Roku Streaming Stick+ 4K UHD Streaming Player

I purchased a Roku box a couple years back - the old style with the rechargeable remote. Needing to recharge the remote all the time was annoying but otherwise it worked as advertised, that is until recently when it started acting up. I was disappointed the Roku box failed so soon. The stick was available and its remote would take AA batteries so I gave it a try. I’m still using the first set of (rechargeable) batteries and noted they have already outlasted the previous remote. When I originally setup my Roku account I had added a credit card so it would be convenient to try out some premium options, like Hulu, which I have been enjoying very much. So much so that I forgot about the CC linked to my Roku account until the other day when a charge appeared for a howdy subscription. Google said that howdy was recently purchased by Roku which explains how they were able to charge this particular card. Problem is that I never signed up. I tried to obtain a viewing history from howdy but couldn’t find anything. I contacted Roku support and wasted a lot of time with the AI before it said it would connect with someone in 1 minute. 10 minutes later it actually connected. The agent said give me a few minutes to look at your account. Apparently it was expecting me to immediately type something because the next thing I see is a message from their system saying your call has been dropped due to inactivity and to try again if I still have an issue. Around again I go being told to wait 1 minute which was closer to 10. I did use this time to cancel my subscription (which is done by turning off auto-renew); no refunds. I also deleted my CC info so Roku can’t pull this scam on me again. When I finally was able to chat with an agent I asked how I got signed up. Their response was “no worries, I have confirmed that your subscription is cancelled”. No answer to my question or mention of a refund so I asked again. Then they blamed the lack of a PIN because anyone (from the street??) can order subscriptions. I explained there is no PIN as my wife and I are the only ones using this device and neither of us care about this channel? We didn’t order this so I refuse to pay for it. They said no worries as a once in your lifetime courtesy for using our product these past few years we will credit you. By the time I received my statement and noticed the fraudulent first charge there was already a second one. Roku said I should have contacted them sooner as they will only remove the last charge. I asked how I could have known about this charge sooner since they didn’t send any confirmations (like they do with everything else). I did get emails confirming my subscription was cancelled so I know they have my email address and are able to send to it. It’s clear to me Roku is intentionally and covertly subscribing folks to howdy in the hopes that you won’t notice or won’t mind paying, it’s only $3.00/mo. Even when you cancel the subscription Roku still wins as they will only refund the current month. Fortunately I have good CC and they were able to quickly reverse both charges. Now I need to decide if I want to keep using Roku or dump them and use my smart TV to manage my streaming services. If you are or plan to use Roku do not give them a CC. You can easily sign up with any service via the internet.