The subscription trap ban has passed. But don’t wait until 2027

5 October 2026

Tom Kaldor

Numbers Story Cheat code (A)just for fun Wins club

Power in numbers

What people did on Ajust this week

939

people took action

▼ 1% on last week

334

case plans we prepared

▲ 5% on last week

$118,526

at stake in those plans

▼ 27% on last week

1529

Biggest win

Amy’s refund from an online car retailer for two orders of the wrong rims. The retailer confirmed it in writing, then took two weeks and a final demand to actually pay.

Spike alert

McDonald’s
Long drive-through waits, wrong orders and staff conduct, at 13 stores across the country, and the third rising week in a row.
Close to three times its usual share: 4.5% vs 1.7%

Under control

Woolworths
Five complaints this week, down from 12 the week before.
Half its usual share: 1.5% vs 3.1%

Story of the week

Trapped until 2027

In July, Parliament passed a ban on subscription traps. The new law says cancelling will have to be easy to find and straightforward, and if you signed up online, you must be able to leave online.

Companies that break the rules face penalties of $100 million or more, but it starts on 1 July 2027.

Until then, the traps are still working. More than 20 of the 334 case plans Ajust prepared this week were about subscriptions and memberships: gyms, streaming, apps and store memberships people never meant to keep.

Three patterns kept coming up in this week’s cases:

Charged for a membership nobody remembers joining. “Kogan withdrew $129 on 21st September for Kogan First membership but I never ordered it.”
Cancelled, and charged anyway. “I cancelled my Dodo account on the 15th September - but today my credit card was charged $80 for the month.”
An exit that is hard to find. One gym member just wanted the cancellation form: “i need their form so i can email it to them to cancel”

The small charges are the ones that run longest. One father found his son had been paying $14.99 a month for a Dick Smith FIRST membership for a year: 13 charges in all.

Ajust wrote to Dick Smith, listed all 13 charges and asked for every one back to the original card, then set a deadline. On the deadline day, Dick Smith agreed to refund all 13: $194.87. Kogan agreed to refund two more memberships ($129 and $49) and Dick Smith a $129 annual one. All told, Ajust got $501.87 in membership charges agreed for refund across four cases this week.

What you can do:

Check your statement for small monthly charges you don’t recognise, and look back more than one month.
Ask for every charge back, in writing, listed by date, to the card it came from. Not store credit, and not “from today”.
Keep your cancellation confirmation. A charge after that date is a refund request, not a new month.

Consumer cheat code

When the shop says no, ask your bank

Most people think a refund is the shop’s call. Not always. If you paid by card and the goods weren’t as described, your bank may be able to reverse the payment. It’s called a chargeback.

The move: complain to the business in writing first, so there’s a record of it saying no. Then call your bank:

“I’d like to dispute a card transaction. The goods weren’t as described, and the seller has refused a full refund.”

To your bank, by phone or in the app, once the seller has said no in writing

The payoff: Jason paid $90 online for two pairs of shorts sold as a big-brand label. He says they weren’t. Ajust’s demand got an offer of 30%; after Ajust pushed back, 50%, or a full refund if he posted them to China at his own cost. He called Westpac instead. By 8 October: “Bank has paid me $90”.

(A)just for fun

Two to lift, one turned up

His Bunnings order for a charcoal spit roaster carried a $45 charge for “unload assistance”: a second person on the delivery. One person turned up, and the roaster went, in Stefano’s words, “virtually straight off the ute into the garage”.

Three case numbers and three follow-ups later, Bunnings confirmed the $45 was coming back.

Wins club

People who won this week

Iain’s $1,399 refund for an iMac that arrived damaged.
Mel’s $712 from Agoda, cancelled with a cash refund agreed within 24 hours of her complaint.
Layla’s $598 from Amart, delivery fee included, after her replacement sofa was left blocking a shared staircase in the rain.
S’s $52.25 from Temu for a faulty car jump starter, after Ajust took it to the regulator.
Mark’s Stan subscription cancelled, with Stan confirming in writing that the charges stop.
M’s Zap Fitness membership cancelled on 30 days’ notice, with no early termination fee.

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