El Dorado Hills man signs up for YouTube Premium trial, then cancels but keeps getting charged every month | Call Kurtis Investigates
EL DORADO HILLS – An El Dorado Hills man signed up for a trial membership and then decided to cancel. Doing that didn't seem to matter.
More than a year after Hai Pham canceled the trial membership, he kept getting charged every month for it. That's when Pham decided to reach out to CBS13 and the Call Kurtis consumer investigative team for help.
Pham showed us proof that, in March 2023, he canceled his free trial membership with YouTube Premium two weeks after signing up for it.
The service offers ad-free access to YouTube and YouTube Music, which Pham said he didn't need.
However, beginning in May 2023, YouTube Premium charged Pham's credit card each month. At first, the charges were $11.99 every month, then went to $13.99 monthly after Google raised its prices a year ago.
The situation proved frustrating for him.
"It's not easy to make money, and it's being taken away from my account," Pham said.
He began calling the phone number for YouTube that was listed on his bank statement. But, he never got anywhere. The outgoing greeting was "Thanks for calling YouTube. Right now, our phone system is down."
Pham challenged the charges with his credit card and received most of his money back – but not all of it. When he contacted us, he wasn't certain how to get the charges to stop once and for all.
"I feel like this never ends," he said.
Recently, California passed a law that requires one-click cancellations online. But, those new regulations didn't begin until late July.
"Americans are tired of being played for suckers," Pham added.
In August, the Biden Administration pledged to force corporations to make it just as easy to cancel subscriptions as it is to sign up for them, stating these hassles don't happen by accident. Companies often deliberately design their business processes to be time-consuming or burdensome for consumers – in order to deter them from canceling a subscription or membership they no longer want – all with the goal of maximizing profits.
We reached out to Google about Pham's case.
"I can't comment on this case specifically," said a Google spokesperson.
Google did show us a 45-second video it has posted online for the last five years that illustrates how consumers can cancel a trial membership. The company adds that anyone looking to cancel their subscription can easily do so by visiting this link and clicking "Manage Membership", and then clicking "Deactivate."
If a consumer is billed through Apple or Google Play, they will need to cancel their subscription or trial membership through their Apple account or Google Play account settings.
For Pham, the next time he decides to sign up for a free trial, he said he will use a pre-paid debit card with limited funds on it.
"And, if something goes wrong, then they cannot charge you anymore," he said.
As for the monthly charges to his credit card? Pham received one more charge in mid-October.
We got Pham's bank to refund him again for the charges. He then decided to close his credit card account. Previously, Pham obtained a different credit card number with his bank, hoping that would stop the recurring charges. And, as a courtesy, banks will sometimes transfer charges automatically to a new credit card number. For Pham, however, that didn't work.
As part of our investigation, we reached out to Pham's bank and successfully had them refund him for the charges.
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