Online subscription: simplified cancellation from June 2023

Internet service provider, audio or video streaming platforms, online banking… For several years, services operating through subscriptions have been multiplying. If subscribing is generally very simple, this is not the case for termination, which is often much more complex.

Companies use many tricks to discourage their customers from unsubscribing. Button “unsubscribe” written in very small and hidden on the site, need to send a registered letter, some companies stop at nothing. “You are obliged to use registered mail to provide proof of your unsubscription. This requires going to the Post Office, spending money or even doing it online, but it is quite complicated”, explains thus Olivier Gayraud, lawyer at the CLCV, to our colleagues from TF1.

Some websites already offer the ability to easily cancel, but others make life more difficult for users. “You have to go through a button, print the paper and send it with an acknowledgment of receipt. I sent them an email and I had also done the necessary with my bank to oppose the direct debit but it’s a hassle “, thus testifies a self-entrepreneur with RMC.

In August 2022, during the vote of the Purchasing Power Law in the National Assembly, this question had been seized by the government. Indeed, one of the articles was to make it possible to “easily terminate a contract concluded electronically”, so that customers are not “captives of an economic operator”, then defended Olivia Grégoire, Minister Delegate in charge of Small and Medium-sized businesses, trade, crafts and tourism.

As of June 1, 2023, the subscription termination process will be simplified for consumers. The “unsubscribe” button should now be easily identifiable for online contracts. No more paperwork since the objective of this text is that unsubscribing can be done in three clicks maximum.

“Where a contract has been concluded electronically or has been concluded by other means and the trader, on the day of the consumer’s termination, offers the consumer the possibility of concluding contracts electronically, the termination shall be made possible according to this modality”, can we read in article L.215-1-1 of the Consumer Code.

But which subscriptions will be affected by this measure?

As Actu.fr specifies, it will now be possible to unsubscribe more easily for all online subscriptions concerning magazines, internet, telephony, gas, mutual insurance, insurance, electricity or even streaming platforms.

However, if terminations will be quicker to carry out, article L.215-2 of the Consumer Code specifies: “The possibility of early termination of the contract from the end of the twelfth month may however be subject to payment by the consumer of no more than 20% of the amount due for the unexpired portion of the minimum period of performance of the contract.” Thus, it will still be necessary to keep an eye on the fine print because some contracts may provide for a minimum commitment period.