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Everyone has tech issues, and theyโre usually because things are more complicated than they need to be.
Your Tech Makeover helps everyday people simplify and get more out of the technology in their lives.
Host Frank Bravo shares practical tech tips and easy-to-understand explanations about smartphones, smart homes, cloud storage, passwords, Wi-Fi, AI tools, and other everyday technology.
If you want technology to feel simpler instead of more frustrating, this podcast is for you.
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Here's a question worth asking yourself. What was the last time you looked at your credit card statement? I mean, really looked at it and knew exactly what every recurring charge was. Not just the big ones, the $7 ones, the $12.99 ones from a company name you vaguely remember, and maybe the $4 charge that's been sitting there so long you stopped questioning it.
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If you're not completely sure what all these are, then you're not alone. And today we're going to fix that.
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Welcome to Your Tech Makeover, the podcast that gives you tips and tricks to help you simplify and get more out of the technology in your life. I'm your host, Frank Bravo. Today's topic is subscriptions and free trials, specifically the ones that quietly turn into recurring charges you never meant to pay. I'm going to walk you through how these trial traps are designed to catch you.
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Two places most people never think to check for those hidden subscriptions. How to actually cancel something correctly because it's getting harder than it should be, and how to build a simple system so that you stay ahead of this permanently. If you caught the last episode on Streaming Overload, you already know that we covered some of this when we talked about a full subscription audit that's checking your bank statement, the phone subscription settings, and maybe your smart TV.
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If you missed that one, it's worth going back and listening to, because I think it's a great starting point. Today I want to take it a layer deeper, so let's get into it. Let me start by saying the things that we talked about earlier are not enough. Free trials are not really free. Technically, you get access without paying upfront, but the entire business model behind a free trial is built on the assumption that you will forget to cancel.
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This is not me being cynical. This is literally a strategy, and there's even a name for it in the business world. They call these people passive subscribers and companies count on them on their financial forecasts. Here's how it works. You sign up for a free trial. Maybe it's seven days, 14 days, sometimes even 30 days somewhere. The fine print.
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It says that these subscriptions will automatically renew at the end of the trial unless you cancel it. Almost nobody reads that part. Almost nobody sets a reminder. The trial ends, the charges hit, and by the time you notice on your statement, you might have already paid for 2 or 3 months. And there's a few things that are even sneakier.
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First, the trial period is always shorter or almost always shorter than the billing cycle. So if you sign up for a 14 day trial, the subscription bills monthly, you get charged for the first full month, only 15 days in with no credits for the remaining days. Second, the cancellation options are rarely front and center. It's usually buried inside the account settings, not sitting there with a big button that says start your free trial and then cancel your free trial.
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That's never the way they show that information. Third, this is the one that really gets people. The charges on your bank statement often don't match the service names that you remember signing up for. You might see something like App Store or PayPal something, or a parent company that you don't recognize, which almost makes it impossible to connect the dots months later.
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This is not an accident. It is by design. So how do you protect yourself from turning free trials into charges? The single most effective habit is this cancel immediately after you sign up. I know that sounds super counterintuitive, but it works perfectly. When you sign up for a free trial, go directly to your account settings and cancel right then. The cancellation doesn't always take the access away during the free trial period.
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It usually keeps it until that free trial period ends, but so that you're not relying on your memory, it's done. No reminder to set no dates to track. I do this with almost every free trial I sign up for, unless it is something I know I am going to use. It always feels a little strange at first, but it eliminates the risk of having to do it later on in in about 60 seconds if you would rather not cancel immediately.
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The second best option is to set a calendar reminder or a reminder in some app that will remind you a couple of days before that subscription ends, so that you go in and turn it off. I always say like a two day buffer, and that matters sometimes because cancellation doesn't always take immediate effect. And some may kick you out, but not until the end of the billing period.
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So you want to make sure there's time to get in there before you pay for another month. Then there's a third option worth knowing about, even if it's not available to everyone. Some banks and credit card companies let you generate a virtual credit card number, so virtual credit card numbers are numbers that are tied to your real account, but are used for a single transaction or a particular merchant.
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If the service tries to charge that number after you cancel, the charge automatically fails. Capital One, for example, lets you generate virtual credit card numbers for free through their browser extension. If you have a Capital One credit card, check with your bank or credit card company to see if you have something similar available to you. If it is, it's generally worth looking into for your free trial situations.
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A quick shout out to listeners like you who helped make Your Tech Makeover possible. Your support helps keep this podcast going and I truly appreciate it. Want to contribute? Just click on the link in the show notes or visit YourTechMakeover.com. Plus as a special thank you supporters who give $25 or more, we'll get $25 off a one time consultation with me to help you simplify your tech.
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Thanks for being part of the Your Tech Makeover community. Now back to what I was saying. Now let's talk about finding subscriptions you already have but may have forgotten about. In the last episode, I covered three big things your bank statement, your phone subscription settings, and your smart TV. Go back and listen to that episode if you haven't done that audit already.
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You may want to go do that because it's an important first step in all of this. But then there's one more place that most people never think of to check, and that really turns up surprises. Usually it's your email inbox every time you sign up for something, the company sends you a confirmation email. That means your inbox or somewhere in your email is actually a record of every subscription you've ever started.
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Open your email and search for words like subscription or trial, receipt, maybe billing or membership. Then you can use that search to look for the particular companies. That might be something you have forgotten. If you use Gmail, you might want to search for things like your subscription or free trial, or sort by a date so that you can look for things that you may have completely forgotten about.
