Have you signed up to get something sent to your home regularly? Has a company offered you a “free trial”? Or maybe you have a membership or subscription that bills your credit card automatically. Those can be convenient set-it-and-forget-it ways to get the products you want. But what’s your experience been when you tried to cancel? The FTC wants to hear your story.
The FTC is thinking about expanding an existing rule to make it easier for people to cancel when they want to stop deliveries or subscriptions. What happened when you’ve tried to cancel? Was it a straight-forward process or did you have to jump through hoops? Could you click to cancel online or did you have to call a certain number or email a particular address? Did the company respond quickly or did you feel like you got the run-around?
We’re eager to learn from your experience and it’s easy to make your voice heard. File a public comment online by June 23rd. It doesn’t have to be a fancy legal brief. We’re interested in real comments from real people – and hearing from you will help us do our job better.
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LogMeIn.com / GoTo.com did not reply to an email requesting cancellation. After much searching, found that they explicitly do not offer a way to cancel subscriptions on the website (this fact is buried, and not accessible from either the account or billing page on their site). The only way to unsubscribe is to contact customer support and wait for them to contact you back. In the meanwhile, their yearly subscription is $350.
This must be an option. It shouldn't take 1 minute to sign up and 20 minutes of automated services and getting transferred around to cancel. I would be ok with a minimal attempt to retain me as a customer but it must have an opt out to cancel.
I LOOOVE this rule. I currently have a $50 a month gym membership I cannot cancel because it must be in person but I left the state. They won't give me billing information or my contract either. How can this be legal!?!? I would expand the rule so that every subscription service can be cancelled by phone, email, or online form. No more sending physical letters.
Xfinity made it nearly impossible to cancel my service. There is no way to cancel online, the force you to call customer service representatives, and despite requesting said representatives on three separate occasions to cancel, continued billing me month after month... until I finally put a stop payment on my card with my bank. Xfinity still continued to charge me, even auto updating my card information without my consent, until after several attempts to charge me, instead sent my "account" to collections for $310.
Ultimately I used the FTC and FCC to get in contact with Xfinity's "executive support team" on my behalf, who finally were able to cancel my service as well as remove the account from collections.
Absolutely the worst experience I've ever had with a business and I hope the FTC hears the people who are being abused by companies like Xfinity by adding a real, simple way to cancel services by the customer online.
Yes, Yes, Yes, click to cancel. Today, I tried to cancel SiriusXM because their rate ballooned from last month after their promotional period ran out. Their CHAT hours are Monday-Friday 8am-11pm ET and Sunday 8am-8pm ET. It is 5:18pm on a Sunday and their "CHAT NOW" button doesn't work. They make the process so cumbersome not because they want to offer customers more options, but because they want to squeeze more money out of subscribers. If you can start a subscription online then you should be able to cancel the subscription online. Frankly any subscription should be able to be cancelled online. These companies add hurdles to avoid the cancellation. I can only hope CLICK TO CANCEL gets passed.
I spent an hour on the phone trying to cancel cable service I subscribed to online. Eventually they refused to cancel my service and I had to drive to the store and do it in person. It’s unbelievably unfair.
Please make companies allow cancelling online. Especially if I sign up online. I recently signed up for the 2 week free trial for eMeals. I tried to cancel and it says I have to call during business hours. I have not tried calling yet, but will have to take time tomorrow during work. It didn't say you can't cancel online when I signed up (at least not obviously). Their website even says you can cancel 24 hours a day online, but when I go through the process it says I have to call. If I sign up online, I should be able to cancel online.
I want to cancel my account with you I don't need your service so please cancel my membership
Definite yes to Click to Cancel. Case in point: Anytime Fitness is a franchise so the company, ABC Financial, is taking your money but will never allow you to cancel directly through them. Anytime Fitness claims they're nationwide btw -until it's time to cancel, that is. Instead, they refer you to your "home club". You're forced to go in, fill out paperwork that never gets processed, and when you call (after the 30 days they require for "processing") because they're still charging you, they tell you to go back to the "home club" and do the process all over again.
Even worse, it automatically renews without you even knowing it so when exactly can you cancel that there isn't a penalty (which doesn't really matter in the scheme of things because they won't process the cancellation anyway)?
The company that takes your money should also be able to process your cancellation. Regardless of whether it's a franchise -the franchisee isn't processing my payment.
When you have to consider getting a lawyer to cancel a gym membership, there's something very wrong with the system. So, yes, someone needs to do something about these extremely predatory practices companies are employing to milk the consumer out of millions by making subscriptions and members almost impossible to cancel.
As consumers we need this rule. A variation could be to cancel through your payment method.
