The Athletic UK Reviews 53

I was charged £59.99 for a yearly renewal that I was not reminded or warned about. I contacted the Athletic via their support pages to request a refund, which was given immediately along with an apology and no further questions asked.
They need to be clearer about their renewal policies and practices but it was a seamless process to get my money back.
I enjoyed my trial price subscription but don't feel their service is worth 60 quid a year.

Corrupt company, I cancelled my subscription and yet I’ve been charged £59.99 without my permission. Like others they’ve refused to refund me and have a dodgy terms and conditions. Avoid this company like the plague. Cancerous customer service policy to charge people for something they don’t want and didn’t agree to.

BE AWARE, CANCEL YOUR FREE SUBSCRIPTION OR RISK GETTING CHARGED £59.99 WITH NO REFUND.

Dodgy refund policy practice for a so called "legitimate" company. It's simply criminal. They lack any customer service channels, which makes you feel like you've been scammed. Tried to email, as per, they send you straight back to FAQ, or their policy articles. Rubbish.

I subscribed once as I got a deal on the price. The content itself is usually decent and thorough. However I wasn’t prepared to pay full price for the app and tried to cancel. This proved more difficult than it should have been.

Then you receive incessant emails about subscribing again, even though I chose to unsubscribe from their emails. I still receive emails now. I have tried emailing them about not receiving emails, but nobody replies.

The content is fine although probably not worth full price in my opinion. However the ease of cancelling and not being subjected to their almost daily emails despite having unsubscribed is not fine.

The Pathetic UK is biased garbage and likes to omit unfashionable others. Avoid like the plague if you have any sense of fairplay and decency.

Steer clear of any introductory offer or invite! Absolutely appalling subscription renewal management. Totally incompatible with consumer law.

Got a complementary subscription from BT for a year. Renewal took place this week at a full £59.99 without any prior warning, messaging at all - just withdrew the money.

This is contractually unfair (no notice) and will not stand up with the Financial Ombudsman. I asked for help on Twitter as there are no contact details or help desk because they are hiding behind a “website”.

This is sharp practice. I have already submitted a complaint to PayPal. I will also be contacting the Financial Ombudsman shortly and recommend anyone else in this situation does.

You will be found out “The Athletic” your “subscription renewal” practice is incompatible with law. You won’t be getting away with this much longer I am sure. You may have money now but eventually the regulators will be on your case.

Disgusting.

Absolutely abysmal. Gave no prior warning I was set to be billed for another year and just took £60 out of my account. Emailed explaining I cannot afford this given a change in circumstances and desperately need a refund - ignored. Emailed again - bot responses that do not acknowledge anything I’d said. Finally get a very rude email from a Hailey just outright refusing to do anything. Cannot believe a company could treat its customers and subscribers with such contempt, especially during the cost of living crisis. Would avoid at all costs - disgusting customer service

THE ATHLETIC CON PEOPLE BY ADVERTISING FREE TRIAL FOR 365 DAYS THEN YOU PAY £59.99. HOWEVER AFTER A WEEK THEY CHARGE YOU £59.99. THE PEOPLE RUNNING THIS COMPANY SHOULD BE DONE FOR FRAUD.

Cannot cancel subscription. They keep trying to take money even though I have cancelled, emailed and had confirmation of cancellation. Then suddenly it’s active again and they are trying to take cash.
What a dreadful experience. I am sorry I ever took up their offer.
The only consolation is that I used a virtual debit card so they can’t actually take my money.

They are charging my card for a subscription that was not setup correctly due to an error on their webpage. Signed up via Apple Pay. I have spoken to support, Apple themselves and my credit card issuer. The Athletic claim they cannot stop the charges (which is nonsense) and referred me to Apple, who in turn referred me to my credit card company who can only block the athletic from charging me if I ban all Stripe transactions on my account, which would basically prevent me shopping online. PLEASE STOP CHARGING MY CARD.

I’d used a student promotional deal last year to subscribe for one year, and was not emailed to notify me of my subscription ending recently, meaning I was automatically charged £60 without my knowledge or consent.

If I’d been aware of my yearly subscription ending, I would have cancelled it before it renewed, however, they simply didn’t inform me of that fact nor the fact that they took the £60 from my bank account. If I hadn’t been checking my bank statements anyway I would never have known!

When contacting customer service to request a refund, I was told via an automatic response email that refunds are strictly not given for cancellations. This is very disappointing and seems ridiculous as they don’t even give a good reason for it? If they’re going to attempt to quietly take large sums of money from users’ accounts you’d at least think they would have the decency to refund the money if they got caught.

My advice to others is to please keep track of how long your subscription is running for and therefore can cancel the subscriptions in plenty time if necessary, because The Athletic will never inform you themselves and will continue to silently take money from you and refuse to pay it back.

Signed up to the Athletic on a promotion and without a single email of warning changed my subscription payment amount to the full £60, charging me for the upcoming year.
I finally got in touch over Twitter (no response to emails) and asked for a full refund and to cancel my membership, however I was told no refunds are possible. Don't understand why a refund is not possible because the £60 is a charge for the upcoming year of articles of which haven't even been written. Would have cancelled and not paid £60 if I had the chance. This company cheat you out of your money!!!!

Signed up for a trial. Canceled straight away. They keep emailing me spam, i have unsubscribed several times, it does not work. Just avoid it