• flop_leash_973@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I understand why Louis likes privacy.com so much. But he really needs to stop telling people to use them as a means of stopping payment with scummy vendors and companies so frivolously without having a disclaimer that it can open that person up to getting their credit dinged for non-payment.

    Maybe he doesn’t care about such things, but his viewers might.

    To get around the Blizzard dark pattern the “right way”, agree to the EULA, login, cancel subscriptions, remove payment details, close account (if possible), stop using Battle.net, done. Now the EULA is irrelevant. This also has the knock on effect of being the path that Blizzard/Activision/MS will actually notice since it will cost them money at scale in a way they can’t explain away as childish internet trolling.

    Edit: a word (irreverent > irrelevant)

    • hedgehog@ttrpg.network
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      9 months ago

      I can’t think of any reason why it would be inadvisable to cut off billing to an MMO subscription that was connected to a privacy.com card. Is there any basis for your concern? Do you know of someone who had “prevented Blizzard from billing them for WoW” on their credit report?

      I can’t say I’ve ever had an MMO subscription - or any prepaid account, for that matter - show up on my credit report. Or that I know anyone who has. Even prepaid credit cards don’t show up on your credit report.

      If a game, site, or app subscription fails to bill, the recourse the provider has is to cease providing the service. Standard industry practice is to suspend service and send out a notice, attempt re-billing a couple times, and to them consider the subscription canceled.

      A debt can show up on your credit report, even if it’s not associated with a loan or line of credit… But with a prepaid account, like an MMO subscription, you’re never extended credit and you never incur a debt. The exception would be if you signed a contract for your prepaid account stating that you’d maintain it for a certain amount of time (common with phone plans, internet plans, leases, some shady gym memberships, etc.) or you caused damages to the provider. Without such an agreement, there are no damages from just causing them to be unable to continue billing your credit card. If you were paying by check or disputed an already posted payment, that would be different - but neither of those are relevant here.