem
too bad given their global reach.

Admittedly their reputation has taken a bit of a tumble due to the scandals.

[1] [https://www.oxfam.org.uk/donate/how-we-spend-your-
money](https://www.oxfam.org.uk/donate/how-we-spend-your-money)

~~~
bencollier49
I think there's a fairly open question about how those percentages are
calculated. Oxfam is an outlier, with a very low stated percentage being used
for overheads, but it'd be interesting to see a breakdown of how the remaining
cash was used. For example - are staff costs in a target country (say, Haiti)
considered admin, or is the UK base only counted?

------
JackC
Slightly different, but Adobe got me with an unintended annual renewal. For
their annual plan billed monthly, there's no way to turn off autorenewal until
the 12th month without losing access immediately and paying a penalty. They do
send you reminder emails, which I missed, but it struck me as pretty abusive
to require an opt-out exactly 11-12 months after signup to avoid being locked
into a new one-year contract, with no way to opt out early. One of many forum
threads about the policy:

[https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2536257](https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2536257)

Ugh, I remember now how gross that felt at the time, to realize I was locked
into the contract, couldn't cancel, and that the same thing was likely to
happen again next year, because they built it that way on purpose. Blech.

~~~
bryik
Adobe hit me with an unintended annual renewal _out of a trial_. I just wanted
to try Adobe Premiere Pro on a school project...well, final exams happened and
I forgot to cancel the subscription. Then I moved to a different country,
started a new job, and continued to forget about Adobe. A month later I see
the credit card bills and try to cancel. Somehow I have an annual contract
that carries an early termination penalty.

Take the money you dogs; it's the last you'll get.

~~~
swebs
Perform a chargeback and leave a negative review on any app store you may have
bought it from. Companies will just keep screwing people over if they never
get punished for it.

~~~
gridlockd
"In one of my frequent bouts of negligence, I bought something that I didn't
intend to buy and now I want to return it for a full refund for which you
shall bear the cost. If you don't give it to me I will issue a fraudulent
chargeback and leave negative reviews."

Who is screwing over who here?

~~~
mort96
That's extremely misleading and you know it. Nobody starts a fucking _trial_
with the expectation that if they forget about it, they get charged a ton of
money periodically until they notice. That's not just "buying something in a
frequent bout of negligence".

~~~
gridlockd
You can call me "Nobody", then. I have bailed on countless "free trials" after
being prompted to enter my credit card details. It's quite common.

As far as Adobe goes, what part of "7 days free, then US$20.99/mo" do you find
hard to understand?

------
redwards510
I can't think of a single subscription service that does not auto-renew. Can
you? Companies consider that a "feature" because it provides uninterrupted
service.

Is your beef with them because they didn't email you to let you know they were
going to bill you for renewal?

Do what I do. Never trust a company. Whenever you sign up for a recurring
service or a free trial, add an event to your personal calendar that reminds
you to cancel. Or use a gift card with a limited balance.

~~~
aosaigh
I think I wasn't clear enough that this is an annual subscription of
significant cost ($300). With that in mind I would absolutely expect them to
email in advance reminding me of the charge (other similar services do). I
agree that for something that is monthly, I wouldn't expect an email every
month.

Adding dates to the calendar and using giftcard/credit card are both good
suggestions for the future.

~~~
anant90
Also, consider using a one-time Credit Card from
[https://privacy.com/](https://privacy.com/)

~~~
cpv
Do you know a similar service outside US?

~~~
andimm
You can get virtual cards and virtual disposable cards with Revolut but it
costs a little fee or it‘s free with the premium/metal subscription

~~~
algorithm_dk
Revolut's disposable card is awesome. I use it constantly.

------
a13n
If they won't refund you then they're being dicks. Chargeback your credit card
if you're in the US. You'll almost certainly win and there's likely no penalty
if you don't.

Chargebacks also cost providers money on top of the refund, which
disincentives their shitty refund policy.

I run a SaaS company (with a great refund policy) and am part of many SaaS
startup groups and it's standard practice to basically refund anyone who asks.

The refund costs way less than the damage to your brand / negative reviews.

