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 .

For information: Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act receives Royal Assent - GOV.UK

but as I said the subscription rules aren't coming into force until early 2026 and will only apply to new contracts

I’ve taken all my cards off Amazon because of the Amazon music thing. Have Spotify but it always goes to Amazon music then charges you a subscription.

They actually changed this recently. You sued to only be able to delay it without phoning up.

I was able to tell Paypal to stop paying it. I can't remember how.

Yes. That should be illegal.

Do you get the physical magazine? Look at the address sticker, whether there is a sender address and maybe your subscriber / customer number. Otherwise check your bank statements for the company that takes the payment, perhaps one of these options might lead you to find out the company you subscribed with. You can try to search your e-mails/archive for the order confirmation, too.

Otherwise you could try to cast your net wider and look at all options that lead to a GH subscription and contact them one by one to see whether you are their customer 😀

I've been burned by this and mostly refuse to do subscriptions any more. I'm not the only one: there is actually research indicating that subscription burn has made people more reluctant to subscribe to things.
https://t.co/pMayoWIskS

The Click to Cancel rule is proposed for the United States. Not sure about the UK. Federal Trade Commission Announces Final “Click-to-Cancel” Rule Making It Easier for Consumers to End Recurring Subscriptions and Memberships | Federal Trade Commission

You can not cancel Audible via the mobile app

You have to go online via laptop to do it

I go to Audible via Amazon to do it

You're right though they make you jump through hoops to find the cancellation part

Go to payments or manage subscriptions that sort of page to do it

I feel your pain! I did the special offer for my Mum, forgot all about it, then had an email 7 months later to say the full payment had come out of my account 😢.

I tried to cancel it there and then, so that the following payment didn’t go through, but I was just going round in circles. I ended up having to cancel the scheduled PayPal payment, and I just hope I did it correctly 😬.

Sky was fun to cancel- phone to cancel- after waiting for ages they’d tell you they had high caller volume and end the call. You had to cancel 30 days before actual cancellation or would be charged again. Only way I could finally get them was to ask on social media (shaming without shaming)

Ps insane audible is so difficult when kindle unlimited is sooo easy, cancel then pick up again whatever month you want! Same company!

It's on purpose.
I cancelled my amazon music a few days ago, I tried for 20 minutes, then had to Google it, then took another 5 minutes.
Got there in the end.

I keep wanting to cancel my Audible but I need to use my credits first and I don't know what I want to buy, so each month goes by and I just keep accumulating more credits.

It is absolutely deliberate. So is hiding the phone number for a company

It's not just subscriptions. Unsubscribing from emails is a pita with some. It should be a legal requirement that every commercial email has a large, clear unsubscribe button that when clicked once stops those emails. No more clicks, just one click. Done.

It's tantamount to theft.

It should be a legal requirement that every commercial email has a large, clear unsubscribe button that when clicked once stops those emails.

In theory, it is, sort of. The law is quite clear within GDPR and PECR as to what is expected of companies when direct marketing and how easy it should be to withdraw, but companies always skirt around the edge of it and the ICO are as useful as a chocolate teapot.

I even think that the permanent "we are experiencing a higher volume of calls than normal" lie should be subject to official investigation, personally, with these massive companies held to account.

At the very least, they should be forced by law to have a message saying "Your call is NOT important to us; we only care about your money - we have the same high volume of unanswered calls as always, because we deliberately don't hire enough staff to offer an acceptable level of customer service".

Your tiny little local companies can manage to have an actual person answering their phone within a few rings, so why do the behemoths pretend that this is beyond them - with their multi-million pound turnovers? Being a massive company should bring greater efficiency and economies of scale; not the exact opposite.

I'm not even sure you need 'tantamount to' in that sentence. I'd maybe describe it as willful corporate theft.

I found Apple tv really hard to cancel from my phone. Managed it on an actual computer.

I’m calling today to cancel my Sky - looking forward to several attempts, being cut off and many hours on hold listening to lift music.

I think with the Times you have to be on the desktop site to cancel. However, the first time I tried, I gave up after an hour of frustration and called them. The second time I managed it myself but it wasn’t easy. Another difficult one is Spotify, almost impossible to find the cancellation button on that app.

Yes, it is infuriating. And then companies make it nigh on impossible to find a contact number on their website.

It's called "nudge and sludge". Nudge is how they make it v easy to do things they want you to do, like sign up for things/ order things, and sludge is where they make it difficult to do things they don't want you to do, like cancelling/ returning items etc.

It can also be used for good- for example employers that enrol you in the pension/ healthcare scheme unless you opt out have higher take up than those that make you actively opt in/ complete forms etc.

There was a recent legal challenge (I think in the US though) where the "reasonable degree of sludge" was being considered- i.e. when is it a breach of consumer rights and when is it just good customer retention. Media subscriptions were the thing it centred on.

I had this problem when I wanted to cancel my Pret coffee monthly subscription.

I needed to input a code that they emailed to me. Fine, but the email came maybe 15 minutes or so after I requested it. I input it straightaway, but it was no longer valid, it needed to be input within 10 minutes of requesting it.

I went through this process many, many times before Pret were willing to actually cancel it at their end.

I can’t cancel my Sky because the account is in my ex-husband’s name and they won’t let me change it despite having paid the bill from my bank account in my name for the past 5 years. I can do basic things on the app but anything major you have to speak to someone and then it becomes obvious that I’m not ‘Mr’ 😫