Tips for canceling online subscriptions

By Ann Carrns, The New York Times

Clark Howard, a longtime cost-cutting guru from Atlanta, recently realized he was paying for a streaming service even though his household received the service free from the home’s internet provider, he said.

He sent out a group text — “Who signed up for this?” — and learned that one of his children had. He was able to cancel the extra subscription online, he said. But the experience illustrates how complex it has become to track the myriad services that consumers can obtain with a few clicks, charged automatically to a credit card.

“It can be so many different kinds of things,” Howard said. Video entertainment and online games, computer software, meal preparation kits, weight loss apps and clothing are just a few items available by subscription. People may lose track, he said, of all they are paying for.

Companies prefer automatically renewing subscriptions because they don’t have to keep aggressively marketing their product, said John Breyault, vice president of public policy, telecommunications and fraud with the National Consumers League.

Some people, of course, like free trials and automatic renewals. Even the FTC, in its proposal, conceded that such options could have “substantial benefits” for consumers. But increasingly, the FTC said, companies use “dark patterns” that can make it difficult to stop a service. Such tools can include requiring customers to click through multiple screens or making the online “cancel” button dim but using a bright color for “continue.”

C+R Research found in a May 2022 survey that on average, consumers initially estimated they spent $86 per month on subscription services. But after examining their expenses more closely, they saw they actually spent $219.

Howard urged consumers to research new services and their cancellation policies before enrolling by going outside the service’s website and searching generally for its cancellation policy and any complaints.

“You have to look at how you get divorced before you get married,” he said.

The FTC advises consumers to put a calendar reminder in their phones when they sign up for a free trial so they will be alerted when it is time to cancel. Not everyone will do that, however, so Breyault said his group was urging the FTC to require companies to notify customers before each recurring charge and to remind them that they can cancel if they choose.

Would constant email or text reminders get annoying? Perhaps, Breyault said. “But it’s more annoying to keep getting charged for subscriptions you no longer use.”

The FTC is proposing an annual reminder for anything other than subscriptions involving the delivery of physical goods. (The idea is that getting stuff delivered to your door is a sufficient prompt.)

The FTC’s proposal would also give consumers the option of hearing alternative, money-saving pitches before canceling a service. (Kohm of the FTC said he had used such an offer himself. When canceling a radio subscription, he said, he was offered a much lower rate to continue and accepted it.)

But the changes are aimed at avoiding situations like the one described in a letter to the FTC by two dozen attorneys general, in which a customer tried to cancel a subscription using a company’s online chat feature. The company representative repeatedly urged him to reconsider, ignoring the man’s steadfast request to cancel, keeping him online for about 40 minutes.

c.2023 The New York Times Company