Tips & Tricks to Free Trials
As crazy as it is, even those that you look to for financial advice make financial mistakes. These mistakes are how we learn, and I’m hoping my mistake can help you avoid following my path. I signed up for Amazon Prime’s free 6-month trial back in September thinking when the time came around to start paying for the service that I would then cancel. In a perfect world right? Well as surprising as it is, I completely forgot about the free trial until I was automatically billed for a whole year of the service. As bummed out as I was, it made me think that this is a genius tactic by businesses to get your money, but there is still ways to get the benefits of the free trial without getting hit with the charge at the end of the trial.
With all that being said, I still love free-trials. Really there isn’t much not to love, you get the service for free for a limited amount of time. Why they give the free trials away is simply to hope you either forget all about it and collect your money at the end of the trial or you come to love the product and choose to pay for it.
So how can we avoid being tricked into paying for a service we no longer want? Most trials have an option in the settings that turns off automatic renewals. By turning off automatic renewals you will in turn not be charged at the end of the trial unless you manually set up payments. When you set up a free-trial, make sure to go through the settings and payments to check if the trial offers a chance to opt out of automatic renewal. The other option is to mark your calendar around the end date to make sure you go back and end your membership with the service. Many services may remind you around the time that your trial is coming to an end, but they don’t have to be that kind.
The best way to stay safe only online is to make sure you read through all of the information and do your research on the company to make sure they are trustworthy. Remember if something sounds too good to be true, it is probably not true. When signing up for an offer, make sure you read all the wording clearly to make sure you are signing up for exactly what you want. Watch out for pre-checked boxes that may sign you up for other offers. If you can’t understand what you are signing up for, the best thing is to not sign up. When you have made the commitment and sign up, make sure to monitor your credit and debit card accounts to confirm you aren’t being wrongfully charged.
Free trials can be a great opportunity to get a service for free just for fun or to try out a product before buying it. Just be sure to proceed with caution considering there are many things on the internet whose sole purpose is to get your money.
Remember to follow these simple steps when going about a free trial.
Make sure the company is trustworthy, do your research on the company and trial.
Check settings to turn off automatic renewals and payments or to check when the trial runs out so you can mark your calendar.
Read carefully through the information to clarify what you are signing up for.
Watch out for pre-checked boxes
After signing-up monitor your credit and debit card accounts.