We were paying £26 a month for a subscription to The Times and decided it was too expensive, so stopped the payment assuming this ended the subscription. We were then subjected to several telephone calls from their employees informing us we owed £26 and the subscription could not be terminated until we rang to cancel the subscription and the next month's £26 had been paid. We had no option but to ring to cancel. The customer service line informed us that there are exceedingly long waits to get through to an adviser. The cancellation line rang twice and then cut off - this happened 3 times. We eventually got through to a woman on the cancellation line who informed us she was "working from home" and couldn't cancel our subscription until we had paid the next month's £26 despite us not wanting to continue the subscription. She said she was unable to take payments. After much wrangling she agreed to put us through to a person who could take our £26 (against our wishes) and cancel the subscription. The bottom line is it cost us £26 to get out of the subscription. Anyone thinking of subscribing to The Times please be aware that it has a sophisticated extortion operation working quietly in the background that only makes its presence known when you wish to leave.
