Background
I imagine many of you will have been tempted to start a free LoveFilm trial. For whatever reason, when the trial comes to an end you may decide not to start paying for membership. At that point, you would think all you need to do is log in to your account and click a big “Cancel” button. Sadly, with LoveFilm that is not the case. According to their Help Centre article, LoveFilm expect you to make a phone call of around 4 minutes to their call centre to “provide feedback” and cancel your account. The word in the forums is that this involves persuading their customer retention representative that you really really really do want to cancel, and that you’re really really not interested in any special offers or cheaper packages.
In my opinion, any service which you sign up for online and use exclusively online (e.g. LoveFilm Instant) should be possible to cancel online too, especially when there’s no contract and the provider makes a point of saying you can cancel at any time. Any company which forces you to jump through hoops to escape after a trial period, no matter how easy it may be, is effectively trying to retain customers by making it awkward to leave. It would be better if they invested that time and effort in improving the quality of their service, and then had the confidence to let customers decide to stay of their own accord.
How To Cancel Online
Now I really don’t like speaking to call centres if I can avoid it, so I did some research and discovered that in fact it is still possible to cancel your LoveFilm account online, but only if you do this when their call centre is closed (I believe this is between midnight and 8am). If you visit your My Account page and click the Cancel link, you can answer a few questions and cancel without speaking to anyone. This solution worked for me yesterday (August 6th 2012). Fantastic!
Update: 1st September 2013
Some LoveFilm users have recently found that the online cancellation link works for them during normal office hours, and that the standard feedback questions were optional and could be skipped during the cancellation process. I therefore recommend you first try to cancel at a convenient moment during the day before staying up late and trying after midnight, and that you don’t answer any optional feedback questions (unless you really want to)!
Update 2: 15th September 2013
One user has just found a slightly different cancellation link that seems to work at any time of day for them. This is exactly the same as the original cancellation link but without the trailing ‘.html’ extension. I suspect these links both go to the same place and that this just means LoveFilm has lifted the time restriction on its standard cancellation mechanism (as suggested by my previous update above). Please let me know what your experience is so that I can try to keep this page updated…
Update 3: 28th February 2014
I received a message this evening from someone who just successfully managed to cancel their LoveFilm subscription through the main Amazon website. He apparently managed to do this by going to Your Account and then Manage Prime Membership, where you are presented with options to change or cancel your membership. Apparently he was offered the choice of cancelling immediately or just preventing the next automatic renewal of his membership. This is definitely worth trying if you have previously linked your Amazon and LoveFilm accounts together. Let me know if this works for you.
On a related note, if you’re currently a member of LoveFilm and you only use their “Instant” internet streaming service (and don’t ever borrow physical discs), you might be able to save some money by cancelling your account and moving over to a new Amazon Prime membership which now includes unlimited video streaming. Please read this Expert Reviews article for further details and advice.
Update 4: 10th March 2014
There still seems to be lots of confusion surrounding the recent changes to LoveFilm following the launch of Amazon’s Prime Instant Video service in the UK, which is now included in Prime membership (with a corresponding price increase from £49/year to £79/year).
These are the two most useful help articles that should explain how these changes will affect you:
Update 5: 23rd March 2014
One user has just reported that he managed to cancel his LoveFilm subscription within a few minutes using “Mayday” video support on an Amazon Kindle device, so this might be worth trying if you have access to a Mayday-compatible Kindle.
Another reader wanted to make others aware that when he signed up for a 30 day free LoveFilm trial he was also implicitly signed up for Amazon Prime membership, which wasn’t clear to him at the time. When he recently tried to cancel he was given the option to discontinue his account when its monthly renewal was scheduled to take place, rather than with immediate effect, which worked well for him. It is very important to appreciate the connection between your LoveFilm subscription and Amazon Prime membership if you signed up for a trial before the recent rebranding of LoveFilm to Amazon Prime Instant Video.
Update 6: 7th May 2014
Another reader just got in touch to pass on how he just managed to cancel his “LoveFilm By Post” subscription. Here are his steps:
- Log into Your Account on Amazon.
- In the third box down, “Settings”, the bottom entry in the “Account Settings” section is “LOVEFiLM By Post Membership”.
- Go to this page and in the left-hand column is your current plan with a cancel option.
Hope this helps!
