Mon, 22 Dec 2025

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 'Two pairs of leggings ended up costing me £5,000'

Clare Lane says she had "no idea" she signed up to a subscription when she bought the items online.
A woman who spent nearly £5,000 on a monthly subscription with online sportswear firm Fabletics over seven years said she had "no idea" she was committing to such a long-term commitment. Clare Lane bought two pairs of leggings from the company in 2017 and thought it was a one-off purchase, but discovered that she had also signed up for a VIP membership when reviewing her credit card statements with her husband. The monthly payments of £50 went unnoticed by Lane until they were automatically being deducted from their joint bank account. Fabletics refunded most of the money after Lane complained, but its general manager for Europe, Mark Ralea, said customers must also take "a little bit of responsibility" and claimed that the company tells customers four times during purchases that they are signing up for a subscription. However, several Fabletics customers have told the BBC that this was not made clear to them. Lane and other customers, including Lowri De Gennaro and Claire, said that getting their money back from the company after discovering the monthly payments had been difficult and time-consuming. They reported receiving emails that were filtered into junk folders and struggling to get a response from customer service. Fabletics' use of a subscription model has also come under scrutiny, with Ralea defending it as a way for the company to be sustainable and predictable in its sales. However, he was challenged on the issue when asked about customers who had been unknowingly committed to long-term payments. The government's planned laws to tackle "subscription traps" have been delayed until next autumn at the earliest after retailers raised questions, leaving consumers vulnerable to losing money through unwanted subscriptions.
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