Have you ever written software? Especially to manage payments? This is a very plausible bug around a corner case. Maybe they're secretly twirling their evil mustaches figuring out how to scam their previous customers that they're also trying to win back, or maybe sometimes bugs happen.

As far as I remember, this ‘try us again for 30 days’ promotion was explicitly for previous subscribers, so I would not say this was a corner case.

Ah, if that's true that does make this a little less excusable. I still don't think it's nefarious, but I do think it's a pretty bad and embarrasing bug on Kagi's part.

Having bugs is okay.

That particular reply however is gross and controversial on so many levels.

If you have a bug at a partner, you don't claim that it is intended and "I do understand how this may be unexpected". If it affects multiple users, you don't do opt-in refunds (which is again, illegal, and is a scam if intentional).

> Maybe they're secretly twirling their evil mustaches figuring out how to scam their previous customers

They've just admitted it?

Mate. This guy is a software engineer and taking time out of his day to help a client on a forum and explaining why this might happen.. And is also taking the user input back to his employer to hopefully find a way to improve the user experience.

It's also not a scam. If you sign up for a trial that tells you you'll be charged at the end and don't bother to notify yourself.. That's 100% legal, 100% expected and 100% on you. You can argue that it's not a great customer experience.. But again, the engineer understands that.

> Mate. This guy is a software engineer and taking time out of his day to help a client on a forum and explaining why this might happen..

Yep. That explains why is it gross, controversial, and admits a scam. Which is okay, I guess. I've read much worse. (For example, in this very thread. From the person I'm just answering.)

I was just surprised that someone reading it felt that he needs to give money Kagi immediately. We are different.

> It's also not a scam. If you sign up for a trial that tells you you'll be charged at the end and don't bother to notify yourself.. That's 100% legal, 100% expected and 100% on you.

First, no, it's not legal. Especially with

    but with Kagi I expected better - especially since the email offering the new free trial promised “A month on us”, and said “Click here to activate your trial, no strings attached”.

Second, they at Kagi didn't want this (according to what they said). It just happened (again, according to what they said). No refunds tho (again, according to what they said).

I clearly skimmed the thread too much. The quote from your e-mail is definitely misleading.

I do not like to see a helpful engineer being given a hard time.. But that is a worse look for Kagi than I was aware of.

> will look into adding a workaround for this auto-renewal so that we can prevent that in the future for other users

What more do you want? A user complained, they offered a refund and they said they would look into fixing it.

so should they refund everyone who had free trial and started paying afterwards? what if they wanted to start paying?

And what if they simply missed that it continued charging with the stripe email? It’s a dark pattern that they should fix.

They are fixing it. The only debate in this thread is whether they should automatically refund everybody who might have been affected, regardless whether that person intended to continue or not. That's a pretty different thing.

I don't see how this is a debate. People unsubscreibed Kagi, they never subscribed again, billing them is illegal, period. (And even if it were legal, why would anyone want to that in the first place? If I operated a business I most certainly wouldn't want to bill people that are not my users.)

"wHaT iF tHeY wAnTeD tO sTaRt pAyInG?" was just a joke on twisted cartoon scammer logic, not an argument.

Anyone that wants to use Kagi again can click on the subscribe button.

No that’s not it. The contention was around two things 1) the dark pattern and 2) should they refund everyone.

I get it, people love Kagi, I do too. But this is a bad pattern that they should never have allowed on the first occurrence.

Yes they said they are looking into fixing it but it was a soft commitment and they also should think about refunding folks.

> don't claim that it is intended and "I do understand how this may be unexpected".

This is why companies end up having PR people. An attempt to sound understanding can can easily be scuttled by an unfortunate choice of words. If the programmer had shortened that sentence to "I do understand.", there would not have been a chance to construe an attempt at downplaying the situation.

Dude what's your angle here. Scammers don't offer full refunds.

> and they offer opt-in (not automatic) refund.

Please consider whether they can authenticate a user based on an HN comment and HN profile. The request for the user contact the company directly makes sense.

> Also controversial, like, if it's a bug, why isn't the refund automatic in the first place.

Have they known about the bug before? For how long? Perhaps it's not an automatic refund because they need to confirm the underlying issue, figure out which users are affected, and only then get management to to sign off on it.

I realize Kagi is loved here, heck I use it myself but this pattern does come off at best lazy engineering and at worst scammy. Their marketing email pitches it off as no strings attached but there is a case where it will auto charge you at the end.

I think some of the ton is a little aggressive but it does seem like something that a lot of other companies would maybe get called out for.

I agree, they should definitely be called out for it. However, I also believe a little grace and understanding from the users is called for. They're a small team trying to do their best, and they've taken concrete steps in the past demonstrating their committment to customer service (i.e. not charging you for a month if you don't use your subscription).

I will admit that I do have a reflexive allergy to conspiracy theories when people jump way over Occam's Razor to get there with little to no evidence, and saying that Kagi is just a "scam" is firmly in that boat IMHO.