Accidental subscription- GainTheEdge won't cancel

[ChocolateAddictAlways]

This is a vent really rather than anything else.

My 15 year old went online to purchase grip socks. He used my card with permission and as soon as the transaction completed and I saw the email confirmation, I realised he'd signed up for the subscription option rather than a one off purchase. I accept that's our fault for not double checking BUT even after emailing the brand immediately (within 2 minutes!) they have refused to cancel the order and the subscription.

They expect us to have a minimum of 3 months worth of purchases before they will cancel. I think this is really shady and unethical given the fact I emailed within 2 minutes of the initial order. They have spent 2 days sending me useless back and forth emails about the subscription terms and conditions and won't budge or give me their head office details. I mentioned within the Consumer Contract Regulation 2013 we have the right to cancellation with a 14 day cooling off period and the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 offers the same (I worked in retail, these things are embedded in my brain!)

Still they won't budge. I think they're hoping I can't be bothered to escalate. Credit card company looking into cancelling and blocking future purchases but it's just a crap way to behave.

Lesson learned. Just a warning to others really!

Cancel your card and request a new one. This is what I did when I accidentally signed up to a subscription service.
The bank advised me to do this when I called them

I feel your pain OP. My DS is also a fan of their grip socks and the website is a nightmare for spurious upselling. I never order on my phone because of this, I need a bigger screen to make sure I don't click on one of the "offers". They also add some sort of bollocks delivery protection to every item unless you manually remove it before checkout. The whole idea of a football sock subscription service is just a money generator in my opinion anyway - their socks last quite a while and you only really need to change colour if you move to a different team.

Thank you. I think that's our best option to be on the safe side!

Yes! Mine didn't remove the shipping protection thing either! 🙄

It's really frustrating. I really can't stand brands which have these unethical types of practices, it's shady as hell. Grrrr.

1* reviews on TrustPilot have helped me solve poor customer service a couple of times.

Make sure you give them a very honest review....
I have recently had dealings with a baby supplies company and the emails I sent went to a full mail box. For 2 weeks. Phone number wasn't valid.
So I reviewed them on Trustpilot. Got an email that same day.

Report it to your bank and get them to cancel any further payments.

I don't know if I am correct, but does this bring a risk that you then end up "missing" payments you have agreed to make; and end up with a debt record?

Otherwise surely people could just go round cancelling cards anytime they didn't want to pay for something and get out of it? I think you are better off doing it officially even though its a PITA.

Oh! That didn't occur to me!

It will be fine, there won’t be a card for them to charge to.

If you just cancel the card will they keep sending socks out that are unpaid? So you'll have a debt? Or is it a different type of subscription.

In these kind of situations I've cancelled the "recurring payments" through the bank before. But that hasn't been tied to a delivery of anything, more like a streaming service or something.

OP don’t worry about this. Their “recourse” for non-payment is to cancel the subscription. Which is what you want. Refusing to let you cancel is almost certainly illegal.

I stopped using them because of this kind of nonsense. Tell your son to buy Flair socks instead. They are the ones most kids have moved over to.

It’s a misconception that recurring card payments / CPAs will stop just because the card is cancelled, they usually don’t. The only foolproof way to cancel one is to have the retailer do it, which I appreciate isn’t helpful in your case OP but better to be aware than presume cancelling your card will solve the issue.

How much is it going to cost you to ride the subscription out?

Yes, they are hoping you can't be bothered to escalate

Tell the bank. The bank will stop any more payments going out. You don't need to cancel your card that's far too disruptive and I don't think it will work anyway

If you tell the bank that they're refusing to cancel the subscription within the cooling off period I think that will be okay

Unless buying has committed you to a very unusual contract - you could ask for this to be transferred to the legal section

Update: I received another email, this one saying they would refund and cancel subscription if I returned the items. I replied to say that I would happily decline the delivery/return the items by a tracked method but pointed out that the socks were shipped 48 hours after our email correspondence began so clearly the order could have just been cancelled from the get go and saved everyone a lot of time and hassle...but hey ho. I am relieved as the cost of the subscription would have been £21 a month for 3 months and maybe for some people that's not a lot of money but I would rather not pay £60 for socks 🫠

Hopefully this is the end of it! Thanks for all the advice regarding credit card and bank! Lesson learned about checking an order before the teenager checks out!

Have a great Easter weekend!