Robert speaks here of a situation that happens to be with the merchant Second Life, but this is all too common.

I hate how hard it is to cancel accounts like these. Companies are perfectly willing to charge you forever, even if you don’t use the service one bit.

I think I’ll just call my credit card company and change my card number by saying I lost my card.

Source:  http://scobleizer.com/2007/02/18/second-life-has-my-credit-card-and-wont-let-go/#comment-292461

Banks do an injustice to credit card holders.  Credit cards are 100% merchant centric.  Its just ludicrous that Robert should have to go through that to solve a $10 pm fee problem. 

What struck me here, and I can’t believe I didn’t see this before.  What an opportunity for differentiation from the Banks.  Of course the MasterCard/ Visa rules would have to be taken into account, but there is space here to capture loyalty with one of the most used Banking products.

It also occurs to me that VRM would solve this.  Place the rights to the credit card solely in the hands of the customer.