Before a company can convert your free trial into a paid subscription, federal law requires it to clearly show you the full cost and terms of that conversion and get your separate, affirmative agreement to be charged. The free trial conversion disclosure requirements come from the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA), codified at 15 U.S.C. §§ 8401–8404, and from the FTC’s updated Negative Option Rule and 2024 Click-to-Cancel rule, which together cover trials that automatically roll into recurring charges across nearly every medium.1Federal Trade Commission. Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act2Federal Trade Commission. Federal Trade Commission Announces Final Click-to-Cancel Rule Making It Easier for Consumers to End Recurring Subscriptions and Memberships
The Material Terms a Seller Must Show You
Under 15 U.S.C. § 8403, it is illegal to charge you through a negative option feature unless the seller first provides text that “clearly and conspicuously discloses all material terms of the transaction” before obtaining your billing information.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 8403 – Negative Option Marketing on the Internet “All material terms” means the seller has to spell out that the subscription will keep going unless you cancel, the dollar amount you will be charged once the trial ends, and how often the charges will hit.
The FTC’s final Negative Option Rule pins this down. Section 425.4 requires disclosure of “the amount (or range of costs) the consumer will be Charged and, if applicable, the frequency of the Charges a consumer will incur unless the consumer takes timely steps to prevent or stop those Charges.”4Federal Trade Commission. Negative Option Rule The length of the trial has to be specific too. “7 days” or “14 days,” not something vague like “introductory period.” A company that hides or omits any of these before collecting your card number is breaking the rule.
How the Disclosure Has to Appear on the Page
Wording alone isn’t enough. The FTC’s Dot Com Disclosures guidance says that putting a disclosure “somewhere in the ad, where some consumers might find it, does not meet the clear and conspicuous standard.”5Federal Trade Commission. Dot Com Disclosures – How to Make Effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising The text has to be readable on both desktop and mobile, use strong color contrast, and sit near the claim it relates to.
Proximity to the sign-up button is where most of the compliance work happens. The guidance tells sellers to “display disclosures before consumers make a decision to buy” and place them “as close as possible to the triggering claim.”5Federal Trade Commission. Dot Com Disclosures – How to Make Effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising You should not have to scroll past the disclosure to reach the “Start My Trial” button. If scrolling is unavoidable, the disclosure needs to be unavoidable itself, meaning you cannot complete the transaction without scrolling through it.
Burying the terms inside a hyperlinked Terms of Service page does not work. The FTC guidance flatly says “it is highly unlikely that consumers will read disclosures buried in ‘terms of use’ and similar lengthy agreements” and that such placement fails to prevent deception even if it serves a contractual purpose.5Federal Trade Commission. Dot Com Disclosures – How to Make Effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising
Your Consent Has to Be Separate and Affirmative
ROSCA requires the seller to obtain your “express informed consent” before charging you.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 8403 – Negative Option Marketing on the Internet For online transactions, the FTC’s Negative Option Rule requires “unambiguously affirmative consent to the Negative Option Feature offer separately from any other portion of the transaction.”4Federal Trade Commission. Negative Option Rule The word “separately” is doing serious work. A single checkbox that bundles agreement to recurring charges with your acceptance of a privacy policy or general terms of service does not qualify.
In practice, that means a dedicated checkbox you actively select, not one that is pre-checked. The consent area must be “clear, unambiguous, non-deceptive, and free of any information not directly related to the consumer’s acceptance of the Negative Option Feature.”4Federal Trade Commission. Negative Option Rule Pre-checked boxes that force you to uncheck them to avoid charges are the textbook example of what regulators treat as deceptive.
Confirmation and Reminder Notices
After you sign up, the business has to send you a confirmation you can keep. That usually arrives as an email right after registration and should include the full terms: price, billing date, and cancellation instructions. The FTC’s disclosure obligation covers the post-transaction acknowledgment, not just the sign-up screen.
Many states have enacted automatic renewal statutes requiring a “retainable” acknowledgment, meaning something you can save or print rather than a message that flashes and disappears. Those state laws often reach further than the federal baseline. For trials lasting more than about a month, some states also require a reminder notification several days before the first paid charge, with the advance-notice window typically falling between 3 and 21 days depending on the state.
Cancellation Has to Match the Sign-Up Path
The FTC’s Click-to-Cancel rule, which took full effect in 2025, requires cancellation to be “as easy for consumers to cancel their enrollment as it was to sign up.”2Federal Trade Commission. Federal Trade Commission Announces Final Click-to-Cancel Rule Making It Easier for Consumers to End Recurring Subscriptions and Memberships If you signed up online, you cancel online. If you signed up by phone, you cancel by phone. The seller cannot force you to call a retention line when you enrolled through a website.6Federal Trade Commission. The FTC’s Click to Cancel Rule The rule also prohibits sellers from erecting “unreasonable barriers to cancellation.”
Penalties When a Company Gets It Wrong
ROSCA violations count as violations of a rule under Section 18 of the FTC Act, which lets the FTC use its full enforcement toolkit for unfair or deceptive practices.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 8404 – Enforcement by Federal Trade Commission Civil penalties for knowing rule violations were adjusted to $53,088 per violation as of January 2025, with a further inflation adjustment published effective January 2026.8Federal Register. Adjustments to Civil Penalty Amounts Each individual consumer transaction where the seller failed to disclose material terms or capture proper consent can be a separate violation, so exposure scales quickly for services with large subscriber bases.
The FTC also regularly pursues injunctive relief and restitution, forcing companies to refund affected consumers. Enforcement actions have hit streaming services, supplement sellers, and software trial operators.
If You’ve Already Been Charged
If a company converts your trial without proper disclosure or consent, the fastest step is disputing the charge with your card issuer. Under the Fair Credit Billing Act, you can dispute billing errors by writing to the issuer within 60 days of the statement showing the charge. The issuer then has 30 days to acknowledge your complaint and 90 days to resolve it.9Federal Trade Commission. Using Credit Cards and Disputing Charges
Filing a complaint with the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov will not produce a direct refund, but it feeds the data the agency uses to build cases. When enough complaints accumulate against one company, an enforcement action can lead to consumer refunds through settlement or court order.