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Services that you signed up a year ago, maybe on an annual plan that renews only once a year but never appears on your radar in between, or an app that maybe changed their name since you signed up. Between your bank statements, your phone settings, and your email, Now you have a few solid places to check. Most people find at least one surprise if you go through all three.
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Now, once you have this list, you need to actually go do the canceling, and that's not what they want you to do. And here's where things get frustrating, because canceling is not always as simple as it should be. The first thing you should know about the cancel button is it's never obvious. Most services put that cancellation button somewhere in your account settings under something like billing or plan or membership or subscription.
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You know, I've seen it in a lot of weird places. It's almost never on the homepage, and it's definitely not going to be in the navigation menu if you can't find it. The fastest shortcut is to go directly to the company's help center and search for how to cancel. They usually have something there that tells you how to cancel, and it's usually a faster way than just poking around in the menus.
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The second thing to know is about the save flow. Now what is a save flow? After you find the cancel button and you click on it, many services will walk you through the series of screens that are designed to help you change your mind. They may show you a list of everything you may lose. They may offer you a discounted rate to stay.
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They may ask why you are leaving and when you want to leave, and sometimes with no skip option. So you have to tell them. And this is called the save flow. And this is very standard practice in the industry. You don't have to engage with any of it, just click through and try to get to the end where the confirmation screen is.
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Some save flows are surprisingly aggressive. Multiple screens, big, bold headlines, offers that look like they make you want to stay, but keep going. The confirmation screen is always there eventually. The third pattern to watch for is the cancellation that requires you to call or chat. This has to be the most frustrating version of this, because if I wanted to cancel, I am on your screen to cancel.
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Now let me cancel. But some cable companies, satellite providers, gym memberships, and a handful of software subscriptions will not let you cancel online. You have to call a number or start a live chat. Well, why does that happen? You know, because they want to make it harder for you not to renew. So when this does happen, I always try to be direct.
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Say I want to cancel the subscription. I don't get drawn into a negotiation through this either, because you want to confirm that cancellation date before you hang up, and then close that chat window and make sure that that confirmation email comes through. If the charge shows up later, you need that in order to dispute it. That's your proof of canceling.
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And speaking of proof, you always want to document that cancellation, whether you cancel online, by phone, or by chat. Take a screenshot of the confirmation screen. Save that confirmation email. Write down the date and the name of the person you spoke with That takes 30 seconds and it will save lots of headaches later on. Billing systems are not perfect, and occasionally those cancellations don't go through the way they should.
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Documentation is what protects you. The last thing I want to talk about is to give you a system, because cleaning things up once is useful, but what you really want to do is not end up in the same place six months from now. And the good news is, the system is really simple. One option and I talked about all these in the last episode, but one option is to run all your subscriptions through a credit card.
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Pick one card or debit card and use that for all your recurring subscriptions. It becomes that built in audit. Now new charges you don't recognize you can investigate. Something disappears that you still want. You should be able to notice pretty fast. It also makes disputing an unauthorized charge a lot easier. Second is to create a subscription log. It doesn't need to be complicated.
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It can be in your notes app on your phone, maybe a sticky note on your computer, a small notebook or a spreadsheet, whatever you will actually use. Then jot down every active subscription and what it costs and when it renews. When something new comes on and you subscribe to something new, make sure you add it there. When you cancel something, remove it.
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The act of maintaining this list will keep it intentional and top of mind. This is what I've done for physical magazines that my wife and I subscribed to, and I've done it for years. And a quick check every few months will also help you with this. Pull up that list. Compare it with your statement. Ask yourself the three questions from the last episode.
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Am I still using it? Is it something specific that's coming up that I want it for? And would I sign up for it again? Less than five minutes. Four times a year. That's the whole system. And so here's your action checklist. If you take nothing else away, go do this one. The next time you sign up for a free trial, cancel it immediately.
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You keep your access and you lose the risk. Two: search your email inbox for subscriptions, trials, or receipt. You will almost certainly find something that you have forgotten about. Three: the next time you go to cancel something, find that confirmation and save it before you consider it done. Screenshot it. Save the email. Write it down. Anything to have proof that you canceled.
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And four: pick one card for your subscription. Start a simple log. And even if it's just a note on your phone, you will thank yourself later. The whole point of this is not to tell you to cancel everything. Sometimes your subscriptions are generally worth every dollar, and that's great. I know I have a lot of subscriptions that I get a lot of value out of.
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The goal is just to make sure that every one of them is a choice that you made on purpose, not a charge that survived because it was easy to ignore. I'm sure you're like me. You work way too hard for your money to spend it on things that you decide not to buy. So here's a question. Have you ever gone to cancel a subscription?
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Discovered the cancellation process was way harder than it should have been. What happened in that case? Let me know. And as always, if you have ideas for topics that you'd like me to cover, please feel free to contact me via email: Frank at YourTechMakeover.com. That's it for now. Thanks for listening to Your Tech Makeover. If you haven't already, don't forget to subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast platform so that you don't miss an episode.
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And if you're on Substack, make sure you subscribe to the newsletter so that you are alerted when new content is posted, and you can always check out YourTechMakeover.com, because that's where you can see more information about every episode. And if you want to find out more about me, please visit BravoITC.com. Until next time, I'm Frank Bravo, and this has been Your Tech Makeover.