I’m really embarrassed to ask this, but has anyone else had unexpected charges after paying for something on a website? I’m too shy to talk about this with friends IRL, so I’m posting here. I came across a site that I thought would help me understand myself better—like talking to a therapist, but simpler and online.
I paid for access to the service, assuming it was a one-time fee. But about two weeks later, around thirty dollars was taken from my card. I checked their terms of service, and it says refunds are handled by some “refund policy,” but I couldn’t find the policy itself or any links to it. I got so confused that I called my bank and blocked my card—I was worried more charges might show up.
Now I’m wondering: did I miss something, or do sites like this just not warn you about subscriptions upfront? Is this how automatic payments work everywhere now? If anyone’s been through this, how did you sort it out? I’d be super grateful for any advice—I feel so dumb for not figuring this out right away.
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I’ve been there. Signed up for a “cheap” app once and got charged $50 later. So annoying
did they even mention a subscription when you paid?
Something like this happened to me with a fitness app
Always be very wary when providing payment information for anything online, especially if its a site or service you are not already familiar with.
I would never pay for anything online (even on known/trusted site) with any method that didn’t allow me to control whether they could charge me more.
Virtual cards are an excellent tool for this – you generate a unique card number for each merchant, or even for each transaction. You can set limits, expirations, or just outright lock or delete a number. Each number is only valid for charges from the first merchant/site to charge it, so if their systems are compromised and your card number is exposed, it can’t be used somewhere else.
Two card issuers I know of offer these that work in conjunction with (some of) their normal credit cards. Charges to the virtual cards show up just like charges to the physical card.
https://www.capitalone.com/digital/tools/eno/virtual-card-numbers/
https://www.cardbenefits.citi.com/Products/Virtual-Account-Numbers
There is also this one, that does not offer normal credit cards, but instead requires that you provide them access to a checking account/debit card to fund your payments.
https://www.privacy.com/