Andy Burnham’s subscription trap crackdown is drawing attention to how a free trial can turn into an £89.99 charge before the customer gets a reminder to stop it. For anyone signing up for a trial, the practical issue is simple: if the renewal date is not obvious, the bill can land before the user notices.
Sophie Branscombe, 23, from Wirral, said she signed up for a free trial of a photo editor app and later saw £89.99 leave her bank account. She said the firm would not refund her, then she used Apple report a problem and got everything back.
Sophie Branscombe and Apple
“It was a free trial, and they did make it clear I was signing up to a subscription, but there was no reminder of when [the free period] would end,” she said. That missing prompt is the point that turns a trial into a charge: the user may understand the subscription is real, but still lose track of the exact day money starts leaving the account.
“Make it a habit of checking what subscriptions run out and if you also find that you don't like something after signing up to a free trial, cancel straight away,” she said. Her route back to cash was not the company’s own cancellation desk; it was Apple’s dispute process, which gave her a refund after the direct request failed.
Hussein Zaaiter in West London
Hussein Zaaiter, 21, from West London, said he used a free software trial for university work and then tried online chat, email and even the phone while charges kept coming. He said £16 left his account and then another £32 before he froze his card, and he said they tried to charge him seven times.
“I tried online chat, email and even the phone at one point as they were constantly charging me,” he said. “They tried to charge me seven times.” His next step was to contact his bank and explain the situation in the hope of being reimbursed, which puts the burden on the customer once the merchant route stops working.
Rosalinda Kwafo-Akoto and £9.99
Rosalinda Kwafo-Akoto, 22, from the West Midlands, signed up for a one-week free TV trial that was due to become £9.99 a month after the trial. She said she remembered before the end of the week that it was ending and tried to cancel it so she would not be charged.
“I remembered before the end of the week that the trial was ending and tried to cancel it so I wouldn't be charged,” she said. The pattern across all three cases is the same: a trial begins with a clear price after the free period, but the difficult part is stopping the billing before the first payment goes out.
The has contacted firms for responses in connection with the examples, and the pressure now sits on the rules behind those offers. If Andy Burnham’s crackdown goes beyond rhetoric, the unresolved issue is whether subscription notices must be clearer before the card is charged, not after.