~~~
technics256
What are the startup groups you are a part of, if you don't mind sharing? I
also run a small SaaS.

~~~
a13n
Facebook group: SaaS growth hacks

There are a few others if you search SaaS on Facebook, but that's the
best/biggest one.

------
motohagiography
Try buying ads on linkedin and setting an amount you want to spend. It auto-
renewed that amount, every day for weeks, without an email or even linkedin
profile notification. It's an extremely shady dark pattern.

I lost well over $1000 to them before I discovered it and cancelled. Have fun
getting a refund as well. In short, avoid.

~~~
jordanmorgan10
I'm curious if this was obvious during the on boarding of when you
bought/created the ads though? The world of spending on ads alludes me, and as
I start to venture into it to promote my own stuff - these are the things that
have me a bit apprehensive to pull the trigger on any significant ad spend.

~~~
motohagiography
I'm sure legally there was a reference, however the interface was structured
to loot my credit card. I told support as much, and while I'm sure there was
some indicator, again, no notification my card was being charged in my
linkedin account notifications, and no emails that it was being charged. You
need to watch it accumulate practically real time, because it will auto renew.
Under what circumstances someone would willingly sign up to have $100 taken
from them as an automatic refill is beyond me.

Further, when someone is fundamentally dissatisfied with a service, you either
refund them or you have profited by misrepresentation. In spite of a messaged
commitment from them to refund the money, I have not received any notification
that it has been refunded.

The good news is that when a company's culture sucks that much, it is ripe for
disruption.

------
tschwimmer
I would go so far as to say that every single SaaS company in existence has
autorenew. Literally the entire business model is built off of a predictable
set of customers converting and renewing (and thus a predictable revenue
stream).

SaaS companies are also heavily incentivized to make it harder for you to
cancel a trial. Yes, if you get down to it this is not in your interest but
also it ends up being a relatively positive tradeoff. You can either have
free, no commitment trials with autorenew and all the economic activity that
they bring (probably hundreds of thousands of jobs, hundreds of great, useful
products) or you can have no autoconvert and also basically no tech sector. I
suggest you set up a calendar reminder when you sign up for a free trial or
use a temporary credit card (many solutions are a quick search away).

~~~
aosaigh
I wonder if my reaction to this is more based on _how_ they implement auto-
renew rather than the fact they do it at all, as I agree that companies need
to have auto-renew for many reasons.

I just find something very unfair about a policy that doesn't warn you about a
significant annual renewal coupled with the fact you aren't warned about it
nor is it refundable (even if you immediately contact support). It feels like
a very deliberate design. As I mentioned, other services have a much more
honest and open approach to this, where they email a couple of days in advance
warning you about the charge.

But maybe I'm just naive in this instance and should assume companies will do
it (so plan around it)

------
TrainedMonkey
If you use paypal, scrub pre-approved payments page:
[https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_manage-
paylist](https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_manage-paylist)

I've caught two unintended renewals and cancelled a lot of pre-approved
payment authorizations. Out of 20 authorizations, only Google and Valve were
legit recurring payments, all other just set it up after a one-time purchase.

------
mrccc
In Europe, this might be illegal: > Merchants operating in the European Union
must give customers 7 business days’ notice before changing the price of their
recurring billing plan; 7 business days’ notice is also required before
billing customers if it has been 6+ months since their last payment. If you
don’t operate in the EU, these notices aren't required (but they're still good
practice).

From: [https://articles.braintreepayments.com/guides/recurring-
bill...](https://articles.braintreepayments.com/guides/recurring-
billing/subscriptions)

~~~
aosaigh
Thank you for this tip (it worked). It looks like this is actually a Visa
policy.

From their terms:

"For a recurring transaction, both: … \- Provide notification to the card
holder at least 7 working day before a recurring transaction if any of the
following is true: … \- More than 6 months have elapsed since the previous
Recurring activity"

------
bargl
I use Pluralsight and I love their videos.

I had a subscription I'd paid for and then I changed companies. My new Company
provided a subscription. So I called up and they refunded me the prorated
subscription.

I see you emailed customer support, but I'd instead call them. You'll probably
have better luck with a human listening. Maybe not but it's worth a try for
$300.

An Email should have done it. It's crazy if you do call them and it works, but
sometimes that does the trick.

------
mola
I think we should stop calling these things "dark patterns" This is just plain
old deception and scamming.

