In September last year I took a trial month with a firm called Complete Save after seeing a pop-up ad offering a £10 discount off a train ticket booked journey with thetrainline.com.
I thought it was a one-off as the website did not make it at clear that I had signed up for anything. However, several months later I realised that Complete Save had been taking £15 a month out of my bank account. This had been going on for 10 months before I noticed; I have a joint account with my wife, so we both thought that the other had made the payment.
I called Complete Save and they refunded four months immediately. Is what they are doing legal?
RT, by email
You are not the only person to find themselves paying this company for an unexpected service; we have warned about this problem in the past and thought it had gone away.
Website users are promised a discount if they sign up to a free trial, and are then entered into a programme and charged a monthly fee. The firm operates an initial 30-day free trial, after which a monthly membership fee is charged. But after we contacted Webloyalty, the company behind Complete Save, it gave you a full refund.
Both it and thetrainline.com maintain that you would only have been able to join the programme through “manually entering his personal details, including your 16-digit credit or debit card details, on a site external to the Trainline’s”.
Generally speaking, nearly every “free 30-day trial” deal from any company switches into a monthly fee, so our advice is to not sign up in the first place. It’s too easy to forget about it and very difficult to claw back the payment later. We have also never really seen the point of these cashback programmes where you are effectively paying to obtain a discount.
We welcome letters but cannot answer individually. Email us at consumer.champions@theguardian.com or write to Consumer Champions, Money, The Guardian, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Please include a daytime phone number
We welcome letters but cannot answer individually. Email us at consumer.champions@theguardian.com or write to Consumer Champions, Money, The Guardian, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Please include a daytime phone number
