Why is it still so hard to work out how to cancel subscriptions?

[plarn]

I mean I know WHY, but it's so grabby. I'm a reasonably intelligent woman but trying to work out how to cancel my audible account just took me much longer than it should have. And the Amazon music subscription my kids somehow signed up for when playing with our Alexa even though we have Spotify .

Actually Gousto is really simple on the app.

The Times is a nightmare. Never again.

I'm not sure, i saw a thing on - i think YouTube shorts, with a short explanation (and a gym owner and online subscription service whining that it will destroy their business model) but i can't remember where it was. Possibly USA. Deffo not related to the pestillance that is free subscriptions that require your payment details.

Apologies to Laithwaites it was actually very easy to do, like Audible it helps being on the full desktop version of the site not the mobile site, so worth trying that if you're trying to cancel something!

This completely.

If they're so confident of the brilliance and desirability of their product, you'd think they'd happily let you sign up for a month's trial, without setting up a direct debit that you then have to cancel, and then leave it up to you to respond to their emails urging you to subscribe.

If their product/service is so indispensable, the shock of a few days with it suddenly switched off will have people clamouring to make sure to sign up and subscribe!

It's the same with broadband and other utility suppliers: the better they are, the easier and more straightforward they make it to leave them - as they know that most of the cancellations they get will just be family cancelling a deceased person's services, people moving abroad etc. rather than unhappy/disgusted customers.

You cancel Gousto on the app; it takes seconds.

Yes, I cancelled my direct debit when they wouldn't let me cancel by email.

Then I resubscribed by Google Play.

The rules will be changing in the spring of 2026 (see the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act) but only for new subscriptions. However, many more reputable companies have already changed their practices and made it easier (though they may still ask you if you are sure about ten million times...)

I haven't used Audible but I use Amazon Prime and Kindle Unlimited from time to time and don't find them difficult to cancel and they will send you an email 3 days before it renews so you can decide if you still want it.

On the apps most seem to give you a 7 day trial but you have to give your card details.

However there was one app I tried which gave you 14 days and didn't take your details, I was quite impressed with that, and I did end up subscribing for three months (it was easy to cancel, too). I then resubscribed for a year.

With a lot of the apps, it makes sense to do it via Google Play as it's very easy to cancel that way.

If you live in the EU there may be new rules too, as the European Commission has carried out a "digital fitness check" and found subscriptions were a big problem for consumers. Might take a couple of years, though.

Totally agree with this , it shoud be law that there is an easily accessible button to cancel.

Yes this is so annoying! If you email them however they will cancel

Good Housekeeping magazine is impossible to cancel. I subscribed ages ago to get a good deal and free gifts but it’s very boring and I rarely read it. I emailed them but they ignored my request to cancel. I can’t find another way to do it and I can’t remember how I signed up (ie if it was a publisher site or one specific to the magazine itself). I’m paying full price for a magazine I don’t read, but can’t get out of the subscription.

Yes my Revolut does this.

I had a trial of an ap, didn't use it, couldn't cancel it. I used the app to ban payments.

I bloody hate subscriptions.

Can you cancel it with your bank?

Yes yes yes. Free trial yet they want your card details. How is that not false advertising?
Agree with another comment about getting Martin Lewis on the case

A scummy business practice, and yes it needs to be regulated so that cancelling is as easy as signing up. I hate that everything is going to subscription now. Much prefer to just buy the thing I want.

There was going to be, but there was so much lobbying against it that the (previous) government watered things down. But the Times will have to provide an online cancellation option - it will be unlawful to require a phone call.

They didn't for me, they kept telling me to phone to "discuss my options".

So I told them I wasn't phoning them, I didn't need options and I cancelled the direct debit. Then I resubscribed to the digital only option via Google Play.

I recently bought to pair of slippers from a company called chums.co.uk.

Ever since they have been bombarding me every single day with emails highlighting some other item they sell. I've already been through their catalog when I bought the slippers and there wasn't anything else I wanted but they just won't leave me alone.

There was a link to unsubscribe so I followed it and it said "you have unsubscribed" and yet the next day I got three emails from them in the space of three hours. Oh my god I just feel like I'm under bloody siege from this company.

Yes did you sign up via a direct debit? You can just cancel, if so.

And even if it's via your card, if you speak to your bank they might be able to do something. My mum had it with an old subscription that she thought she had cancelled (and a year later, when it came out again, I tried doing it for her as well) and she went into the bank and they stopped it for her. It helps if you have a branch with helpful staff though.

You might be able to make it as spam so you don't see it anymore.

It's a feature not a bug

Yes. When the new act was going through parliament there was a lot of whining from various companies saying it was their business model.

Ah yes, you make money out of stopping people cancelling services that they no longer need.

Yes, it's so obviously baked in to their business plan that you don't just choose to continue paying every month for a product/service, but that a sizeable number of people won't check their bank statements, or won't get around to cancelling, so that they will continue to get money from people who don't want/use the product anymore.

They have deliberately designed it so that they make money from people who don't/no longer want what they sell. An extremely unethical business practice, but a technically legal one.

This is exactly why charities are so desperate to sign people up to monthly direct debits of relatively small amounts and seem to actively not want a one-off significant donation, unless it's a huge amount. You'd think they'd love to receive £100, but they would obviously much rather take a tenner each month, under your radar, for (they hope) years and years and years. They also seem to particularly target elderly and vulnerable people, who they know may not be as internet savvy and may struggle to find out how to cancel it, once they've 'so helpfully' set it up 'for them'.

@Brefugee

I'm not sure if it's the UK or EU or USA but one of the three is shortly bringing in a law about this, that unsubscribing from things must be as easy as subscribing.

We definitely need that here in the UK. It needs to be law to be able to unsubscribe in exactly the same way as you subscribe, whether online, email, phone, or in person. It has to be consistent.

Fair enough to have minimum subscription periods, cancellation notice periods, etc., as they're just normal terms of business that people should check before signing up, but the method of unsubscribing/cancelling must be the same method as signing up in the first place.

Outrageous, isn't it? It's not that far removed ethically from shoplifters lobbying the government hard against more hands-on policing laws in retail, arguing their 'case' that it will make their own 'model' for acquiring goods a lot more difficult.

Apart from anything else, why do the big companies and their hefty profits from their shady business models take precedence over consumers and active consumer choice?

I would wonder if it was because the government gets in loads more tax from the massive companies and so want to keep them sweet - but in reality, most of them have (another) shady 'business model' with clever accountants which means that an ordinary individual in an ordinary job will often pay more tax than their huge enterprise does.