The Athletic HQReviews of theathletic.com

Signed up for a free trial a year ago. Never used the service. Completely forgot about it. Now I’ve just been stung with a £60 charge for the yearly subscription. Absolutely disgusting that companies can do this without giving a warning. Times are hard enough as it is. I haven’t got £60 to throw away. I’m not going to be able to pay my rent this month thanks to this. No way of contacting other than Twitter or LinkedIn. Absolute joke of a company.

Auto renewal scam artists. Cancel your auto renewals they’ll charge you with not option for refund even after a ‘free trial’.

I got a free six month subscription to The Athletic via a T-Mobile promotion. Within the first month, I saw the site was not for me. I sent an email asking them to cancel my subscription. I never got a response. After six months had passed, I got charged $60 to renew my subscription. I wrote another email, asking for help. Again, no reply. So I called AMEX and disputed the charge. Instead of being gracious and refunding me the subscription fee, The Athletic sent AMEX over 100 pages of documents to prove I owed the money. Even the customer service rep I spoke to at AMEX said, "Wow, they really want your money." The sportswriting is competent but indistinguishable from other sports outlets. But the customer service is worse than non-existent--it's predatory. I checked the box at the bottom of this review to let The Athletic know what I'm writing here. They said they will send the review to the same email addy I already wrote twice and never heard back from. Here's betting I once again never hear back. SMH

I have just been charged £59.95 for annual subscription . Not aware I had auto subscribed ! They haven't sent proof I have done so. I could cancel now but you lose the entire year immediately. Most sites allow you to forward cancel.

not only is the content poor and few are far between, the buggers make it almost impossible to cancel. leave them well alone.

I subscribed on a free 6 month subscription. Just before that ended, I tried to cancel. I spoke to the crew down at The Athletic and they referred me to the webpage that showed my profile - that web page offered no place to cancel and rather showed that I had not yet subscribed. So I thought that the 6 month trial had not initiated any payment and I did not need to do anything. But then I found out that they were still charging me... I think this was pretty disingenuous. They conceal pretty well any way to cancel subscription. So beware, especially if you are on a trial. It will most likely be extended beyond the trial whether you like it or not!

Here I am again, a year later. For those reading, heed the warnings on this site! 3rd year running, 3rd year billed. This, despite numerous attempts each year to cancel my account / unsubscribe (without replies in each instance - over 20 messages sent). I go through my bank each time to recoup my funds; you will likely have to do the same if trying to disengage.

Just terrible. No priori warning that I was due to be billed, and when I wrote to them explaining my circumstances had changed and I could no longer afford the service, I got bot replies that did not provide any sort of answer, before I received a very rude response from Hailey. Especially in the cost of living crisis I find this morally deplorable. Would avoid at all costs and it’s created significant issues for me at a time when I am financially unable to be spending £60 on a sports subscription.