Ghosting is a bit of a cowardly way to leave a relationship. It's also a poor way to cancel a subscription. Say good-bye properly …
Regularly signing up for free trials, with the intent of leaving the deal before any costs are incurred, is a game. I don't think it's a particularly fun game, but some people get a buzz out of getting a little something for nothing.
You have to be organized and watch your free trials like a hawk, lest you do what the merchant is hoping that you do: forget.
Ghosting a merchant with a burner charge card
Just in case you're unfamiliar with the term ghosting, I'll explain it briefly.
Ghosting is a selfish, one-sided method of ending a relationship. It involves one person exiting the relationship without any warning.
The person doing the ghosting stops initiating and returning texts and calls, avoids the person, and stops acknowledging the other's existence. The hope is that the one being ghosted will get the hint, and move on.
Basically, ghosting is an immature move.
There's a technique for using single-use, or burner, charge cards to sign up for free trials. To the merchant, it looks, smells, and tastes like a debit card, but you as the user can control how much is charged, as well as how many times and/or how often. If the merchant charges outside those parameters, the charges don't go through.
The technique, then, is to provide the burner charge card information for the free trial, then pause or cancel that card before the charge is to go through. The merchant tries to charge, but the charge is declined. No money changes hands, and the merchant usually closes the account.
Basically, the customer starts the relationship with the merchant (gets the free trial) then ghosts the merchant before it comes time to pay.
Abusing Privacy.com in this way can get you banned
Privacy.com is a free service that hooks up with your bank account and lets you generate as many “cards” as you like to buffer your real credit card, bank account, and even personal information from online retailers. They behave like debit cards and are funded by your bank account.
They allow you to set up single-transaction cards, which I would think is ripe for abuse. I asked Privacy.com about this:
I've heard people using “burner” credit card numbers (perhaps like Privacy.com offers) to sign up for free trials. For example, “Try us for a month, and get billed $9.99 per month after if you decide to stay.”
The merchant hopes you stay — or forget — but if the card has an expiration date such that there's never any danger of a charge going through, you seem to not even have to remember to cancel!
This seems dubious to me. If it were that easy, everyone would do it, right? But I'd think that the merchant can come back and continue to bill me, because I haven't given notification that I want to cancel. The fact that my card doesn't work anymore doesn't change the fact that I didn't give them notice.
Any insights on this? Is it against your T&C to do this kind of thing?
Their response to this:
Thanks for writing in! Here's a bit of info about our service in relation to trials.
Privacy users are encouraged to use cards to safely try free trials while maintaining the peace of mind that they won't be billed unintentionally. However, repeated use of Privacy cards to abuse merchant free trials or other new-user promotions is prohibited and may result in permanent account suspension.
In order to keep Privacy widely accepted by merchants, we ask that our users respect the merchants they pay with Privacy, since abusing promos and trials may result in a wholesale ban of Privacy cards at popular merchants.
We monitor the use of Privacy cards at sites with special promotions or deals very closely to ensure that they're not abusing our service.
In other words, Privacy.com is watching that you don't abuse merchants with their service.
(Aside: Don't use fake numbers!)
Now that I've described this, I'll describe something that kind of looks the same, but is actually completely different.
This Reddit thread highlights a completely fraudulent way to get free trials: use randomly-generated credit card credentials that can pass an algorithm.
There's never any intention of paying for anything, and the generated numbers are not related to a bank account in any way.
Doing this for free trials is one step above stealing, and not at all like what I just explained above.
Ethical subscription cancelation
I haven't used Privacy.com yet, but it does look like a good service.
They want their users to be using it for the right reasons — privacy — but at the same time, they're watching for abuse.
Where Privacy.com helps you, then, is to provide the buffer between you and the merchant to enforce your intentions. If you've made your intentions clear with the merchant — “I want to cancel” — then you can pause the transactions on that card, and if the merchant tries to charge again, it won't go through.
Did you really cancel?
That's how it's supposed to work. And, in the end, doing it properly and ethically protects you as well.
The merchant may take on the role of a jilted significant other, may get the hint, and move on.
Or they could get really spiteful, and brood over you leaving.
And they may have recourse. If you accepted anything in their terms and conditions that explains their cancelation procedure. And if you don't follow it, then you didn't really cancel. They view it simply as you not paying for the service. They can bill you, charge penalties, and eventually send your account to collections.
Will every merchant do this? Probably not. But why chance it?
Do a proper breakup with a merchant
The main way, in my thinking, to cancel ethically is to say goodbye properly in your relationships with merchants. Look at their cancelation policy, and follow it. Call them up, send the email, whatever, to cancel their service.
In other words, don't ghost them. Don't let them find out the hard way that you've left.
