Advisory

If I subscribe, can I cancel online myself, where I signed up?

ALS-COFFEE-1.2-CANCEL-001

This question is worth asking but is not reducible to a check a page can settle. It is published as guidance, not as a test.

Assertion

self_serve_cancellation is_stated true

Applicability

applies when
the page offers a recurring purchase option
signal
a subscription or recurring option on the page

Accepted evidence

  • product_description — a named cancellation mechanism in the same place the buyer signs up, with any cut-off stated
  • shipping_policy — the same mechanism described in the terms attached to the offer

Explicitly insufficient evidence

What does not count, and why. Published because the omission is where a check quietly becomes a claim.

  • "cancel anytime"
    The near-miss that will fool every keyword check. The whole premise of the regulation in this area is that the phrase is printed constantly and not honoured; it names no mechanism, no location and no cut-off, and it is fully consistent with a flow requiring a phone call during business hours.
  • "manage your subscription in your account"
    Managing is not cancelling; many portals offer only skip, pause, delay and swap.
  • "pause or skip anytime" where cancel is absent
    Deferring a shipment is not ending the commitment.
  • "contact us to cancel" framed as convenience
    It relocates the mechanism to a channel the seller controls and can queue.
  • a cancel link that opens a retention flow with no terminal cancel
    An offer to stay is not a mechanism to leave.
  • a claim of compliance with a click-to-cancel rule
    The federal rule most often named was vacated, so a compliance claim naming it refers to a rule that does not exist and should be read as a warning sign rather than as evidence.

Conflict rules

  • When the subscription selector is injected client-side and the terms are server-rendered — then record that the offer terms could not be read from the page as served rather than that they are absent

Discrimination

Authored expectation: no prediction, confidence low. The numeric band this standard used to carry is not published at this grammar version.

A named self-serve mechanism with a cut-off is rare while the unqualified phrase is near-universal, so the assertion would fail for nearly every page offering a subscription. Its value is entirely in refusing the phrase rather than in the pass rate.

The numeric fail-rate band this reasoning was authored with is NOT carried at grammar 1.2 and is not reproduced here. Authored bands held 1 of 10 against this category's own sample and every miss was HIGH, so a direction derived from the band would inherit the error that condemned it (SCHEMA.md §9.3 step 3). The band survives in ALS-COFFEE v1.1 (standard_hash f8ec2780f60c38931913e5b6cd37506500c8462709209de7180ba6691d6137e7), which is byte-frozen and still served.

For a shopper

Cancel anytime is the phrase regulators built rules around because it is printed constantly and often not honoured. What matters is whether the page names where and how you cancel, and whether there is a cut-off before the next shipment.

For a merchant

Name the cancellation mechanism and its location in the same place the buyer subscribes, state any cut-off, and make the flow terminate in an actual cancellation rather than in a retention offer.

Grounding

  • US Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act, 15 USC 8403 (legal_instrument)
    that a negative-option seller must provide simple mechanisms to stop recurring charges and must disclose material terms before obtaining billing information, which makes the cancellation mechanism a regulated web-page element