Hi - I am dealing with this with The San Francisco Chronicle. It's a 'click to subscribe, call to cancel' situation which is bad enough. Then, when I call, the 'automated system can't handle it' so I have to call back tomorrow. Ridiculous! Can you help? Thanks
My son signed up for a massage service which he stopped using in late 2022. In February 2023 I noticed a recurring monthly charge of $65 on my credit card statement. I contacted the vendor and said, “I wish to cancel. I no longer authorize them to charge my credit card for the massage service (which he was not using). I was told I could not cancel. My son had to cancel. They said he would have to go into the branch where he signed up. I sent the company an e-mail through the company’s e-mail service indicating that I no longer authorized the monthly charge on my card. My son went in to the branch to cancel and he was told he would not be able to cancel because he visited another branch while he was away at college. So,I had my son e-mail the company indicating that he cancels his membership. The company has made it very difficult to cancel and has ignored my express notification that I do not authorize the charge on my credit card. I have challenged the charges successfully with my credit card company and the company has placed a block on this merchant. The merchant has attempted to circumvent this by using a different merchant ID on one occasion. I successfully challenged this with my credit card company. (Note, they are making the charge on a closed credit card account. Account was closed due to unrelated fraud). Next they have attempted in September 2023 to charge an amount which exceeded the amount on the credit card block. I have challenged this charge with my credit card company and reported the business to my state attorney general’s office. This negative option practice is at best unscrupulous, more aptly fraudulent. Please pass some regulation where a clear unequivocal cancelation by the consumer will be acknowledged.
I received mail.. i dont know. I did was reply it & my details . I want please cancle it
Barclays bank does not allow you any method to cancel your fee based credit card, the MAKE you call them during specific business hours only. That should be illegal, and not some fake illegal, like if you do that to a customer, you have to refund every single fee in the entire life of the account. Companies don't care about minor fees, you have to make it hurt to be a deterrent.
I am unable to cancel my Verizon service. The website provides no option. The forums say you must call or chat. I have initiated a chat, but while the representative said the would remove the line I am trying to remove, they have not done so. I seem to be stuck.
Copy below of my email to Roku, Inc:
Friday, September 29, 2023
Roku, Inc.,
Please know that with the exception of my experience described below, that I am a long standing and otherwise satisfied Roku customer. I have four Roku devices in my home.
I was notified today of the price increase for Discovery+ and have decided to cancel it. After doing so, I was not able to remove the app from my home screen. I contacted customer service through chat, and "Gail" tells me that the app cannot be removed from my home screen until after the subscription ends on October 12th. This is unacceptable. If I cannot control what appears in my Roku device, then I do not own it.
After some checking, I see that the Starz and Cinemax apps also do not have a "Remove" function associated with the "*" button. I will now be cancelling all three of these "Premium" apps due to the fact that you do not allow me to control a device that I bought and paid for. I should not have to struggle with this.
This is an accessibility issue, and I suspect that it is done by Roku to reduce the probability of subscription cancellation and to make it more difficult to unsubscribe from premium channel content. Note that all apps other than "The Roku Channel" apps allow the user to control their appearance in the home screen. This looks to me to be a design feature unique to "The Roku Channel" apps.
Please explain why I was able to add these channels by my choice but am now not allowed to remove them from my Roku device in the same way.
Sincerely,
Jeffrey A. Walling
I am trying to cancel a subscription through regal cinemas that I signed up for via app. I am forced to submit a help ticket that is taking days to get answered, resulting in an extra months payment.
I joined Crunch Fitness in Auburn, Alabama in July 2023. Approximately September 15, 2023, I went online to cancel my membership. The website said that someone would call to verify the cancellation. Nobody ever called. On September 27, 2023, I called the gym and was told I had to come in to cancel. I went in the next day [September 28] and filled out the paperwork. I was told membership would end on September 29. I was NOT TOLD that the gym would continue to bill me for the next month. It was not until October 5, when I checked my bank account, did I find they had charged for the month AFTER cancellation.
I am disabled and convenience is key for me. I need to be able to quickly and easily make changes or cancellations as my needs change. I’m no longer able to make it to the gym and needed to cancel my membership, but they want me to go in person to do it. See the problem? Now I need to ask someone to take me to the gym so I can cancel instead of doing it online or on the phone! What is this the Stone Age?
I strongly support this rule as a customer and also as someone who works in consumer protection at the state level. It is frustrating, a waste of time, and predatory for businesses like Amazon and Thrive Market, among many others, to put consumers through a ton of hoops, lengthy chats, or multiple windows to cancel subscriptions. The only reason businesses would fight this rule is because they know that their current practices benefit their bottom line and not the consumer. They are admitting guilt by the very act of opposing this rule. I urge the FTC to take swift and final action against this type of consumer abuse, which disproportionately affects those for whom access to technology, time, and other resources are more limited.
I signed up for an instacart trial and was under the impression it was a $10 monthly fee. When the trial was over they attempted to charge my card $100 and it was declined. They went ahead and charged someone else’s card who allowed me to use it for a one time purchase NOT $100 for a subscription. I did not give them permission to ever charge that persons card. I’m so upset. They are refusing to refund him even though he didn’t sign up for the subscription. This is so unethical and wrong. I can’t believe they’re getting away with doing this.
I am currently trying to cancel a subscription to smartcredit.com, and in order to do so I must print out a form and fill it out and mail it in whereas to open the subscription I just had to click a form online. It seems that this is intended to stop people from being able to cancel subscriptions, or make it as difficult as possible for a person to cancel their subscription.