This exact same thing happened to me while subscribing with www.1and1.fr for a 1 year free domain name + 100mb disk space. At the end of the year, they started charging me, but I never noticed because the credit card I used when I subscribed was expired.

A few months later I got a letter from a bailiff (not sure of the translation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huissier_de_justice) saying that I owed like 100$ to 1and1, then I got another letter, and another, I never replied and the story stopped here.

For what it's worth, pretty much all major credit card companies impose conditions on merchants who want to have delayed or recurring payments, which form the financial basis for this sort of dubious behaviour.

As a result, if someone is trying to pull a fast one like this, you probably don't need heavyweight legal action to defend yourself. The payment authority on your card will have expired when your card did and chances are that the merchant is required by their card processing service to get a new authority for any further payments. If they didn't, and they didn't contact you immediately but let the "debt" run up for a few months, that's basically their problem, and neither the credit card services nor the courts are likely to give them much sympathy. Whoever they sent after you is probably well aware of this, and gave up as soon as they realised the situation, particularly if they're only receiving a percentage of any money recovered as their fee.

I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, if you trust any legal comments you read on an Internet forum without independent verification then you're a fool, etc. :-)

Thanks for the reply, but this story in long over. This happened like 3 years ago, so I think they pretty much gave up by now.

Doesn't every MMORPG (World of Warcraft, etc.) violate this? You generally get your first month free, but still need to setup an account with recurring billing. If you don't cancel you start getting charged.

I guess usually you have to buy the box though so its not quite the same. Unless they offer the game free for download.

I don't know how WoW phrases it, but the promise "buy a subscription and get one month free" is not the same in the mind of the customer as the promise "free one-month trial". The first gives a more accurate description of what will happen to your credit card.

Yeah, eFax got me with this one a little while ago. Always set a reminder to cancel your membership!