FTC wants canceling subscriptions to be easier with 'Click to Cancel' rule

ATLANTA - Signing up for subscriptions to just about anything is so easy. But canceling? Well, we all have our stories. The FTC hears thousands of complaints a year, and it is proposing a new "click to cancel" rule. 

In FOX 5 I-Team's Dana Fowle's personal experience with trying to cancel subscriptions, one of two things has happened. She couldn’t find anything to direct her on the company's webpage on how to cancel, so she had to actually Google "how to cancel" to find it there. Or, she has had to call in order to do it, and that’s when you get the pitch to stay.

It’s maddening for consumers, but a moneymaker for companies. They know you will put off canceling because it’s a hassle, or it will take so long to get it done that they get an extra month’s payment out of you. 

The FTC says that that marketers don’t give you full info. Consumers are billed without consent. Sellers make it hard or impossible to cancel. So, as a result, the FTC has proposed the "click to cancel" provision.

The department writes, that it "would go a long way to rescuing consumers from seemingly never-ending struggles to cancel unwanted subscription payment plans for everything from cosmetics to newspapers to gym memberships."

Signage outside the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) headquarters in Washington, DC, US, on Friday, Feb. 17, 2023. Photographer: Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images

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The FTC wants to make it as easy to cancel as it was to sign up. An example is that if you sign up on a website, you must be able to cancel on the site in the same number of steps. And, this is intriguing: The business can still try to pitch you on staying with the company but at a better rate, but you have to OK the pitch. They would have to ask your permission first.

The government agency is taking public comment on this issue, and you can tell your story here.