Try Netflix Instead
Once you’ve cancelled your LoveFilm trial, consider trying an alternative provider such as Netflix, which allows you to cancel your account easily at any time through their website. Clearly they have more confidence in their service, given the ease of cancellation and the slightly higher price compared to LoveFilm. I have now moved over to them for the following reasons:
- They have an Android App which actually works on my Google Nexus 7 (as it doesn’t rely on Flash support).
- Their algorithm which recommends films based on your tastes and preferences actually works very well, and does suggest some interesting options.
- They offer a wider choice of American TV series.
- They are a supporter of Open Source software.
I hope this blog post makes it easier for you to cancel your LoveFilm trial (or full membership), and maybe persuades you to give Netflix a try.
Crikey. Not willing to wait up until such an anti-social hour, I just went for the telephone option anyway, and I can confirm that it’s a seriously hard sell, to try to get you to stay. Am seriously unimpressed, and took the opportunity to say so to a supervisor…
this doesn’t work any-more unless going on US times- not sure why they would though, definitely not recommending Love Film to friends
Thanks for the comment – sorry to hear this isn’t working. I can’t test it myself as I’m no longer a member of LoveFilm! I really hope they make it easier for customers to cancel in future.
I just tried to cancel at about 11:55 and it didn’t let me do it online. I went back at 00:02 and I could cancel online in seconds! It still works, thanks!!
Thanks for letting me know Edd – I’m really glad it still works!
thank you for your post! I couldn’t find what you’re talking about, but i’ve found the online way… which for me was get in to my account and click on “how do i cancel my…” and there I’ve found the little survey … done it and that’s it! 🙂
Thanks for commenting on your experience – I’m glad you managed to cancel your account online.
Hi Ian,
Just done this and it worked for me – spent 10 minutes twice on the phone. 1st time getting angry and 2nd time to amuse myself… spent 1 minute online.
Thanks for the post
That’s excellent news – thanks for the feedback!
THANKYOU THANKYOU THANKYOU
ive been at the cancellation point now less that 6 times now and they put on the pressure, i really had enough of love film when they stopped support for flash, killing all my android streaming. Netfilx on the other hand has been truely fantasic for me.
it took me only a couple of mins to finally get rid of this unwanted account using this method and also taking a passing shot at their service (or lack of for me)
thanks again
Excellent – I’m really glad my post was useful (and that you’ve moved over to Netflix!).
Just followed your online intructions and it worked in seconds thanks
That’s excellent – thanks for letting me know. Ian
Useful to know how you cancel Love Film online ta as I know a few people who’ve found it hard to cancel. I’ve tried Netflix myself but actually find their range of US dramas when you’re a UK resident is nowhere near as good as those offered on Love Films DVD service which since I agree with you that the user interface of Netflix is actually better is rather annoying, as I’ve actually just ran out of things to watch with Netflix (for the 2nd time).
Thanks for your comment. I haven’t come close to running out of Netflix content yet, but then I mainly watch films rather than dramas! It is a shame that UK residents get a reduced choice on Netflix compared to US residents, but I suspect that’s due to licensing costs/restrictions from the rights holders rather than a Netflix decision or strategy.
Hi Ian,
You’re pretty high up the Google “How do I cancel this damn subscription” ranking so thought I’d drop you a line.
I’ve just cancelled a free subscription after foolishly signing up via my PS3. I logged into my Lovefilm account and noticed what it said about phoning so looked around for another way. I found your blog and followed the “Cancel” link. I didn’t have to do this out of hours either. Also I ignored the feedback questions.
Many thanks,
Richard.
Thanks for your feedback Richard. It sounds like LoveFilm may have lifted the time restriction on their online cancellation mechanism. I’m afraid I can’t verify if this is their new standard policy as I’m no longer a member, but I’ll add a comment to my original post advising users to check if online cancellation is possible for them during normal office hours.
Thanks again,
Ian
Just managed to cancel my account in the uk at 9.30pm so the link still works. Netflix is a lot better…buffers quicker, never drops from HD to SD all the time and you can see what you have watched before and create a list of films to watch. (not forgetting mobile phone support)
Shame as i have been with lovefilm for a long time too.
Hi Lee,
Thanks very much for the feedback – I’m glad to hear you were able to cancel your LoveFilm account this way (and without waiting until midnight!). Also glad to hear you’re a fellow Netflix fan. The quality and reliability of their full HD streams continues to amaze me.
