Charged after cancelling a subscription: the US playbook

First, establish what you can prove

Before contacting anyone, assemble the record: when you cancelled, through which channel, and what confirmation exists. A confirmation email with a date is gold. A screenshot of a “subscription cancelled” screen is good. A memory of tapping a button is, in a dispute, close to nothing.

Also check what you actually cancelled. The recurring failure modes: cancelling through the app while the billing ran through Apple or Google (two different subscriptions to the biller), cancelling one plan of a service that had quietly split into two, or “cancelling” a screen that was actually a pause or downgrade offer. If the charge is from a platform biller, the cancellation had to happen in the platform’s subscription settings — that distinction decides many of these cases before any law does.

Step one: the written refund demand

Write to the company — email or support form, something that produces a record. Three sentences carry the whole load: when you cancelled and through what channel, that a charge dated after that cancellation has been made, and that you request a refund of that charge and written confirmation the subscription is closed. Attach the evidence.

Give them a short, stated window — a week is reasonable. Most companies refund at this step, because a documented post-cancellation charge is not a fight their support team is instructed to have.

Step two: the card dispute

If they refuse, stall past your window, or answer with retention offers, dispute the charge with your card issuer. The category is a charge you did not authorise after cancelling the underlying service; your uploaded evidence is the cancellation record plus your written demand and their response or silence. That prior written demand matters twice: issuers weigh whether you attempted resolution, and companies contest disputes less when the file already shows a clean paper trail against them.

Step three: stop the tail risk

A refunded charge does not always mean a closed account. Confirm in writing that the subscription is terminated, and watch the next two statements. If charges continue after a chargeback and a documented termination, escalate: state complaints go to your attorney general’s consumer office, federal ones to the FTC — and continued billing after documented cancellation is deception territory in essentially every state, whatever its subscription statute says.

Where state law sharpens the position

The playbook above works everywhere in the US. In some states the law adds edges worth citing by name: California mandates cancellation through the sign-up medium and express consent to renewal terms; Oregon requires affirmative consent before any renewal charge; Florida voids improperly handled renewal provisions on covered service contracts; in Texas, with no subscription statute, the playbook and the paper trail are the protection. The federal baseline — ROSCA — requires a simple mechanism to stop recurring charges everywhere.

The mistakes that weaken a winning case

Calling instead of writing. Phone cancellations vanish. If a company insists on the phone, follow the call with an email summarising it — date, agent, what was agreed.

Disputing before demanding. A chargeback with no prior contact invites the company to contest it and slows the issuer.

Accepting credit instead of a refund. Account credit keeps you as a customer of a company that just charged you after cancellation. You are entitled to ask for the money.

Letting the second charge slide. One wrongful charge is an error; a second after your written demand is a pattern — and patterns are what attorneys general act on.

The quiet prevention layer

Nearly every one of these disputes begins the same way: a renewal date that passed unnoticed, then a cancellation under time pressure, done sloppily. Tracking renewal dates — and cancelling ahead of them, in writing, calmly — is what makes this entire page something you read once and never need.

This page gives general information, not legal advice. Statutes are summarised; the wording that binds is the current text of the law itself. For a contested case, a consumer-protection office or a licensed attorney in your state is the right address.