Requiring a credit card for a free trial is for your benefit as well as ours. Unfortunately there are Internet pranksters or dishonest consumers who will sign up repeatedly for free trials under a number of assumed names and aliases. That kind of activity consumes bandwidth and services. The credit card requirement allows us to focus our attention and resources on you, our legitimate customers.

Credit Card Validation
In order to confirm that your credit card is valid we must "Authorize" the purchase price of the subscription. When funds are authorized by all credit card companies, a hold is put on the amount for 3 to 10 days depending upon the card issuer, but the funds are not charged to your account. Credit card companies do not allow us to release on-line authorized funds except by capturing them with a purchase or by allowing the authorization period to expire. Even if you immediately cancel a free trial, the funds still cannot be released for 3 to 10 days.

Security
We employ a number of technologies to ensure that credit card information is appropriately safeguarded and that the subscription process for the site meets the highest security standards currently available on the Internet. All transactions are secured by Entrust and VeriSign (two of the Web's foremost security authorities), and their innovative verification, privacy, and security management systems ensure trustworthy on-line transactions.

This requirement is not a Subscription Trap
We sincerely hope that your free trial will lead to a subscription but, if you decide to cancel during the trial period, the cancellation process is easy and effective including a simple and carefree auto-cancel selection. Preview MyAccount for cancellation details. Whenever you cancel a subscription or free trial, your credit card number is automatically deleted from our database.

Mail Orders
If you prefer to pay by check, that is possible, but would preclude a free trial. E-mail Customer Support to get the relevant information.

Close this page