Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take to cancel it

Re:Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take ... by Spooky23 on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @11:40PM (#26175881)

AOL in the 90s was second only to phone companies for being able to scam retention people.

In our college house, we’d always run these rackets and get free plane tickets, CDs, tickets, etc. The phone companies were even better. At peak, we’d farm $300-600 a semester for switching long distance.

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Re:Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take ... by dylan604 on Thursday February 18, 2021 @02:00AM (#26176845)

My favorite of the telco scams was from the bad old days of long distance companies called "I Don't Care"[0]. Apparently, a lot of people didn't care which carrier it was, so these asshats took it to the bank

[0]https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1998-08-27-98082605...

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Re:Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take ... by wodenokoto on Thursday February 18, 2021 @05:14AM (#26178096)

I don’t understand. If AOL and telcos were scamming people, how did you make money off of their scams?

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Re:Before buying a NYT subscription, here's what it'll take ... by Spooky23 on Thursday February 18, 2021 @10:36AM (#26181014)

A popular scam was “slamming”. A “bad” phone company would use pressure tactics or lie and get people to sign up for ridiculous long distance plans... $5/minute or something like that.

The “loophole” on the consumer side was that of you lived with 5 roommates, you’d transfer the phone service every couple of months and then switch the long distance plans with a legit company like AT&T, Sprint, etc.

There was a period of time in the 90s where you would get a check or credit for switching... as much as $200-300! Long distance costs were in free fall and telcos were swimming in cash, so they decided to buy market share.

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