Subscriptions and Memberships
Free trials that converted quietly, gym contracts that auto-renewed, and payments that carried on long after you cancelled.
Recurring payments are designed to be easy to start and awkward to stop. Continuous payment authority, the mechanism behind most card subscriptions, carries no Direct Debit Guarantee, so many people assume the only way out is through the company itself.
It is not. You can instruct your bank to cancel a continuous payment authority and the bank must act on it. It cannot tell you to sort it out with the merchant first, and if it takes further payments after you have asked it to stop, those are the bank's liability rather than yours.
These are usually modest monthly amounts that have run for a long time, which is precisely why they go unchallenged. Aggregated across two or three years they are frequently worth recovering, and the same trader is usually doing it to a great many other people.
The problems that come up most
Drawn from the claims we actually run in this area, not from a generic list of consumer complaints.
Free trials that convert to paid plans without clear prior notice
In-app cancellations that leave the customer no evidence they happened
Banks wrongly telling customers to resolve it with the merchant first
Minimum terms that roll into another full term automatically
Small monthly amounts that run unnoticed for years
What clients in this sector achieve
These are the outcomes engagements in this sector are scoped to produce. They are written into the proposal so success is defined before the work starts, not assessed afterwards.
- Payments stopped at the bank within days, before the claim was resolved
- Years of small charges recovered as a single aggregated claim
- Post-cancellation payments recovered from the bank rather than the trader
- Unfair minimum-term clauses successfully challenged
Where sector programmes usually start
Subscription Traps and Recurring Payments
Free trials that quietly became paid plans, cancellations the company says it never received, and payments that keep coming after you cancelled.
Gym, Telecoms and Rolling Contracts
Minimum terms that auto-renewed, cancellations that were never actioned, and exit fees for a service that stopped working.
Duplicate and Incorrect Charges
Charged twice, charged the wrong amount, or charged in the wrong currency at a rate you never agreed.
Engagements in this sector
$1,730 recovered from a subscription cancelled three years earlier
He cancelled in the app and received no confirmation. Payments continued for thirty-eight months. The bank's own record of a phone call turned out to be stronger evidence than anything…
- Recovered including interest
- $1,730 Recovered including interest
- Payments had been running
- 38 months Payments had been running
- To resolution
- 5 weeks To resolution