As someone living in the EU, I am shocked by these stories.
In my home country in the east you, you can basically cancel most things monthly, or just stop paying, and they’ll figure it out and kick you off the service after a few weeks.
In Germany it can be a bit more annoying, but cancellation is always legally well regulated.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Things are usually pretty easy, but there are bad actors in each case. Most gyms will end your service if you stop paying, but some will consider it debt and hit your credit until you pay. Likewise for most banks and some insurance companies. To “properly” close these services can require a fair amount of effort, such as physically going to the gym/branch to cancel, mailing a specific form, or calling and waiting on hold on the phone to get to a rep. It’s usually pretty easy, but there are a lot of companies that make it as difficult as they think they can get away with.
I’m sure a lot of it is technically illegal, but very few people will actually file a lawsuit.