~~~
chrshawkes
They have to justify that bloated stock price. YouTube is a huge competitor
and FREE.

------
dangrossman
Did you come through a shady landing page somewhere? From what I see, you
cannot sign up without being informed of their auto renewal policy, and they
do not charge you without warning, which were your two complaints. Every
signup button I could find on their public website says "10-day free trial
then $X/month, billed monthly/annually" immediately beside or below the
button. Clicking any of these buttons brings you to a payment page that asks
your credit card info. That page says you'll receive an email reminder the day
before your card is charged.

~~~
aosaigh
Sorry, didn't explain properly. I had subscribed already for the first year
($300). My renewal date for this next year came without warning and I was
charged again, without recourse. I updated the text to clarify.

~~~
scarface74
What do you mean it came without warning? It’s a subscription plan that you
pay for yearly.

------
mosselman
I had a run in with BitDefender the other day. They charged me 120 euros for
something that costs 37 euros on their website claiming auto-renewal was part
of my original order 2 years ago!

The first counter offer I got, when requesting a full refund was adding 1 year
or paying 37 for 1 year. Reminding then that in the EU you have a 14 day
return period for online purchases made them refund the complete order.

What is especially ironic about this is that they supposedly want to protect
me against online scammers, etc. In my book auto-renewals like this are scams.

------
projectileboy
Same for LogMeIn. And Washington Post. And so many others. It makes me sad
that what should be legitimate businesses now seem to feel it’s acceptable to
trick people into giving them money.

------
jordanmorgan10
Disclaimer: I've done about 4 videos for Pluralsight.

I have to agree - if you make it hard to cancel your service I think you're
losing money. We're kinda seeing this a lot on iOS, where subscriptions and
the process of carrying those over after a limited free trial are very, very
shady.

It's a shame, because you want those dollars earned - and if I decide your
product isn't right for me _and_ you make it hard to leave, then by proxy
you've made it almost impossible for me to come back.

~~~
jbarberu
You've also transformed me to a walking & talking warning sign telling others
to stay away :)

------
tvanantwerp
Recently had a legacy Bluehost site I inherited get auto-renewed to the tune
of over $400. This was one small step up from a static site, for an
organization that doesn't exist anymore--the site remained only as proof that
they once did.

There was nothing in the emails they sent saying that auto-renew was set up.
The way I read the expiration warnings was that it would, in fact, expire,
which I was fine with. Thankfully support was very helpful in refunding the
charge and canceling the account.

------
rygxqpbsngav
Had similar experience with Adobe. I got discounted monthly price on their
photography plan for a year. However, they didn't send me the new price before
end of the period. So, it went on for few more months, when I realized this.
Contacted them, and after few chats, managed to get refunded the whole amount
for the months renewed in full as their terms say they must send a renewal
email/notice and they failed. I pushed that point heavy and managed to get
full refund.

------
jonmc12
Another company: Godaddy. They send an email reminder for auto-renew with a
button, "Manage your renewals". Click on that button, but you can't toggle off
auto-renew on that page. There are some big toggles to toggle the privacy
feature (an upsell of a paid feature). If you want to toggle off auto-renew
for that domain, you have to navigate to a different Godaddy page using 2-3
clicks without instruction.

~~~
fouc
Depends on the TLD? For example, .app domains are always auto-renew I think

~~~
CydeWeys
Registrars will generally auto-renew domains for their registrants regardless
of any TLD-specific policies.

And that makes sense; letting a domain name lapse absent explicit instruction
is generally the wrong thing to do.

