Consumeractive
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Can Zoom refuse refund for unwanted subscription renewal?
Q My girlfriend signed up to the video-chat service Zoom (www. zoom.com), which has now taken an automatic subscription renewal. She hasn’t used the service for most of the past year and will have no need for it in the future. However, she’s finding it impossible to get a refund from Zoom. Isn’t Zoom bound by UK consumer law? If so, surely it must refund her. She paid using PayPal.
Vincent Hampstead
A Zoom Communications is based in California, but like any company that offers services here it’s bound by UK law. That means under the Consumer Contract Regulations Vincent’s girlfriend had 14 days to cancel her renewed subscription, as long as she hadn’t used Zoom in any way.
But what counts as ‘using’? This is often hard to define, but in the case of renewing Zoom for a second year we’d argue it means actually making a video call through the software, not merely opening or updating it. Zoom would have to prove that she did this during those 14 days to refuse a refund. When you first subscribe, ‘using’ a service or program is sometimes defined as downloading it – even if you do nothing meaningful with it. Every program is different, though, so check with the developer if you think there’s a chance you’ll seek a refund. And don’t forget to check whether they offer a free trial.