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 .

Delete the direct debit from banking app

Re Sky I’m actually happy with my package for now, I just don’t want that last tie to my ex - we get on ok but that’s not the point.

I’ve definitely considered calling and claiming to be him, as a few people have said they might think twice about questioning it these days!

Surely that's supposed to apply to scammy and/or unscrupulous spammers from abroad - it shouldn't be the case for supposedly reputable massive British businesses?!

Sadly, it's probably often true, though. The GDPR law should protect us, but most of the big companies seem to reckon that it's more profitable for them to ignore it and just pay the fines if they're caught.

I had this with Paramount+. I'd signed up via Apple TV but are several ways to sign up apparently and I never did work out how to cancel. Ended up removing card details from account, had a few emails each month telling me to update card details but they gave up (I wasn't using the service once I deleted my card details).

Sadly, it's probably often true, though. The GDPR law should protect us, but most of the big companies seem to reckon that it's more profitable for them to ignore it and just pay the fines if they're caught.

When you haven't got a regulator enforcing firmly against it companies can make a risk based assessment as to what is the most advantageous situation.

I have done it!

I went to the Hearst magazine website (not an intuitive choice, but there we are), selected GH, logged in after emailing them to get a customer number) and used ‘contact us’. My account was showing as active and I had two - you get a digital one as well as a print one) although I had emailed them to cancel ages ago.

Anyway, I asked to cancel both and said that I wanted to be notified of the cancellation by the end of the month or I would go to trading standards, pointing out that I had tried to cancel before and heard nothing. I got a reply pretty much immediately saying it had been cancelled in February and my magazines would continue until then, with the last one coming in December. Clearly I had missed the deadline to cancel and they took a year’s subscription (£49!!) so I am still getting the magazines.

They should have to refund any outstanding money in the account when someone cancels, but at least I won’t be fifty quid down at Christmas, thanks to this thread.

VIRGIN MEDIA. Only sign up with them if you are prepared to take a couple weeks off work to try and leave them.
It’s been a couple of years now so they may have improved. In fact they can’t possibly have got worse. It was literally, as in LITERALLY impossible to leave them.

Can you not tell your bank the situation and they cancel it for you?

You don't need a laptop to cancel audible, it can be done with your phone by logging into the Amazon desktop site and managing subscriptions. I did it this way last month. Agreed it is a very needlessly over complicated process. They've emailed me countless times asking me to come back. Never again!

An interesting and timely thread for me...

I've just treated myself to 5months of Women's Health magazine for £6. Had to agree to a continuous credit card payment cycle once it has ended with the old "but you can cancel anytime " thing.

Wording in confirmation email is -

If you wish to cancel before the automatic renewal is taken please ensure you cancel at least eight weeks before your last issue is due so the cancellation process can be completed and no payment is taken.

8 weeks? Really?!!! To cancel a payment it took me two minutes to set up? What a joke.

I'll wait until I've had the first issue then prepare myself for the faff which is cancelling and hopefully I've a few months to figure it out.

DH and I were talking about subscriptions generally the other week and the total ball ache they are to cancel. Apparently it's an actual deliberate business model

Another exasperated subscriber.

nightmare

Mine is digital subscription to gardeners world, and yes they make it impossible to cancel.

In fact they make it impossible to get a password reset on the user account - you click on forgotten Password, and nothing happens, again again again, then finally it works.

Get into account, click on cancel subscription

go through all steps and it says Sorry a fault has occurred cancelling your subscription - why?? I clicked on your button on your website?

email to the address provided. Gives back, this email is invalid Outlook was unsuccessful getting through to the email account.

On Monday I'll ring them, then I'm going straight to the Ombudsman.

evil b**stards, it's very clear they put barriers in the way of cancelling. It has put me off ever subscribing to anything again. The BBC has outsourced it to a third party subscription company to do all their dirty work for them.

The cynical thing is that often the reason for cancelling a subscription is that there is a financial crisis in the household, and the first thing that has to go is subscriptions. It could be due to job loss, a marriage break up or struggling due to the CoL crisis. And yet they do everything possible to stop gaining control of one's finances.

I remember back in the day, it was an absolute nightmare changing bank accounts, then there was a review of all the hoops the customer had to jump through including all the DDs and Standing Orders and the Regulators stated that the onus should be on the banks to do the transfers, as it was more fair to the customer (plus for the banks, the easier they could make a transfer of accounts, they might be the beneficiaries by gaining customers not losing them.

they need to sort this out PDQ or people will just stop taking out subscriptions altogether.

I'm not sure banks have improved massively.

DH wanted to reduce his overdraft facility a few years ago. If you wanted to increase the OD (business account) it seemed as easy as pie, if you want to reduce it, that's a ball ache.

"Recently,"we wanted to create a joint account. It took about 5 months, multiple phone calls, all manner of forms (paper and e-signed) and a lot of patience! We both do online banking but it seemed we had to speak to about 15 different people before anything could be done!

You're right about the change of circumstances thing. Years ago we were strapped for cash, as my husband was made redundant when we had two babies and the mortgage rates were insane. I rang everything I could to cancel as much as possible, and Sky were awful. It was the umpteenth call that day, and I was almost in tears when I said that no, making it a bit cheaper for three months wouldn't help as I was on mat leave (rubbish back then), the mortgage was high, our income had dried up and I didn't want their poxy channels. It was so humiliating.

As I remember though, in those days (early 90s) there were fewer long contracts that tied people to years of payments. I know someone who works for a telephone company and says that the worst calls are from people who are recently divorced or separated/bereaved and having to reassess everything but are committed to paying for things they don't need for 24 months. That really needs to stop too.

It's truly nasty when you know that you sell a luxury and you have customers on the phone who are clearly now wondering how they'll feed their family or pay the basic bills - and you do everything in your power to stop them from paying a wedge to you for a frivolity every month.

The problem is that most big companies simply cannot accept that people don't want or value, or can't afford, their product - they see you as their perpetual customer by right and think they just have to make you the right (often dubious) offer to clinch the deal.

They're like the infatuated man who is determined to win your love and make you his partner, whatever it takes, even though you're a lesbian!

Just had this with AA breakdown service! Went online to look for turning off autorenewal as cover ends next week and I no longer need it. Can't do it online, have to use their "live chat" function.

Get through to an agent, say I'd like to cancel autorenewal. 15 minutes then go by of questions why? Am I going somewhere else? But why do I want to cancel? I just say I'd like to stop autorenewal please, they then say I need to give 30 days notice so I'll be charged etc. I tell them I'm not cancelling the contract as I'll still keep it until its end date on 31st Oct, then after that I don't want to renew the policy agent then says its the same thing, and as I pay monthly I have to give 30 days notice (whereas if I'd been well off enough to pay 12 months in advance I wouldn't have to give notice 🙄). Then agent closed the chat!

That sounds like utter nonsense. But this is where just being able to cancel the DD helps. Companies have us over the barrel because we sign up for things via card authorities and they are much harder to cancel than direct debits.

I was only referring to transferring from one bank account to another, that process is now massively simplified compared to what it used to be.