The FTC puts an end to “click to subscribe, call to cancel”

The days of signing up for a subscription in one click online, then spending an hour on the phone to try to cancel it, will soon be over — and newspaper (and gym, bottled water, clothing rental, you name it) cancellation horror stories will, fingers crossed, be a thing of the past.

On Wednesday, after several years of discussion and a year-long public comment period, the FTC ruled that consumers must be able to cancel subscriptions as easily as they signed up for them. Among other things, businesses “can’t require people to talk to a live or virtual representative to cancel if they didn’t have to do that to sign up.” That part of the ruling goes into effect in 180 days.

From the FTC’s blog post:

You can’t require people to talk to a live or virtual representative to cancel if they didn’t have to do that to sign up.

If you’re offering phone cancellation, you can’t charge extra for that service, and you have to answer the phone or take a message during normal business hours. If you take a message, you have to respond to people promptly.

If people originally signed up for your program in person, you can offer them the opportunity to cancel in person if they want to, but you can’t require it. Instead, you need to offer a way for people to cancel online or on the phone.

Individual states have passed their own cancellation-related legislation; last month, for instance, the state of California passed its own “click to cancel” legislation, building on a 2018 state law that made online cancellation easier. The FTC’s ruling won’t supersede state laws that are stricter than its new guidelines.

The FTC received more than 16,000 public comments on the proposed rule, it said. A lengthy footnote in the final ruling contains some of them. (For more, see our 2021 package on why people cancel news subscriptions.)