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There's good news for your wallet and sanity.
Although a court last week blocked a proposed rule to let you easily quit an unwanted subscription, existing laws protect you from deceptive subscription charges or those that feel impossible to cancel.
Here's what you need to know about misleading or hard-to-cancel subscriptions and where to turn for help.
• What does the law say about deceptive subscriptions?
Under a federal law, when you sign up for a subscription online that automatically charges you every month or year, the terms must be "clearly and conspicuously disclosed" and you must clearly consent to recurring bills.
The business also must offer a "simple" mechanism to cancel. (There are other applicable federal and state laws, too.)
Sounds squishy, right? Leonard Gordon, who leads law firm Venable LLP's advertising and marketing law practice, acknowledged that the line can be fuzzy between what's legally permissible and what's not with subscriptions.
If you want to cancel a gym membership, for example, it's reasonable to be offered a discount or free personal training sessions to persuade you to stay. But it might be out of bounds if the gym badgers you with such offers, Gordon said.
If you must call the gym to quit but no one ever answers, or if you can't figure out how to cancel, that could be a legal no-no, according to Gordon.
• Complain through one of three paths
If you didn't consent to a recurring subscription fee or feel trapped in a quitting maze, assert your rights to the company first. Or dispute the charge with your credit or debit card provider.
If that doesn't work - and even if it did - pick one of these routes to help yourself or future customers:
• File a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. It can be a go-between with a business if you feel duped by subscription terms or a cancellation trap.
• File a complaint with the attorney general, particularly if you live in California or New York. Search the web for your state name and "attorney general file complaint."
As with the BBB, the attorney general's office may help you resolve subscription disputes. The attorney general can also sue on behalf of all state residents over misleading or hard-to-cancel subscriptions.
In the past year, for example, the New York attorney general largely won a court ruling against Sirius XM for making subscription cancellations onerous and reached a settlement with fitness chain Equinox to change its subscription practices in the state. Some customers were entitled to refunds.
Sirius XM and the attorney general each appealed parts of that court ruling. Equinox said it completed all "corrective steps" and "is pleased that this matter is resolved."
In some states, notably California and New York, residents have stronger protections for subscriptions to be simple to cancel, similar to the Federal Trade Commission's blocked "click to cancel" rule.
• Complain to the FTC. (Its online complaint form doesn't have a category for subscriptions. Choose "something else" if that option fits best.)
Samuel Levine, former director of the FTC's consumer protection division, said a flood of complaints helped the agency prioritize fighting abusive subscriptions. "Public input does have an impact on the agency's work," he said.
Gordon also said that the FTC uses consumer complaints, including to the BBB, to help spot patterns of subscription abuse and for possible lawsuits.
The FTC has sued Amazon over claims that its sign up and cancellation processes for Prime membership are manipulative. An Amazon representative said Prime sign-ups and cancellations are clear and simple.
• Other self-protection measures
• Hunt for red flags before signing up. Searching for a business in the BBB database or on online forums like Reddit might turn up repeated grousing about deceptive subscriptions or the business consistently failing to respond to complaints.
• Do your homework. Read the subscription terms, monitor your credit card statements and keep records of your interactions with a business. Those can help you in subscription disputes.
It's common for companies to sneak in a subscription fee with murky language or make you jump through hoops to cancel, said Douglas Allen, an assistant district attorney in California's Santa Cruz County and member of the state's subscription enforcement task force.
Those tactics might break the law, but Allen said that personal vigilance is still the "consumer's first line of defense."
• Consider buying digital subscriptions through apps. I usually recommend saving money by buying digital subscriptions, such as a Patreon membership or a dating app subscription, directly from a company's website.
But if you buy a digital subscription through a smartphone app, with the payment card you have on file with Apple or Google, those companies give you one place to see and cancel all the subscriptions purchased in apps.
From the Google Play app for Android, click your photo in the top right and then "Payments & subscriptions." For iPhones, tap the Settings app, your name at the top and then "Subscriptions."
• Set a calendar reminder to reassess. If you know your New Yorker subscription automatically charges your credit card in January, set a reminder for a quiet day in December to decide if you want to keep paying.
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