Free Trials. Only Free If You Cancel Before They Charge Your Credit Card.

A free trial is like a free rental. If you’re renting a video or a piece of equipment, you only have that item for a certain period of time. If you keep that item after it’s due, then you’ll pay additional fees. Now imagine not paying the rental fee in the first place, and that’s what you have with free trials.

Free trials are to services what free samples are to tangible products. In other words, a free trial is a free sample of a service. Free trials are common with gym memberships, software, web applications, magazines, cell phone services, video streaming services, and membership clubs that deliver products by mail.

Since many free trials require a credit card you must be diligent to avoid credit card fees. If you carry credit card debt or if you have financial problems related to credit cards, then avoid credit cards and free trials altogether. However, if you’re organized and persistent, then you can benefit from free trials if you feel that it’s worth your time.

Are Free Trials Actually Free?

Whether free trials are actually free depends on how persistent you are. The rental is free, but the overdue fees are not. That’s why you should have a plan to cancel your membership once the trial is over if you don’t plan on keeping the service. If the free trial doesn’t require a credit card number, then you can forget about it. But if it does require a credit card number, and most do, then you should take some immediate and long-term steps to pro-actively avoid any charges on your card.

Make it a habit to immediately setup a calendar reminder after you enter your credit card information. Most free email accounts, like Gmail, come with a calendar. If you’re signing up for the free trial online, then open a new tab to access your calendar. Create an event in your calendar on the day before the free trial expires and set it up to remind to cancel your membership before they charge your credit card. With Gmail you can get email, text or mobile push notification.

Some free trials will send you products by mail. Sometimes they let you keep these products, other times they expect you to return the products if you cancel the membership before the trial is over. Sometimes they make you return part of it so that the set is incomplete. Be sure to read all the fine print and do exactly what it says in order to avoid charges on your credit card.

Subscription services make money off of free trials because the overwhelming majority of people forget about it, and their credit card is automatically charged month after month after the trial is over. Don’t let that be you.

Movie Clubs that offer a free movie to start and then require that you purchase a specific number of movies over the next year are NOT actually free. The first movie might be free, but then you have to buy more movies. The first 1-7 movies might be a really good price. But the remaining movies will be sold at inflated prices. These just aren’t worth it. Don’t even start free trials with movie clubs.

Cancellations Can Be a Challenge

Some free trials are more ethical than others. They all make it easy and convenient to sign up. They don’t all make it easy to cancel.

If they make you return products by mail, that alone is somewhat inconvenient. On their end an employee sends the package out to subscribers all day, every day. That’s his or her job and nothing is distracting them from it. On your end, you have make time for it aside from everything else in your personal life, repackage the product and possibly take it to the post office or schedule a pickup. Again, read the fine print and follow instructions to avoid charges on your credit card. If the free trial expects you to pay return shipping, then don’t sign up for it in the first place.

If you have an account online, then deleting the account or canceling the service may require some searching and technical savvy. They don’t display the link to cancel prominently. Why would they? That’s not how they make money.

Some free trials will require that you call a specific phone number and talk to a representative. This representative is a trained sales person. They will certainly offer incentives if you would be willing to keep your subscription active. If you don’t want to keep the subscription and they ask “can you tell me why you’d like to cancel?” Politely say “no, I’d rather not”. If you answer the question then they’ll try to use whatever you say as leverage to get you to keep it. If they say it’s too expensive, they’ll offer a reduced price. If you say it’s not convenient enough, they’ll offer something more convenient and ask if you’d keep it then. If you don’t want to keep the subscription, just don’t answer the question. However, if you do want to keep the subscription, you should still call to cancel, because then you can get a better deal.

Call To Cancel Even If You’re Keeping The Subscription

Call to cancel even if you’re keeping the subscription. This applies to any subscription, even if you’ve had it long past the free trial.

Since you know that a call representative can give you incentives to keep your subscription, why not up the ante? Pretend you’re going to cancel, even if you’re not; because if they think you’re canceling they can give you additional favors.

A perfect example of this type of conversation can occur with cellular phone companies. On two separate occasions I explained to T-mobile that since my contract has expired I might be ready to change services. And on both occasions they switched me over to a “specialist” who gave me more for my money and the cellular phone that I wanted for free.

Get A Free Gadget

Participating in free trials is a big part of a certain scheme online that we’ve labeled “get a free gadget”. Some don’t call it a “scheme”, they call it a scam. These programs start by luring you with the gadget of interest, such as an iPhone, camera or TV and tell you that you can get it for free. They capture your personal information and have you fill out a survey. Then you must participate in a number of “offers” in order to get the gadget. These “offers” often require a monetary commitment, in which case the prize is not actually free. However, some programs will allow you to participate in free trials and refer friends. Since those don’t cost anything, then it’s possible to get a free gadget. However, most of the time they won’t give you the credit if you cancel the membership before the end of the free trial. If your signing up for multiple free trials and participating in multiple offers, you can see how this becomes a lot of work to track, which is why most people end up paying for these offers. Also, if you refer any friends, make sure they’re as savvy as you are so that you’re not responsible for their unnecessary expenses.