Everybody on the net is always like "Just told my bank to block the transaction" - when I did that, in a EU country, my bank was very reluctant.

They wanted proof that I had been in contact with the company and tried to get a refund from them, and that I in fact didn't owe them money.

Yep same experience with a US company that had gone broke, publicly said so on their website, yet still had renewed a subscription I had with them after the public statement that they would no longer deliver anything.

Ended up with months of paperwork, claims from the other party that I ordered it myself (no idea where as the website to order was gone) including printouts of Stripe with my IP address which was supposed to prove their point.

Five or six mail forms to fill out (yes _mail_ not email) over the period of months with very strict deadlines.

They must have gathered the IP address from an earlier transaction a year before that. It also did not raise any flags that the transaction was exactly one year later on the minute.

An incredible waste of my time and if I had to go through all of that again I will just let it go.

Exactly. I tried to reverse some charges. The bank told me I had to file a police report. I did find that the company returned the money pretty promptly when I told them I was reporting them to the police...

> Everybody on the net is always like "Just told my bank to block the transaction" - when I did that, in a EU country, my bank was very reluctant.

Depends on what it is. Any recurring SEPA payment I can get back up to 60 days. Separately I can block those payments. All from the app or their website, I don't need to talk to anyone.

I thought being able to get that money back, plus being able to block companies were SEPA rules. Meaning, applies to loads of countries (at least the countries with the Euro).

You shouldn’t be contacting a bank - I think that might be the distinciton. When people say this, I interpret it as contacting their credit card and asking for a chargeback.

This depends on the credit card company but mine is very willing to charge back if I call. They find it pretty trivial.

I’ve never done anything like this with a debit card or bank though. I think the money that leaves through debit is actually gone and that’s a distinction. I know the EU is more debit focused.

I get my credit card from my bank. I don't even know if you can get a card directly from a credit card company here in Finland.

It is not that much debit focused, but you normally get credit card from a bank here.

Which country? Because here in south eu all banks give out debit cards as standard card. NL is different in that they use maestro so if you want to travel (outside of eu) you have to request a regular debit/credit card and most NL banks do not issue debit cards outside maestro, so you get a Cc.

> if you want to travel (outside of eu) you have to request a regular debit/credit card

The era where maestro cards were impossible to use abroad was already over ten years ago. The only thing you might need a creditcard for abroad is hotels and car rental, which you wouldn't be able to do with any kind of debit card (outside of a relatively small selection of hotels).

That doesn't match, at all, with my experience. I had to travel for work all over the world the past 8 years, usually twice a month and my maestro cards didn't work in any US atms or shops, nor in chinese ones, nor in hk, indonesia, australia, cambodia, most atms in thailand and other places.

In the US & China, it had big maestro stickers everywhere, but it didn't work at all. Different cards, different banks; on calling the banks they said they did not even see a transaction coming in and they the cards are set for international travel (and work fine everywhere they are accepted in the EU).

And it's not for lack of trying; One time on a big slog from US -> China -> AUS, I (stupidly) brought 1 credit card and 3 maestros and my CC got cancelled (fraud); I tried literally every atm , shop in these countries and could not get $1. I had to borrow from my colleagues. This is a few years ago.

I was just told it wasn't possible. So I cancelled my debit card (take that, paypal).

In contrast, I asked my French bank to do this once and they did immediately.

The problem is between me and the vendor, not the bank.

I went through is process a couple of times.

Usually they ask you to fill an online form and attach any evidence. After that it always felt like a call center employee decided whether to start the refund or not. If you write something smart, well researched, polite, and long, chances are that poor person will just skim through it and click “accept”.

Then on the other side the company has 30-45 days to object via their bank.

With big companies they probably think it’s not worth their time.

With small companies the bank notices about a new dispute probably go to an inbox nobody monitors.

I had immense issues with this in NL, even on a credit card; however in spain/portugal, I just send an email with the transaction id they cancel it without asking anything.

Have they changed their presentation? The details pages on https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html are clear enough that the lower prices are "Annual plan, paid monthly".

It's hidden behind a click of course, but it isn't obscure.

Holy crap, that is some dark pattern :/ Every website allows you to choose between annual and monthly payments, but but adobe just presents their annual plan in two different ways.

Yeah, I'm making a relatively dubious distinction between 'shitty' (which it is) and 'hard to find' (which it isn't particularly).