Call for ban on ‘automatic’ subscriptions

Consumers have spent half a billion pounds in the past year on subscriptions that renewed automatically without them realising, Citizens Advice has warned.

The charity is calling for a ban on subscription autorenewals after finding that many had been lured in with a free trial and then forgotten to cancel.

Consumers in the UK spend more than £300 million a year on unused subscriptions – such as TV streaming, newspapers and magazines – with 82 per cent of those paying out on one reporting that it had renewed automatically.