All the best,
Ian
Much more reliable way is to use this url:
https://www.lovefilm.com/account/cancel
(note without the .html). This works anytime.
Thanks very much for the info Dom. I’ve just added an update to the article to let people know what you’ve found. Once I get confirmation that this alternative link works for other users too, I’ll update the main article to save people the trouble of reading the updates!
Thanks again,
Ian
Thanks for this post and the links, you’re currently 2nd on Google for ‘cancel lovefilm’.
I have to admit, they managed to completely baffle me at the call centre. By the end of the call I wasn’t even sure whether I’d managed to cancel the subscription or not!
Thanks Neil! So did you manage to cancel your subscription by phone in the end or not?! I really don’t know why they try to make the process so painful. It’s not like someone is going to change their mind about cancelling if the cancellation system is really irritating!
Ian
Thanks for the post. The Cancel link (without .html) worked a treat.
It’s disgusting that LoveFilm make you jump through hoops to cancel their service. If you can sign up online without needing to phone a call centre, then you should bloody well be able to cancel it in the same way!!
Thanks again!
– Paul
Thanks very much for the feedback Paul – I’m glad the cancellation link worked for you. I totally agree with you about the need for online cancellation! 🙂
All the best,
Ian
link 2 worked a treat mate thanks for your help
Glad to hear it – thanks for the feedback.
Ian
Thanks for this.
Hopefully it’s all gone through ol.
Thanks Steve – glad to help. Ian
Hi
I signed up using my Amazon account. Don’t do this as
1 none of the cancel links work anymore – lovefilm has dropped them
2 I expect it will nog be straightforward when I call them and will probably muck up my existing accounts in some way
Hi,
Thanks for your comments. Sorry to hear you’re having some issues. Are you saying neither of these cancellation links worked for you at any time of day? They still seem to be working for other users – I wonder if it’s different for people who signed up through their Amazon account?
Best wishes,
Ian
Many thanks, your cancellation online advice was perfect and I cancelled my account in minutes. I agree that any online subscription service provider should be required to have a simple cancellation facility as mandatory.
Hi Graham,
Thanks very much for your feedback – I’m really glad this was useful. Happy New Year!
Ian
thanks mate..worked for me online..just now..2nd jan 2014 6 2 pm UK time. its a shame the link must be well hiden on their website…avoid at all costs people…!!
Hi Neil,
Thanks very much for the feedback – really glad this worked for you.
Happy New Year!
Ian
Just cancelled my account, very simple and straight forword, only took two mins. Here i come Netfix
That’s great news – welcome to the revolution! 😉
Thanks for the comment,
Ian
I managed to cancel my account online at around 1pm a couple of weeks ago and it seems to have worked! I checked just to make sure and it says “If you would like to sign up to the service again, all you have to do is reactivate your account.” Although I haven’t received an email confirming it… I’m sure it’ll be fine though!
Thanks very much for this, it was so useful 😀
Hi Shannon,
That’s great news – thanks for the feedback. It’s interesting that it worked at 1pm for you – perhaps they’ve relaxed their restrictions on online cancellation.
Ian
Thanks very much, the updated link takes just 2 or 3 clicks and you’ve cancelled, brilliant!!
This was today at 08:39
That’s great news Rob! Thanks, Ian
No link to cancel for me it just says ring the number
Hi Russell,
Sorry to hear you’re having problems. Did you try clicking directly on both the cancellation links in this post? If so, you might find they only work out of hours?
Hope you get it sorted out. Good luck!
Ian
This was really helpful thank you, saved me a lengthy phone call.
Excellent – glad this worked for you. Thanks, Ian
Thanks for the advice, pleased to report the link still works, cancelled at 2pm
That’s excellent news Cath! Thanks, Ian
Hi Ian, just wanted to say thank you very much for the cancellation link. I used the one under the September 2013 update. I signed up using my Amazon account so was a bit apprehensive if it wouldn’t work like the person that commented on Dec.2013, but it went through smoothly & I got an email confirmation straight away confirming that my account’s been cancelled. I did it just now, about 1.20 a.m. UK time. Thanks again 🙂
Excellent – I’m really glad it worked out for you! Thanks for letting me know, Ian
Good post Ian. I tried the telephone option a year or so ago…and yes I caved in and agreed to the 3 months free offer. I of course had no intention of paying after the 3 months were up so sent customer services an email telling them I wanted to cancel my account, which to be fair they did. Then I noticed they only “freeze” your account, keeping all your details??
