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Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter wrote: I do not buy a thing from MS
This is the way.
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As far as I know you can always cancel your subscription or disable auto-renew.
You do need at least one payment method is your have a subscription.
I hate them for requiring a credit card though.
Very few people in the Netherlands have a credit card.
The only reason I have one is for Microsoft subscriptions.
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Credit cards tend to be better for online payments than debit cards. If you ever need to query a transaction, the company will be much more proactive at clawing the money back, since technically it's still their money. Whereas with a debit card, it's your money, so the bank typically won't lift a finger to help you. 
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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Undoubtedly, but it still sucks if your country (and I guess the whole of Europe) hardly uses credit cards.
It's simply a hassle to get it, just send me an invoice I can pay!
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Sander Rossel wrote: Very few people in the Netherlands have a credit card.
Really ? (genuinely curious).
No Visa ? no Mastercard ?
CI/CD = Continuous Impediment/Continuous Despair
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Nope, we don't need them.
That may seem strange for Americans but in Europe we hardly use credit cards in stores either.
We use all kinds of direct debit services in stores, hardly ever cash.
If we want to pay online we use either Ideal (in NL) or Bancontact (BE) or Paypal.
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Some advantages to credit cards (visa/mastercard) in the US (US law/regulation) versus debits.
Card owner can request proof of transaction. If vendor cannot provide proof the card provider (not owner) will revoke the payment.
Card owner can dispute payments. Card provider will often side with owner and not vendor. This is because in the US the card provider for the consumer is not allowed to allow be an agent for the business/vendor.
Card owners are only libel for $50 total if their card is stolen. Most card providers will not even use that limit (so zero libel.) This last one can be especially relevant compared to debit if there is a large transaction.
The above does not apply to Amex.
Some of the above impacts vendors in such a way to protect consumers. For example a vendor provider can require the Vendor to keep a certain amount of money in the vendor credit account to handle refund requests. And example of the impact that can have can be seen with the Frontier Airline bankruptcy some years ago.
Also vendor providers will shut down a seller if the sell 'too much' to quickly. Since the card providers consider that a likely indication of fraud.
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Libel means slandering someone.
Liable means to be responsible for something.
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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In Norway, Visa is a debit card, not a credit card. It might be different in other countries.
There are lots of plastic cards used for payments that are not credit cards. A number of chain stores have their own systems, with user accounts where you can make deposits as pre-payment. Paying with the card usually give you an extra discount.
Other systems that do not use a standard size plastic card, but e.g. a chip fastened to the windshield of your car, for toll roads, give you a discount if you prepay a certain amount. Presenting the chip is technically very similar to presenting a debit card, although the appearance is somewhat different.
Religious freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make five.
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Here in the UK at least, Visa is both a credit card (e.g. Barclaycard) and a Debit card (e.g. my Visa Debit operated by my own bank, which isn't Barclay's). Similarly, there are a number of card operators who work under the Mastercard flag.
I guess it's similar elsewhere?
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I haven' had a credit card in 10 years. I paid my Visa off and cut it up.
If I can't pay cash, I don't buy. No subscriptions either.
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr.PhD P. E.
Comport Computing
Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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Assuming this is a credit card, look for a card provider that supports virtual account numbers. My CCs tend to have high limits (I keep paying them off, the CC companies raise my limit - weird). Anyway, the virtual account protects the primary #, and you can set your own expiration date, max amount charged, etc. The best part is that you can simply delete them - poof. Everything else continues to work (unlike when you have to close an account due to fraud).
I don't tolerate this sort of nonsense any longer from companies like Microsoft. I actually did this to one place that was told to cancel my account, refused to do so... contested all the charges and deleted the virtual number. Got a call from them the next day - they wanted my new CC #. The call was a short one.
Oh, and the CC provider, as mentioned, is much more rigorous than a typical bank.
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
modified 19-Feb-24 8:30am.
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Cool tip, not sure if that would work over here. At least is the first time I hear about it
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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I love it when the consumer wins. 
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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Sounds interesting - haven't heard of virtual accounts. Is it a specifically U.S.A. thing, or elsewhere?
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I've never heard of a virtual account number. Can you suggest a card issuer that offers that service?
Will Rogers never met me.
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Come, come now! I'm pretty sure what you describe is fraudulent behaviour and, if Microsoft would engage in something like that, they would get their behinds sued instantly.
I didn't try it with Microsoft (I'm quite happy with my Office 365 subscription), but with other subscriptions I've been able to cancel the renewal and the subscription stayed active until the end of term ('cause I paid for it). After that you can delete the account completely, credit card and all.
Mircea
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really?
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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Mircea Neacsu wrote: I'm pretty sure what you describe is fraudulent behaviour
I doubt it. Unless they specifically document it otherwise they can probably do anything they want along those lines. At least in the US.
Now if they do something extreme like charge people $100 to cancel a $10 subscription then they are likely going to end up facing some sort of lawsuit. But it might take years for that to get going.
If I remember correctly companies have been getting sued for decades now just because they make it very difficult to cancel their subscriptions (I think that happened to AOL.) Yet it still happens.
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I am running into this same freakin issue right now. and if they happen to mess up your billing to to the tune of going lets say from $85 a month to suddenly 2000+ getting a refund is next to freakin impossible.
Ending up reporting Credit card as stolen getting a replacement and forcing them to call me and track me down. They still owe me 1500 we are dispute over. But I got my 2300 back already.
To err is human to really elephant it up you need a computer
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Avast anti-virus and MasterClass did the same to me.
There are no solutions, only trade-offs. - Thomas Sowell
A day can really slip by when you're deliberately avoiding what you're supposed to do.
- Calvin (Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes)
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Got a source for that? Isn't that just a subscription that stays active until you cancel?
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You need a new reason?
"Ten men in the country could buy the world and ten million can’t buy enough to eat." Will Rogers
PartsBin an Electronics Part Organizer - Release Version 1.3.1 JaxCoder.com
Latest Article: EventAggregator
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I have to say, I thank them for Visual Studio - far and away the best IDE I've ever used.
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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