Unexpected charges to your card? Check your subscriptions

Have you subscribed to a music or movie streaming service, such as Netflix or Spotify, activated a free trial period, haven’t used it, and now that a month has passed, your card has been charged?

This is not fraud, but a result of automatic renewal of a paid subscription, which is easy to forget about after the free trial period.

How to manage your subscriptions and keep your money?

We have prepared a simple guide to help you avoid unnecessary expenses and manage your finance.

With its help you’ll learn where to manage your subscriptions and how to easily cancel them.

For ANDROID smartphones, you can check your active subscriptions in the Play Store settings:

• Open Play Store app.
• Click on your profile in the upper right corner of the page.
• Choose “Payments and Subscriptions” → “Subscriptions”.
• You’ll see the list of your subscriptions. Click on the one you don’t need and cancel it.

More details: https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/7018481?hl=uk&co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid

For IOS smartphones, you can check the active subscriptions in the Apple ID settings:

• Open “Settings”.
• Click on your name at the top.
• Go to “Subscriptions”.
• Check the subscriptions and cancel the ones you don’t need.

More details: https://support.apple.com/uk-ua/118428

“Payments and Subscriptions” in your Google account

A lot of services are linked to your Google account.

• Open any Google service (for example, Gmail or Google search page).
• Click on your profile and choose “Manage your Google account”.
• Go to the “Payment and Subscriptions”. Here you’ll find services you subscribed to through Google and a way to manage them.

More details: https://myaccount.google.com/payments-and-subscriptions

Cancel the subscription within the service you’ve subscribed to

If you subscribed to a service through an official website where you created a personal account, instead of doing it through an app, you’ll be able to cancel the subscription only through that website. Log into your profile by going to the “Account”, “Payments” or “Manage Subscription”.

Remember: not all unexpected charges to your card are fraud. It can just be a subscription you forgot about, yet which you can easily manage.

For convenience, follow 2 simple rules:

• Write down the end date of your free trial period. If you have just subscribed to a service, make a reminder in your calendar a few days before the trial ends. That way you’ll remember to cancel it if you didn’t use the service.
• Use a virtual card. It’s a separate card created specifically for secure online purchases. You can top it up with a small amount of money right before paying. If there’s no money on the card, the service won’t be able to debit it.

What should you do if the money has already been charged?

Try contacting the service’s customer support. Companies often accommodate the customers and may refund the money if you haven’t used their services during the time of the subscription.

If you don’t understand which service it was, contact the bank and we will help you figure it out.

Manage your expenses and pay exclusively for the services you use.