So in true Victor Meldrew mode this bugged me so much I sent them another email asking them to DELETE all my details, name, card details etc. They have emailed me back agreeing to do so!
I am now on NETFLIX and cant believe how different it is. It may not have the vast erray of straight to DVD films that Lovefilm have but the tv choice is good and the menu page is miles better. It recommends titles based on your previous viewing and it works pretty well 🙂 Though they could improve on the films!
Hi Martin,
Thanks for the positive feedback – I’m glad to hear you’re happier after switching to Netflix. I find the Netflix recommendations algorithm to be really helpful when I’m looking for new films to watch, and their user interface is nice and simple to navigate and consistent across all the different platforms. Most importantly though, their high definition streams have excellent picture quality and I never have any problems with buffering or lag.
Ian
PS – I also hate it when companies try to retain my personal data even after I’ve supposedly cancelled/closed my account. Good on you for getting them to delete your data!
Hi used the web cancel log in on Amazon and it worked fine – thanks.
Thanks for the tip Duaat – I’m glad you’ve managed to cancel. Ian
HI,
Thanks for the link. Don’t know if anyone else has had this…. just canceled (i think) it says “cancellation pending” we will cancel when we receive all disc’s back. I haven’t got any disc’s out, haven’t taken any for a while now. Shall I contact love film to make sure it is canceled?
Hi Megan,
Sorry to hear that you’re having an issue with your cancellation. I would definitely log-in to Lovefilm and check your account history to see which discs they think you still have outstanding. If there’s no record of any outstanding discs, my guess is that they need to do some kind of manual step to process your cancellation. It’s quite common for companies like that to phone a customer and give them a special offer to try to persuade them not to cancel, so you might want to wait a day and then check again tomorrow evening. If it still says “pending” then I would call their customer services number and ask them why. Hope that helps – let me know what happens.
Good luck, Ian
I couldn’t cancel using the online link so I called Amazon at 2000 hours. Waited till 2040 hours for an agent to pick the call!! The agent perhaps understood from the tone of my voice that I had already ran out of patience so quickly cancelled my subscription without questions.
Hi Austin,
Thanks for your message. I can’t believe it took them 40 minutes to answer your call – that’s a really long wait! Sorry the links didn’t work for you – they seem to work for some people during normal office hours, but others have to wait until midnight, and sometimes it seems a phone call is the only way. Anyway, I’m glad you’ve managed to cancel your subscription.
Ian
Hi Ian, I had no luck with the links, just seemed to take me to an Amazon Instant Video landing page. However after about 20 mins of going round in circles I finally found if you can get to the Customer Services page, the one where you raise issues with any other type of Amazon transaction, there is a section called Manage My Prime. Go in there and hey presto, a Cancel button. They even give you the option of cancelling immediately or just not renewing when next payment due. This is all on the UK site BTW. Hope this helps others avoid my raised blood pressure!
Hi Steve,
Thanks very much for sharing your cancellation experience – it sounds like that advice could save someone a lot of frustration! I imagine their cancellation mechanism may have changed a bit as a result of all the recent Amazon Prime Instant Video changes that went live earlier this week. I’ll update my main instructions shortly to share your up-do-date advice.
Thanks again,
Ian
Thanks for this, great help. Just cancelled mine through my Amazon account, took 30 seconds!
That’s good news Kimmy – thanks for the feedback! Ian
Thanks for the easy instructions, pity you did’t work for Amazon Prime.
Thanks very much! 🙂
Yep last update works a treat, many thanks.
Excellent – thanks for the feedback. Ian
I’ve just followed your instructions on the last update, took all of 30 seconds to cancel. I have also gone back to Netflix, much better and they have subtitles too. Thanks
That’s great news Mark. I’m glad you’re happy with Netflix too. I currently have both Netflix and Amazon Prime video, thanks to the free access with my existing Prime account, so I have the best of both worlds! Ian
On Amazon, hover mouse pointer on “Your account”, then a drop down appears. Click on “your account”, Under settings click on “Manage Prime Membership”.
