Although the majority of apps available on mobile devices are free, plenty do offer ‘in app purchases’ which are basically addons or extras that you can buy within the app once you’ve downloaded it.
Some of these in app purchases can be one off, additional pieces of content or they can be an upgraded monthly subscription package, it varies from app to app.
A lot of people understandably get tempted by these in app purchases and end up purchasing them. When it’s an in app purchase for a subscription, you may decide that after a few months you’re not getting much use from the add-on and want to cancel it.
In this article, we are going to explain how you can do that directly through your phone and also look at alternative methods of getting your money back should the purchase have been made accidentally or in error.
How to cancel an in app purchase iPhone – The easy way
For this article, we are going to be looking at how you do this on iOS devices, so if you are using an android phone then this may be of little use to you.
To cancel an in app purchase, or any paid subscription for that matter, you need to take the following steps on your iOS device:
- Select the ‘settings’ app on your iPhone.
- Select your name on the top of this page – this will take you to your personal Apple ID page.
- On this page, select ‘subscriptions’.
- On this page you will able to see all of your active subscriptions and all of your expired ones. To cancel a subscription, which will have come from an in app purchase, select the relevant app from the ‘active’ list and select ‘cancel subscription’.
It’s worth noting that your subscription will still run until the next renewal date so you can still make the most of your subscription until that date comes.
To keep up to date on all of your subscriptions and renewals, it is worth having renewal receipts turned on.
This will remind you each time a payment comes out for a subscription and could jolt you into cancelling it in plenty of time before the next payment date should you no longer have any use for the app.
This method will sort you out if you are looking to cancel an ongoing subscription.
However, what if you’ve accidentally signed up to something that you didn’t want or if money is being taken out of your account for an in app purchase that you’ve never even downloaded? Let’s take a look.
Contact apple directly
The best way to get a refund from an in app purchase if you’ve either accidentally signed up to something or if you find money randomly going out of your account is to contact apple directly.
There is not much point in getting in touch with the app directly because the money is taken and process by apple via your Apple ID. Please follow these steps to ensure that your problem is dealt with by the correct department:
- Head to reportaproblem.apple.com.
- Sign in with your Apple ID and password.
- Tap or click “I’d like to.”
- Choose “Request a refund.”
- Choose the reason why you want a refund, then choose Next.
- Choose the item or items that you bought, then choose Submit.
Please make sure the money has gone out of your bank before submitting a ticket – if it’s only showing in your pending transactions on your banking app then hold off on contacting apple until it’s out of your pending transactions list and actually left your bank account.
Contact your bank
Talking of banking, if you have absolutely no idea where the charge has come from and you’ve never downloaded or even heard of the app then you may be a victim of a scam.
If this is the case then contact your bank immediately and they’ll be able to assist you with scam/fraud prevention and getting the transaction refunded to you.
Delete all apps that you’ve had previous subscriptions with
One final, quick tip for anyone who has expired subscriptions on certain apps – delete the apps from your phone.
This will avoid any possibility of you accidentally re-triggering the in app purchase and starting the payments again. It will also clear space on your phone for apps that you actually want to use.
Conclusion
We hope that this article has helped you to cancel any in app purchases that you’ve previously made. For subscription cancellations the process is very straightforward, whereas for accidental purchases the process can be a little bit more time consuming and stressful.
Nevertheless, by following our suggested steps you should get the money refunded to your account on any accidental or mistaken purchases.
If you have found this article to be useful then feel free to come back to our website at any time if you have any other help requests related to mobile phone apps.
