The increasing consumption of subscription-based applications and services has raised an issue of recurring charges lately. Recurring charges can make your life easy and quickly drain your hard-earned money. In this article, we will learn how to stop recurring payments at banks.
Many a time, we take subscriptions of services like Netflix or health-tracking apps, but gradually our usage frequency declines. Eventually, we forget to cancel the subscription, but recurring charges continue to happen and drain out our money. Hence, knowing when and how to stop recurring payments saves up that extra debiting. Fret not! We will help you by telling you how to stop recurring charges at your bank. For articles similar to this, click here.
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Before that, let us understand what recurring charges are?
What are recurring charges?
When you take an application subscription, for example, Adobe Photoshop, your bank automatically deducts the subscription fee at regular intervals. It could be based on a monthly, quarterly, or annual subscription plan. You can pay recurring charges via credit card, debit cards, UPI, or other prepaid instruments.
Not only in subscriptions, but recurring payments also take place in your motor or home insurance policies.
Recurring charges are beneficial as long as you keep track of the services or applications you are regularly using. But, if you have a million applications subscription, keeping track of the recurring charges could be difficult. In such cases, it is preferable to know how to stop recurring payments for the applications you don’t use anymore.
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We have written down a few ways to stop recurring payments at the bank.
1. Cancel directly through the service or app company
An easy option to block the recurring charges is to cancel your subscription directly from the company’s website. Write to or call the company at least 24 hours before the next transaction date to cancel the subscription.
Once you cancel your subscription, don’t forget to confirm it by sending a follow-up mail to the company.
2. Apply for a “Stop Payment Order” from your bank
“Stop Payment Order” instructs your bank to stop all the recurring charges to the service company you don’t use anymore. The bank will stop the service-providing company from taking payments from your account.
To apply for the stop payment order policy, you will have to write to the bank in a specific format three days before the scheduled automatic payment.
3. Revoke Authorization
You have the option to dismiss the permission for the service-providing company to take recurring charges from your bank account, and further, you inform your bank.
We call this “revoke authorization.”
4. Cancel via your debit card issuer
If you want to stop recurring payments, contact your debit card issuer. The debit card issuer can directly control the recurring charges if you inform them immediately to block the automatic debit card regular payments. You can contact the issuer via mail or direct call. Based on the issuer’s terms and conditions, the card issuer can help you recover and refund the payments due to an error.
Also, always remember to record the date and time of conversation for future references and complications.
Will getting a new debit card stop the recurring payments?
To know how to stop recurring payments on a debit card, you might want to know RBI’s new guidelines. According to the guidelines, getting a new debit card will allow the cardholders to either disapprove or approve their recurring charges. The consumers can pay the service provider directly via their debit card to make the charges uninterrupted. Banks like HDFC or Axis bank have released a notice that any e-mandate or standing instructions to process regular payments will NOT BE APPROVED by the bank.
The process –
- Consumers will receive a notification from the bank 24 hours before debiting a mandate.
- The notification will consist of details like the merchant’s name, transaction amount, date of debit, reference number of transaction, and the reason for the debit.
- The consumer will further have the option to approve or disapprove the transaction.
How to prevent such recurring charges in the future?
Now that you know how to stop recurring payments let us look at ways to prevent such situations in future subscriptions. You can avoid extra recurring charges in the methods listed below.
1. Set a reminder when your free trial ends
If you are a bit dodgy about taking a subscription for a service and want to go for the free trial first, do set a reminder of the date when the free trial ends. Make sure to complete the free trial if you don’t like the service or the app. Otherwise, the service company will charge the subscription fee automatically the moment your free trial duration is over.
2. Share the subscription with friends or family.
Shared subscriptions are the best ways to cut some slack on your subscription fee and enhance your bond with family members and friends. Many companies like Hulu or Netflix allow us to create more than one account under one subscription. Meaning more than one person can easily use the service. You can ask your friends or loved ones if they can share their subscription accounts. In this way, you both can save up some money.
3. Keep track of budgeting.
It is essential to add the recurring subscription fee to your monthly budget before signing up for the subscription. It will help you keep track of how much money you will be spending on the subscription and make it easier for you to decide if you want to spend that amount on the service or not.
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Conclusion
To avoid any complications with the recurring charges, we recommend always keeping track of your subscriptions, blocking them if not required, and trying to save up your money by preventing the extra regular payments.
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