The cancel link is on the left of the new page. If they have already taken the current month’s payments they wont issue any refunds but will cancel at the end of the current month’s subscription.
Happy Canceling.
PS. NETFLIX is better
Thanks very much for the info Deno – it’s good to know that the steps I described in “Update 3: 28th February 2014” worked for you. Also thanks for explaining Amazon’s position on (not) giving refunds part-way through a subscription month.
Glad you’re enjoying Netflix too!
Ian
I spent a long time looking but managed to cancel it online just now. Last time I cancelled my lovefilm it was very simple. Got in 3 days before the free trial ended! Yay to me 🙂
Nice timing Cathy! 🙂
Just got my love film cancelled.. Took me a while to figure out how to but i went onto my amazon account and went down to manage prime subscription and on the left hand side it said Do not continue so i clicked that and it cancelled for me.
Excellent – I’m glad you’ve managed to work out how to cancel your subscription. Thanks for letting me know what worked for you. Ian
Oh my goodness, thank you ever so much!! I have finally cancelled through Amazon prime, but I would never have known how to do so without your help! Thank you, a million times, thank you!! 🙂
You’re very welcome Gaelle – I’m glad this was helpful for you. Ian
Just cancelled by phone 08004961365. Took as long as it takes to give your email, password and address, no fuss or heavy sales.
Thanks Sophie – that’s good to know. Perhaps things have improved since I first tried to cancel! Ian
Hi,
Thought I would add on here.
What a pain.
I recently moved to Australia from the UK. We where a very frequent user of Lovefilm, worked a treat. Used it on all my devices and also through the TV via the playstation worked a treat.
Since moving to Australia, it doesn’t work, so I had to sign up to a third party DNS tool, which has been working fine.
They have recently pushed me to switch my account to prime, no bother I am all up for change.
What an awful interface, I tried it and just found it a bit cumbersome.
Recently got a new TV, nice Sony 55″, set it up as an “american” TV and I suddenly got amazon prime, Netflix and so on.
Went to try the Amazon Prime App, slow. Inputted my credentials and it asked me to update my credit card as it had expired (not true) so went through the screen options and so on.
It then signed me up to a 30 day trial ?! I had already switched my account to Amazon Prime, so did not understand.
Nevertheless, the buffering was annoying, took ages for anything to work.
I found it strange that it had signed me up to a trial, so when I logged in again via a web browser, it clearly showed I was on a trial. I had enough.
So I found this website and went to cancel “prime” as well as my previous lovefilm.
Surely, low and behold, all I had to cancel was my lovefilm account at £4.99 and there was nothing else on there.
I could have done a mistake, or maybe got confused but I am quite good at these sort of things.
So, no I am paying for a sort of VPN/DNS tool, for something I do not need.
Time to try Netflix again? Maybe so, this time, US account hopefully.
Thanks again for this site.
G.
ps: cancelling took 30 seconds, was under the Amazon Prime account section.
Just put this on my FaceBook page on how to cancel LoveFilms – what a pain
“Dear Amazon UK
I am feeling very proud of myself. I have just managed to cancel my LoveFilm subscription with you! After months of not using it (I know, my fault!), I really started to take exception to £4.07 dripping out of my Bank Account every month and into yours.
Expecting to find a cancellation button on my account, but without success, I then tried an online forum which suggested I had to phone your call centre to do this, but couldn’t find this number easily. Oh no!
Anyway, after a bit of digging around I found that by signing into my Amazon account, I could do the following:
* Find “Your Account” near the bottom of the screen
* Select “All Account Options”
* Go down to “Settings”
* Select “Love Films by Post”
…and hey presto there is the cancellation button
Thank you Amazon for making my online account so easy to use that I nearly had to resort to your expensive help line call centre to sort out my online account. But I have now found two free numbers 0800 496 1081 or 0207 084 7911 – so if you could publish those more prominently that would help as well.
Please could you either add a cancellation button to your front screen or publish the above information in a more easily accessible place
Yours faithfully
an ex-LoveFilm customer”
Hi Andy,
Glad you managed to cancel in the end! Of course this process should be easier, although to be fair I think the new all-in-one Prime package that they’ve designed should make account management simpler in future.
Cheers, Ian
Can you tell me what I payed for on the 7th of July from my bank
I’m afraid not – this is just a personal blog post and I have no association with LoveFilm, so you will need to contact their customer services.