First, Cancel Your Subscriptions

You know you are rich if you have time to go to the gym or watch Netflix.  About 10 years ago, a guy wrote a blog post about how he lost a lot of weight by walking on the treadmill at the gym every day while watching movies on Netflix on his iPad, but these days, the idea of anyone having that much free time is absurd beyond the point of being funny. You do not have to be rich to pay for a gym membership or a Netflix subscription.  Perhaps one day, years ago, you had enough time to entertain your desire to exercise or watch movies that you bought a gym membership or subscribed to Netflix. 

Now, these and many other subscriptions you do not use automatically debit your account every month. When your debit card expired, the companies sent you a relentless barrage of emails and text messages and called to cancel your subscription, but the customer service agent made you go through such a labyrinthine process that you eventually gave up and provided your new debit card number. Continuing to pay for the subscriptions seemed like the lesser of two evils compared to business-to-consumer lawsuits. New policies have since made it easier to get out of subscription agreements, but if you are still struggling financially from so many years of paying for subscriptions you could not cancel, contact an Oakland lawsuits, collections, and creditor harassment lawyer.

Breaking Up With Unwanted Subscriptions is Easier Than it Used to Be

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) have implemented new rules that make it easier for customers to cancel subscriptions to services and to get refunds for returned or canceled purchases. For example, companies’ customer service phone lines may not take customers through a “doom loop” of recorded messages or automated systems; the first menu must include an option to speak to a human representative, and the only way that customers must wait a long time is if there are many other callers ahead of them.

Likewise, the days of having to navigate a maze of phone calls and emails to cancel a subscription are gone.  If you request to cancel your subscription, the customer service representative must cancel it, and the company must stop making new charges to your account.  When it comes to airlines, customers no longer have to call to get a refund when a flight gets canceled, or a delay causes the customer to miss a connecting flight.  Instead, the airlines must automatically refund the price of the ticket.

If Only Getting Out of Debt Were as Easy as Canceling Your Subscriptions

Canceling the unwanted subscriptions should free up a few dollars in your monthly budget to pay a few dollars above the minimum payment on your credit card debt or to buy groceries without resorting to buy now, pay later (BNPL).  Your debt problems probably run much deeper than that, though, so you should consult a debt lawyer to discuss solutions.

Contact the Law Office of Melanie Tavare About Debt Relief Options

A debt relief lawyer can help you if the difficulty of canceling subscription services has made your debt problems worse.  Contact the Law Office of Melanie Tavare in Oakland, California, or call (510)255-4646 for a case evaluation.