Subscription traps: how to stop paying for things you never use

Streaming, apps, gyms, newspapers, supplements: more and more of what we buy has turned into subscriptions. Each individual agreement looks cheap, but the total on the bank statement often tells a different story. And some subscriptions you may never have chosen deliberately: they started as a “free trial” and were left running, quietly taking money. This guide shows you how to find the forgotten agreements, recognise the traps and clear things up once and for all.

The “free trial” trap

A free trial is rarely simply free: you hand over your card details at the start, and when the period runs out, the service automatically begins charging the card, often at full price. The business model relies on people forgetting to cancel. The simplest countermeasure is to note the cancellation deadline in your calendar the moment you start the trial.

Safer still: cancel as soon as you have signed up. With most reputable services you keep access for the rest of the trial period even if you cancel on day one, and if you want to continue, you can always subscribe again. Then it is an active choice, not a slip.

How to recognise dubious subscription schemes

Dubious subscription schemes follow a fixed pattern: a cheap or “free” product up front, card registration as a condition, and an expensive ongoing subscription buried in the terms. The pattern turns up particularly in supplements, beauty products, streaming services and apps. If a one-off purchase requires card registration “for later”, the warning lights should come on.

Typical signs to look for before you type in your card number:

• “Pay postage only” offers. A free sample where you pay only a few kroner in postage is a classic gateway to an expensive monthly subscription that is visible only in the small print.
• The price after the trial is hard to find. Reputable services state clearly what the subscription costs once the trial is over. If you have to hunt through the terms to find the amount, that is rarely an accident.
• Artificial time pressure. Countdown clocks and “only 3 left in stock” exist to make you skip the small print. The same trick is used in fake sales, which we have written about in the guide to reference prices and fake sales.
• Hard to cancel. If cancelling requires a phone call within a narrow time window, a letter in the post or “contact customer service”, while signing up was a thirty-second job, the imbalance is deliberate.

Check who you are actually buying from as well. Dubious subscription schemes are often run by companies registered abroad, with terms in a different language from the marketing and no Norwegian contact details. That makes both cancelling and complaining harder. A quick look at who issued the terms before you order saves you a lot of work afterwards.

How to find forgotten subscriptions

The most reliable method is to go through your bank statement and card statement for the past three months and note every recurring charge. Three months also catches agreements billed quarterly. Then check the subscription overview in the App Store or Google Play, which lives its own life outside your bank statement.

• Bank statement and card statement, three months back. Go line by line and mark every recurring charge. Unfamiliar company names can be looked up, since payment processors often hide which service actually sits behind the charge.
• App Store and Google Play. App subscriptions are managed in the account settings on your phone, not in the app itself. This is often where trials you started long ago and have forgotten are hiding.
• Email search. Search your inbox for words such as “receipt”, “subscription” and “renewal”. Receipts reveal services that have changed name or bill infrequently.
• Several payment sources. Remember to check every card you hold, along with payment services such as PayPal and Klarna, where subscriptions can also sit.

Your rights: cancellation, minimum terms and the right of withdrawal

A subscription can normally be cancelled, and any minimum term must be clearly stated before you enter into the agreement. If you buy the subscription online, you also have, as a general rule, fourteen days of the Norwegian right of withdrawal. A service that makes cancellation unreasonably difficult, or that invokes a minimum term you were never clearly told about, is on thin ice.

Be aware of notice periods all the same: many subscriptions run to the end of the current period after you cancel, and that is usually fine. What is not fine are terms that surface only after the purchase. If that happens, complain in writing to the service and refer to what you were actually told when you ordered. If you get nowhere, Forbrukerrådet, the Norwegian Consumer Council, can guide you further, and dubious practice can be reported to Forbrukertilsynet, the Norwegian Consumer Authority.

Keep an eye on price changes too. Ongoing subscriptions are adjusted upwards regularly, and the change has to be notified to you, but the notice easily drowns in the inbox, and the charge continues at the new amount without you noticing. A price increase is always a good moment to ask the question again: is the service still worth it, or is there a cheaper alternative?

Subscription purchases must be clearly labelled

When you buy something online that involves a payment obligation, it has to be clear before you confirm: the order button must plainly show that you are committing to pay, and the price, the length of the agreement and how it renews must be easy to find, not hidden in links and small print. A “purchase” that was in reality a subscription, without that being made clear, is something you can dispute.

This is also a useful checklist before you buy: if you cannot find a clear answer to what happens after the first payment (a one-off purchase, or a recurring charge?), you leave the order alone. Same principle as elsewhere in online shopping: vagueness is a warning sign in itself, on a par with the signs we go through in the guide to safe online shopping.

A practical clear-out routine

Set aside an hour once a year for a subscription review, ideally in a fixed month, January for instance. The routine is simple: make a complete list of every ongoing agreement, ask yourself for each one whether you actually used it last month, and cancel everything you hesitate over. A subscription you miss can always be started again, which keeps the threshold for cutting low. Here is how to carry out the review in practice:

• Make the list. Use the methods above: bank statement, app stores, email search. Write down the service, the price and the renewal date.
• Convert to an annual price. Monthly amounts look harmless; multiplied by twelve they become clear. The annual price is the number you should weigh each agreement against.
• Use the “last used” test. If you have not used the service in the past month, chances are you will not use it next month either. Cancel it, since coming back is easy.
• Note new trials straight away. Every time you start a new trial, put the cancellation date directly into your calendar. Then next year's review is already half done.

Family plans: share where the terms allow it

Many streaming and music services offer family plans where several people in the same household share one subscription. The price per person is then usually considerably lower than separate subscriptions, without anyone losing functionality. Check what your household pays separately: overlapping individual subscriptions to the same service are one of the most common unnecessary expenses.

Stay within the terms at the same time: most family plans are limited to one household, and the services have become stricter about enforcing this. The gain from pooling the household's subscriptions properly is real regardless, and it comes on top of everything else you can pick up from smarter online shopping, which we have gathered in the guide to saving money on online shopping. Clearing out subscriptions is, incidentally, a good saving to combine with cashback on the purchases you do make, and cashback via Sparebørsen on the ones you keep comes on top. Money saved is money earned, wherever it comes from.