~~~
PetahNZ
Well depending on the tld, there are grace periods after it lapses

~~~
CydeWeys
And depending on TLD, it can be quite expensive to restore a domain during the
redemption grace period. Much better to not let it get into that situation in
the first place.

Plus there are autorenew grace periods, so the saner thing is to keep the
domain around and then delete it if the registrant objects (and then they get
their money back).

------
netbuddha
I definitely can sympathize with you on having a $300 deduction without
warning but this is how 95% of online business and services bill. You are hard
pressed to find a business application that is not subscription with auto
renew. At one time I said I would never buy an app that is subscription based.
It did not take long for me to realize I would have to get rid of my computer
because I have no apps.

------
gridlockd
> This is a serious dark-pattern and I'm surprised companies still employ it.
> It's so short-sighted.

It's not short-sighted at all. Literally every adult should be aware that
subscriptions generally auto-renew, unless advertised otherwise. It's been
like that since the dawn of time.

From a business perspective, it makes little sense _not_ to do auto-renewals.
Of all the subscriptions that I've ever had, those that didn't auto-renew, I
let lapse, often permanently. I didn't think to myself "I should reward this
company for not doing auto-renewals!", I thought "I'll get to it later".

Those that _did_ auto-renew but that I didn't need, I didn't cancel for a long
time. Of course I'm annoyed at the auto-renewals wasting my money, but not to
the point where I wouldn't use the service again out of spite. If I need it, I
need it.

~~~
aosaigh
I've mentioned this a few times, but the issue isn't with auto-renewals
existing, it's with how these auto-renewals are applied and the policy around
them.

------
simonebrunozzi
Added to my list of bad companies: [https://gitlab.com/simonebrunozzi/dark-
companies/blob/master...](https://gitlab.com/simonebrunozzi/dark-
companies/blob/master/README.md)

------
foobar123321
> For anyone considering subscribing to Pluralsight, be aware that they will
> not inform you of their auto-renewal policy, and will charge you once your
> subscription is up for annual renewal without warning. In my case, this
> auto-renewal has cost me $300.

I'm glad you mention this. The same thing happened to me and is one of the big
reasons I cancelled and won't be using them ever again.

I can't remember the details but it seemed sketchy at the time, I signed up
for a free trial and they ended up just sending me a bill for $300 after the 7
days expired, without any text or warnings that this would happen before hand
(not during the free trial sign up either).

Yes, a very dark-pattern indeed.

------
mhxion
I believe what your point is since the subscription costs 23 times more of
what Netflix HD costs, there should've been a warning since Netflix and many
other companies do even for their low prices. From my experience this is
nothing new, but there should've been a fair refund system.

Many of devs might already know Visual Studio offers free 1-month (it was
3-months before) of Pluralsight, I'm not sure if you need to sign up with your
CC now, but it's a nice deal. [https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/dev-
essentials/](https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/dev-essentials/)

------
dawidsawczuk
What I usually do is I use a virtual Revolut card that I keep frozen when I'm
not making payments. Unfortunately some companies don't accept prepaid card as
payment, but in those cases I simply don't give them my money.

~~~
RustyBucket
Revolut actually has "disposable virtual card" \- details are regenerated
after the first purchase. It's even more convenient.

------
alexghr
LinkedIn is the worst. Starting a trial through the mobile app requires only a
couple of clicks. Trying to cancel that trial? Haha! Good luck! There's no way
to do it through the mobile app. I had to open the website, login there as
well, go to the help section, search for "cancel" and click on the help
article. At this point I was greeted by "this feature is not supported on
mobile devices" so I had Firefox request the desktop version in order to view
the page.

------
thiagora
We're working on a search engine for online courses (classpert) and the
subscription model was always a big question mark for us. We try our best to
show advantages of the subscription but for the end user, we're not so sure
it's the best model (and we doubt providers really believe that either).
Personally, Udemy model (pay per course) works better for the general case,
and I would only subscribe to specific content made by specific, top-notch
people.

------
DrOctagon
Pluralsight stung me after the free first 10 days too. I was wary, and even
after carefully reading the conditions I didn't think the first payment was
automatic.

------
amerkhalid
There are so many such services that make it look like that there is no auto-
renewal but when you check help docs, they have instructions to contact
customer service to disable auto-renewal.

Having bitten by this a few times in past, now whenever I sign up for any
subscription service, I add a calendar entry to cancel service 1 month before
it supposed to expire.

If I like the service, then I just update reminder to cancel it before next
renewal period.

------
novaleaf
Isn't this the whole point of yearly subscriptions? Seems like you should be
shaking your fist at the sky instead of at Pluralsight.

1) capture additional revenue from those canceling (even better: not using)
prior to 1 year

2) capture additional revenue from those forgetting to cancel

Distant 3) getting the cash up front. If your business really needs working
capital that bad, I don't think you'll be in business very long.

