How do free trial scams work?

You sign up for a free trial that asks for your credit card to cover shipping or verify your identity. The fine print says you will be charged $50 to $100 per month after the trial ends, usually within 7 to 14 days. Cancellation is intentionally difficult or hidden.

How do I cancel a subscription I did not know I signed up for?

Check your credit card statements for the merchant name, then search online for their cancellation process. If you cannot cancel through the company, call your bank and request a chargeback. You can also report the company to the FTC.

Can I get my money back from a subscription trap?

Yes, often through your bank. Call your credit card company, explain that you were charged without clear consent, and request a chargeback. Under the FTC's Restore Online Shoppers Confidence Act, companies must clearly disclose recurring charges before billing you.

Trending By Isaiah Shawver 7 min read Updated Mar 2026

Free trial scams that secretly charge you every month

My sister texted me a screenshot of her credit card statement last year. There was a $89.99 charge from a company she had never heard of. She Googled the name and eventually traced it back to a "free skincare sample" she signed up for on Instagram three months earlier. She paid $4.99 for shipping, got a small jar of moisturizer, forgot about it, and had been getting charged ninety bucks a month ever since.

She is not the only one. I keep seeing this. The FTC gets tens of thousands of complaints about subscription traps every year, and those are just the people who actually report it. Most people eat two or three charges before they even notice something is wrong.

How the trap works

The playbook is the same almost every time:

An ad on Instagram, Facebook, or Google offers something free or almost free. "Just pay shipping." "Free 7-day trial." "Try it for $1."
The signup page asks for your credit card. They say it is to cover shipping or verify your age. The real reason is to get your card on file.
Somewhere in the fine print, usually in light gray text at the very bottom of the page, it says you are agreeing to a monthly subscription at $50 to $150 per month. Nobody reads this.
The trial period is short, 7 to 14 days, and it starts the day you order. Not the day the product arrives. If you ordered a physical product, the trial is already over by the time it shows up at your door.
Cancellation is designed to be painful. No cancel button. Phone lines that keep you on hold for an hour. Email addresses that bounce. Chatbots that go in circles.

Where these show up

Instagram and Facebook ads are the biggest source by far. Polished photos, fake celebrity endorsements, comment sections full of bots saying "this changed my life." Some influencers promote these knowingly. Others get free products and have no idea the company behind them is running a subscription trap.

Google search results are another common entry point. Search "best face cream" or "free VPN" and some of the top results lead straight to subscription trap sites.

App stores are getting bad too. Some mobile apps offer a "free trial" that immediately starts a $9.99/week subscription. That is $520 per year for an app you opened once and deleted. Then there are fake streaming sites that promise free movies, collect your card info, and never actually give you access to anything.

Red flags before you sign up

Any "free" offer that wants your credit card number. If it is actually free, they do not need your payment info. Before signing up, check the site's URL for risk signals.
The real price is only mentioned in small text on the checkout page, or buried in a terms-of-service link nobody clicks.
The company name is vague or generic. Google it with the word "scam" before you type anything into their form.
There is no obvious way to cancel. Real subscription services make cancellation easy because the law says they have to.
Before-and-after photos, celebrity names, or "limited supply" urgency. These are pressure tactics, not product features.
No real contact info on the site. Just a contact form, no phone number, no address.

Already getting charged?

Find the charge on your statement. Look for the exact merchant name. It is often different from the product name, which makes it hard to trace.
Try to cancel directly. Search "[merchant name] cancel subscription" online. Some of these companies have hidden cancellation pages that do not show up in their main navigation. Check the confirmation email from your original signup too.
Call your bank. Tell them you want to dispute the charge. Explain that you signed up for a free trial and were not clearly told about recurring charges. Most banks deal with this all the time and will handle it fast.
Block the merchant. Ask your bank to block future charges from that company, or just get a new card number if the charges keep coming.
Check your phone's app subscriptions. On iPhone: Settings, tap your name, then Subscriptions. On Android: Google Play, profile icon, Payments & subscriptions. Cancel anything you do not recognize.
Report it. File a complaint at reportfraud.ftc.gov. The more reports the FTC gets about the same company, the more likely they are to go after them.

Avoiding this in the future

The single best move is to use a virtual card number for online trials. Services like Privacy.com let you create temporary card numbers with spending limits. Set the limit to $5 and if a subscription trap tries to charge you $90 next month, it just fails. Problem solved.

If you do sign up for a real free trial, set a calendar reminder for the day before it ends. I do this every time. "Cancel [service name]" with the date. Takes five seconds and saves you from forgetting.

And check your bank statements. Actually look at them once a month. Most people who get hit by subscription traps go two or three billing cycles before they notice.

Got a link to a suspicious offer?

Before entering your card details on any site, paste the URL into ScamKit to check for red flags.

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