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President Lemke gives hope: Cottbus transfers are stalling!
Cottbus on July 22nd, 2025: News about club activities and legal aspects of free test offers in the energy industry.
President Lemke gives hope: Cottbus transfers are stalling!
In today's consumer landscape, free trial offers are all the rage. They allow consumers to discover services and products without having to pull out their wallet. But this also creates legal sticking points that many people do not have on their radar. Consumers must know exactly what rights and obligations they have when taking out such offers. As verbraucheranwalt-online.de describes, it is essential to understand the conditions exactly.
From March 2022, a new consumer protection law came into force in Germany, which limits the minimum term of contracts from free trial offers to 24 months. This change aims to better protect consumers, as it can be read. In addition, contract extensions can only take place with the express consent of users, which is forcing many companies to rethink their practices.
Information and clarity required
Another point is the information obligation of companies: They are obliged to provide clear and understandable information about all conditions, which is often not done sufficiently. Particular criticisms include unclear termination conditions and the practice of automatic extensions, which pose problems for many users. A cancellation button on provider websites could alleviate at least some of the challenges here, as it would enable simple and user-friendly cancellation.
A ruling by the European Court of Justice Ermisch is currently causing a stir, which deals with the right of cancellation of subscriptions. As sbs-legal.de reports, the consumer must be clearly informed about the paid transition after a free trial phase. The ruling concerns a case in which a user had a 30-day free trial subscription. If this was not canceled in time, the test phase ended with a fee.
Consumer rights
The rights of consumers are clearly defined: They have the right to informational transparency, timely termination and the option of extraordinary termination, for example in the event of price increases or significant changes to the contractual conditions. This is important so that you don't fall into the “subscription trap”, which is also often discussed in Austria. The Association for Consumer Information (VKI) has called for an additional right of withdrawal when a free offer turns into a paid one - a conscious and simultaneous safeguarding of consumer rights.
Consumers are therefore well advised to study the contract details carefully and keep an eye on the notice periods. Acting too late can result in being caught in an unwanted payment. In summary, clear communication of the conditions is the key to avoiding unpleasant surprises, and the new regulations also do their part to support consumers.
The developments surrounding free trial offers and consumer protection are a hot topic that will certainly continue to cause a stir in the coming months. It is to be hoped that measures will continue to be taken to provide consumers with clear guidance.