The FTC is moving to eliminate the “frustration” of canceling subscriptions for consumers

The Federal Trade Commission announces a final rule that will make it easier for people to cancel subscriptions and memberships they don't want anymore.

It's called Click to Cancel.

The rule is designed so that if consumers sign up online, they should also be able to cancel on the same site with the same number of steps, FTC Commissioner Lina Khan said in an interview Tuesday.

In August, management It announced it was moving forward with the proposed rule As part of its “Time is Money” campaign on a range of consumer-oriented hassles.

Khan said the agency now receives about 70 complaints a day related to frustrations with canceling subscriptions, a number she said has increased “drastically” from just a few years ago. When the proposed rule was announced last year, the agency received about 16,000 comments expressing how opting out had become a headache at best, Khan said.

“Over recent years, we have increasingly seen some companies make it very easy to opt in but very difficult to opt out,” she said Tuesday. Americans end up paying more money and wasting their time as a result. This is what we will put an end to with this rule.

She described many of today's cancellation systems, which sometimes feature either unhelpful automated phone systems or endless transfers between agents, as a “death loop.”

“It's this real underlying frustration and this feeling that there can be this denigration of being a consumer, and that's what we want to address and correct,” Khan said. “All people here want is some justice and honesty, and that's what this rule will do.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation's largest business lobby group, said the FTC's proposal would actually “micromanage business practices.”

“Companies succeed by being responsive to customers and have a much better record of customer service, streamlined paperwork, and quicker response times than the federal government.” This was stated in an online statement.

Khan said these arguments do not hold up.

“At the end of the day, if a company is relying on scamming people or trapping people into subscriptions, that's not a good business model, and that's not a model we should stand for,” she said.

Khan and the FTC have already taken legal action against Amazon's Prime division over accusations that it lures customers into subscriptions that the FTC claims are too difficult to cancel.

Amazon has denied any wrongdoing. The lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial next summer.

Haley Nelson told NBC News that she was a victim of Planet Fitness's cancellation system. Nelson, a Minnesota resident, said she signed up for a gym membership, but ended up using it only once after deciding the facility closest to her was too crowded.

But when she decided to cancel, she knew she would have to do it in person, which she said she didn't have the time or inclination to do. She said she eventually let her membership run on auto-pay for several months before finally finding a window to return to the gym to cancel.

Members can cancel “in person or via written notice by mail” to their local clubs, Planet Fitness said in a statement.

“Our standard cancellation policy is that you must cancel in person or by written notice by post to your local club,” the statement read. “Some members have the ability to cancel their membership online based on their membership type and their local club location. We are continually expanding this functionality for added convenience.”

The company said 30% of “joiners” were former Planet Fitness members.

Nelson said she would be grateful for the changes proposed by Khan and the FTC.

“If they made it as easy to get out of a membership as it is to get in, it would certainly be very helpful for people like us who pay for a membership, just because it's not that hard to try to figure out,” she said. “How do you cancel this membership that you joined, you know?” “Three or four months ago.”

She added: “This is a very positive step in the right direction, making it less easy for big companies to attack you in a quick way.”