~~~
aosaigh
> 2) capture additional revenue from those forgetting to cancel

This is the dark pattern _exactly_ and nothing to do with annual subscriptions
as a business process. I'm not sure why people are willing to put up with it.
If I have an annual renewal, I should be reminded. Actively encouraging and/or
relying on your users to forget the renewal date is scummy, simple-as.

As another poster mentioned, this is such a problem that Visa have encoded
this in the user terms. In the EU, you have to remind your users 7 days in
advance of the renewal date if the subscription has been greater than 6
months.

Saying that this is "just the way it is" completely ignores the actual issue.

~~~
novaleaf
I don't mean it in a "just the way it is" sense. but rather that there are a
TON of companies that do this. get mad at all of them.

as for the OP, hope he used a credit card (not debit) and if so, dispute the
charge.

------
hjk05
If you buy a subscription you have that subscription until you cancel it. It
wasn’t “renewed”, they just charged you the yearly cost. Imagine if your gym
membership was forced to ask you every month if you still want the
subscription and would have to cancel it if you didn’t respond.

That said, if you want to now cancel it get in touch with their costumer
service they’ll likely help you.

------
Flow
FYI: I live in the EU and work for a large corporation.

I have a Pluralsight subscription via Visual Studio+MSDN and when the period
is near the end Pluralsight sends several emails informing me that the
subscription soon will end and that I should renew.

------
lemax
Most companies in my experience will refund you fully with an email to
support. SaaS companies expect a lot of churn even with auto-renew, and I
think the cost of a bad rap outweighs a lenient refund policy.

------
scarface74
All subscription plans auto renew. That’s basically what a subscription is.

~~~
aosaigh
Please see some of my other comments. The issue isn't with the fact that there
is a renewal (despite my poor explanation that might have made it seem that
way) but with how they go about it.

------
egypturnash
stamps.com does this, I got distracted and forgot to cancel my account for a
year and a half and ugh.

People do this because it works, they pack their T&C full of arbitration terms
and other bullshit like that.

------
time0ut
I'd call my credit card company and see what recourse they offer.

------
buro9
When you take out any subscription, you should always create an event in your
calendar that is the last date that you can cancel before renewal.

Takes seconds to do and saves a lot of money down the line.

------
GiorgioG
I had the same thing happen to me late last year. I cancelled my Pluralsight
account the moment I got the payment notification. I will never do business
with them again.

------
Insanity
PSN (to play online on the PS4) does auto-renewal. Can't remember if that is
an option though. Not as expensive though, about 60USD/year.

------
LawnDart1
Also somewhat "dark" when they email you on the day of renewal, so that you
have no chance to consider other options.

------
ishanjain28
I use the subscriptions app on Playstore to keep track of all my
subscriptions. Pretty happy with it so far.

------
pi-victor
i'd say the same about lingoda.com, although not extremely known, they offer
language courses. their auto-renewal policy is abysmal, basically the only way
to stop auto-renewal is to delete your account entirely.

------
s09dfhks
Would privacy.com or a similar service be helpful in situations like this

------
harry8
domain sellers will often happily charge you a subscription to their services
when you've moved your domain(s) somewhere else and there is literally no
service they can provide to you.

------
tamiral
thank god my corp pays for pluralsight... i hope you get your money back, i do
love the website but if you dont need it they should refund you.

------
msh
Todoist uses the same dark pattern

------
Temasik
Pluralsight < udemy

Nobody help you on pluralsight if youre stuck

~~~
ameyv
Not true. I did received refund for my account when codeschool got acquired by
them. They auto renewed but i compliant on first day, so support team did made
refund.

