it Home According to news on July 7, CCTV News today published an article reporting on the problems of automatic app renewal. The article stated that in recent years, automatic app renewal has been frequently complained by consumers, and it is easy to get into the pit and difficult to get out of the pit.
Nowadays, many apps have launched automatic renewal functions. After enjoying the initial discount trial, consumers are often automatically transferred to paid services without knowing it, and canceling this service is extremely difficult. According to reports, Ms. Li from Wenzhou City encountered such a problem recently. She downloaded a video editing software, which provided a 7-day free trial period. The homepage of the software stated "7-day free trial, and then automatically renews at 298 per year." Ms. Li was not satisfied during the trial period, so she uninstalled the software, only to find that she was still charged after the trial period. Ms. Li believed that the merchant's behavior was forced buying and selling, so she wanted to find a theory with the merchant, but she could not contact the back-end after-sales customer service.
Ms. Li believes that merchants should confirm whether consumers are satisfied and willing to continue subscribing to service before deducting money. The market supervision department of Lucheng District, Wenzhou City quickly intervened in the investigation and found that merchants used extremely small fonts when prompting automatic renewal, making it difficult for consumers to notice this information. The merchants involved argued that this was due to the different operating requirements of different mobile phone systems. For example, Android users can cancel their subscription within the app, while Apple users need to go into their personal account in settings to do so.
Consumer rights protection experts pointed out that the core problem of automatic renewal is that consumers’ right to know and choose are not fully protected. Consumers are not fully informed and have their fees directly deducted without their consent. Chen Yinjiang, deputy secretary-general of the Consumer Rights Protection Law Research Association of the China Law Society, said that even if consumers uninstall the app, they will continue to be charged, which seriously violates consumers' right to know and property security.
Under the mediation of the market supervision department, Ms. Li finally received a refund. However, there are many consumers facing similar distress. According to data from the Black Cat consumer complaint platform, from April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024, the platform received 70,011 automatic renewal complaints within one year, and consumers lost more than 20 million yuan.
The China Consumers Association stated that complaints about automatic online renewals mainly focus on infringement issues before activating paid services and rights protection issues during the service process. Guo Yaozong, deputy director of the Complaints Department of the China Consumers Association, said that mainly induces consumption in the form of low-priced and free trials. There are also examples such as failure to fulfill the effective reminder obligation upon expiration; mandatory early renewal; and after consumers cancel automatic renewal, paid services are immediately terminated; automatic renewal is difficult to refund, and fees are still deducted after turning off automatic renewal; Unable to contact manual customer service, etc.
According to IT House, the "Regulations on the Implementation of the Consumer Rights Protection Law of the People's Republic of China" will come into effect on July 1 this year, requiring operators to prominently remind consumers to pay attention before providing automatic extension or renewal services. Protect the rights and interests of consumers.
