Times Newspapers Ltd Avis 1 019

I understand how subscriptions work but after doing the 3 month £1 trial and then a £30 payment coming out, I thought that was £30 for the year and decided to leave it. I’m the horrified to have another £30 come out again the next month with no email in advance to say a payment would be coming out. I cannot believe that anyone would be £30 for digital only. I called and requested the refund and the person on the phone had a terrible attitude and manner, I look after customer service teams so know how to handle calls. As the payment was only taken yesterday, I would have expected them to still be able to refund me. I will never read the times again (and had this happened, I would have). What’s even worse is that I only looked at it a handful of times anyway. They are clearly doing this knowingly to rip people off

The Times’ subscription cancellation and refund policies are completely predatory, immoral, and unethical.

You can sign up digitally, but the only way to cancel is to call up by phone. There are no reminders for when a trial or discount period is about to end and when you will be charged full price. And they will absolutely not refund you even if you are just a few days late and haven’t read a single article.

The new laws surrounding subscriptions and cancellation policies can’t come soon enough.

Really hope The Times enjoys that £20 they’ve got from me! They won’t ever receive another penny from me.

This is their response after 2 emails saying the customer cannot cancel by phone because they are partially deaf !!!

Thank you for contacting us regarding your subscription. I noticed this is the second time you have reached out to request a cancellation, and I want to clarify our process.

For security and service reasons, cancellations can only be completed by telephone. We ask customers to call us so that we can:
Provide immediate confirmation of the cancellation, including the official end date of your subscription and any details relating to print delivery (if applicable).
Ensure that all payments are up to date and address any outstanding account matters.
Understand your feedback, as there may be areas for us to improve and drive positive change.
Address any service related problems, as some cancellations stem from issues we may be able to resolve quickly.
Our Customer Service team is available on 0800 018 5177:
Monday to Friday: 8am – 7pm
Weekends: 8am – 4pm

I appreciate your understanding and hope we can assist you promptly when you call.


Kind regards,

Cwaka

The cancelation process is awful as you have to ring them. No other option available. Its basically impossible to unsubscribe unless you're a really strong person. They coerce you into staying for a further 3 months and don't remind you of when the trial is up. The money is out of your account before you realise its up.

They are really scammers. First you sign up for £1 a month trial and then there is email confirmation or notification to say they charge £30 after that. Only when the transaction went through I noticed. When i contacted them they said its part of terms and condition. Honestly they are really making customers go from pillar to post to cancel.. Its absolute joke! They dont refund the unauthorised transaction either.

Awful time cancelling after signing up for £1 for three months offer. They insisted I phone, as that is not legally required I refused and sent this: Dear Customer Service,

I am writing again regarding my subscription.

I notified you in writing on the same day that the subscription was taken out that I wished to cancel. This email reiterates that I am exercising my right to cancel within the 14-day cooling-off period under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013.

My written notice constitutes a valid cancellation under UK consumer law. A requirement to cancel only by telephone does not override my statutory right to cancel in writing.

Recent developments in UK consumer protection law, including the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, also emphasise that subscription arrangements must be transparent and that cancelling should not be unnecessarily difficult for consumers. Your refusal to process a written cancellation appears inconsistent with these principles.

Please confirm in writing that my subscription has been cancelled with immediate effect and that no further payments will be taken.

As I cancelled the subscription on the same day it was purchased, I also request a refund of the £1 introductory charge.

If any further payments are taken despite this notice, I will dispute the charge with my bank, request cancellation of any future recurring payments, and seek advice from Citizens Advice regarding the matter.

This worked - please use if helpful. Refuse to call them: long queues and not required. I will also instruct my bank.

Promotional £1 month subscription cancelled 3 weeks before full price came into effect.
Just been billed £30 for a subscription that has been cancelled .
I explained that I am hard of hearing and couldn’t cancel on the phone so did it online and they confirmed cancellation but still billed weeks later.

What a shocking app the times has nothing works jumps all over the place lagging no comments, utterly pathetic. Perhaps ask your IT guys to extract themselves from the local pub!

terrible service!

tried a subscription.

wanted to cancel.

when i cancel you have to call a number, wait, then be put through to ' cancellations '

i was waiting for 45 minutes.

another 50 minutes.

impossible,

the most terrible experience i have experienced with a company.

The product trial for £1/ 3 month access is good if you want it. Take it up at your own risk, this newspaper makes their revenue stream through charging "customers" for unwanted subscriptions that they make it virtually impossible to cancel until they have taken a full months payment (£30)

Absolute joke. Can’t unsubscribe without calling and speaking to some ghetto tool to go through questions. No one signs up like this anymore it’s not the 90s. Get real. We are being stuffed news all day inevitably. Now they’re saying I haven’t unsubscribed and need to pay lol. Jokers

Same as everyone else. You cannot cancel the subscription by any means other than phone. Such a bad experience that I won't ever subscribe again. It's a shame as I enjoyed reading some articles, but just felt so scammy. On the phone they tried to reduce the £30 to £20 and finally £7.50. I'm glad new rules are coming in exactly for this reason. Just be fair and transparent. Also charge a fair price and you might stand a chance of retaining readers?

Hard to cancel subscription - have to phone up, can't cancel online. But easy to start the 3 month long subscription online.
No-expiry warning.
Verbal threat of credit rating impact if your payment method had changed in those 3 months.
Prepare for Call Centre upselling when you do get through.
Avoid.

After subscribing to The Sunday Times, London, for a 6 months one pound offer, I decided to cancel before the next roll on to a ten pound cycle subscription.
As an overseas customer I sent 4 emails with my CPN information to the website cancellation site section for Overseas Cancellations. No reply after 3 months and I eventually discovered it was a scam, charges continued..... the site had been AI copied to look like the real Times site but it was a fraudulent...therefore no cancellations possible but money continued to be withdrawn....Be aware .....it's a common practice on line.

Terrible App. Such a shame as I was looking forward to reading the articles. You have to log in and verify yourself every time you want to read an article. And the App is so slow. It is really unworkable.

You cannot cancel on the app, website or chat.
You have to phone up, the problem is that the "lines are busy" and they cut you off with an automated message as their phone lines are at capacity! Never heard of anything so ridiculous. I am now fighting them to refund my subscription fee

The content of the paper is good, with the exception of anonymous titillating articles for which The Times really should be ashamed.
For many people, including me, the censorship by OpenWeb is abysmally bad, artificial without the intelligence. It works on the basis of blocking comments if a word is on their no-no list, regardless of context, which it cannot grasp. That makes commenting an obstacle course, with many perfectly reasonable comments blocked for no apparent reason. I guess The Times just doesn't want to respect their customers by spending the money to buy real AI.
I also have a situation where I am repeatedly asked to log in, despite having a paid subscription, and being logged in. The Times did not bother to resolve my complaint, so nul points. A company where the customer is not king.

Worst customer service I have ever experienced. You can subscribe online but cannot cancel online. Constant problems with account being cancelled, despite payment being taken, wrong amount being taken, etc etc. Their chat function is incompetent beyond belief.

Finally cancelled for good. No communication of restriction to 1 Person reading at a time, on international digital package.
Rang to cancel last month when it first started to impact us but was offered "a solution" ... which wasn't. Was told to speak to customer service if it continued, as it was a glitch.
Now told it was a policy change - great that you communicated it to customers???? Been told not possible to add a "bonus" email to international.
Account was then cancelled with immediate effect but no refund of payment taken just a few hours ago.
With this level of communication & CS you'll need every penny that you can get!!!!

cancel the subscription but still charging. I realised I was charged after a few months. And they make it so hard to cancel as you need to call.