Consumer champion Martin Lewis has urged people to plan ahead to avoid surprise increases in household bills, after a listener to his BBC podcast shared a frustrating experience with a DNA family tracing website. The customer had taken out a subscription around a year ago with an introductory price of £80, but when the annual payment came around again, the company charged £229 — almost triple the original price, with an extra £149 to pay.
Date for your diary
Mr Lewis shared a practical tip for all his listeners. He said: "This is why I always tell people on subscriptions you need to diarise a strong date, three or four weeks before your subscription is due to renew, so you can make an active decision yourself as to whether it should renew or not."
He said that sadly people fall for this sales tactic "all the time", where a service provider will offer a low first-time offer and then vastly hike up the renewal price. Continuing with the person's story, they said they complained to the company about the price hike, and were offered a refund of £46 for their troubles.
No legal obligation
The provider also told the customer they had sent an email shortly after the first transaction, explaining their policy about auto-renewal. The person's question for Mr Lewis was whether the company should have sent a reminder about auto-renewal, and if there is any cooling off period during which they can request a refund.
Mr Lewis said that while "morally" the company should indeed remind customers of its policies, the fact is there is no legal obligation for them to do so. Regarding the question of a cooling off period, Mr Lewis said that there is generally a 14-day cooling off period when paying for a new service, but not when auto renewing for a service.
He encouraged the person to give Citizens Advice a call to go through the contract with them, although he acknowledged it's "not looking very hopeful". Mr Lewis also said they could try contacting the company to make their case that the huge price hike was not fair.
'Big suggestion' from Martin Lewis
The financial journalist explained that the customer could argue that it's "really unacceptable" as they never expected to pay this much, and they didn't get a reminder. Mr Lewis said: "When you write that, my big suggestion would be tell them what you want. What would be an acceptable amount?
"I mean, you could even go back and say, 'I'm willing to pay the same price as I did last year. I don't want this subscription anymore. I'd happily cancel it, but I'm willing to give another year at £80.' This is assuming Citizens Advice have told you you haven't got any rights after looking at the specific contract."
Legal changes
However, some important legal changes are coming in giving consumers more rights. Mr Lewis told listeners: "Currently, there is no legal requirement to send consumers a reminder before an auto-renewal or before a free trial converts into a paid subscription. It isn't there.
"Traders will be required to send written reminder notices to consumers before the first payment after a free or discounted trial ends, at least every six months during a subscription, and on two occasions before a renewal payment that is not due for 12 months or more. So if this was in a year's time, the answer would strongly be, 'Yes, they need to remind you.' And this is why right now people still need to be very careful."
These changes are coming in from January 2027. The new legislation will include these new obligations for providers: companies must send reminders before auto-renewals or free/discounted trials move into paid contracts; consumers will be entitled to a new 14-day renewal cooling-off period following the end of a free or discounted trial and when renewing a service for 12 months or more; and businesses must provide a simple cancellation process for customers who want to. This means if you took out a subscription online, customers must be able to terminate the service in the same way.
