It should be law that you cannot have a "free trial" demand payment details before starting
this post was submitted on 27 May 2025
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Without that it would be quite easy to abuse the trials, no?
But certainly moving to paid subscription should require an active action from the customer.
how would offering a free trial (eg: not requiring payment) be abusing a free trial?
I believe the theory is that without unique payment information being provided each time, one could simply sign up for a new free trial every time the previous one expired.
In a universe with routine machine fingerprinting and phone apps, i find this a rather dubious argument
It is a good self-serving excuse, not a good argument.
I never said it was a good one! I doubt they'd bother if it didn't make it easier for them to start charging you. Plus, card providers often have virtual card services nowadays anyway, so it probably doesn't work very well.
And how about web-based services? Fingerprinting goes only so far. Good for statistics, not good for preventing people from a free trial.
You know you don't have to even offer free trials, right.
I'm talking about a predatory practice that literally relies on taking advantage of people's poor memories for profit and you're all falling over yourselves crying about how if they can't do that then people might steal from them
Personally I believe free trials are a great idea, and businesses should be able to offer them eithout the risk of losing actual business to it l, while at the same time I believe people should be able to make an informed decision before entering a payment (even more so to a recurring one).
This could be arranged by a simple request from the vendor that confirms you wish to pay or not when the trial ends.
To me this sounds like a perfectly reasonable requirement that doesn't try to trick either side of the transaction.
Not quite auto renew but I believe trumps lot cancelled the ruling to allow people to easily cancel things.
Isn't it already like that though? I do think that when cancelling a plan, they have to provide the service until the end of the period you paid for. At least this is how it is in my experience.
Every time I get a free month of Amazon Prime or Uber One or whatnot, who are notoriously full of dark patterns, I immediately cancel it, then go on to continue using it.
Apple will defo end your service the day you “cancel your free trial” , which means turning off rebilling.
This happened with Apple TV .
Free trial != a month of service you pay for
Spirit airlines has an annual membership program for discounted rates. You cannot turn off auto renew without canceling entirely and they won't give you the remainder of the year. Oh, and they wouldn't let me erase my credit card info even after canceling.
Avoid spirit airlines.
Don't think this would fly in Canada. (Sorry)
Depending on where you live it would be illegal to remove access before the current paid subscription period runs out.
I don't think I've ever had a free trial that ended the moment i cancelled it. Whenever I sign up for a free trial, i immediately go to cancel. Usually it's for amazon prime, or kindle unlimited.
There may have been one case where canceling meant instant end of the trial, in that case, well, tough, I'd rather not have a month free than have to remember to cancel it manually. If they don't want me to try it, i won't and will definitely not become a paying customer.
Despite all the shit Apple does, they do let you do this in the App Store.
I'll go a step further. It should be a law that all subscriptions ask you for permission before renewing.
Tax money is lost