What Must We Explain Before Customers Start a Budget Plan in the App?

Explain the charges, timing and way to stop them. For covered online negative-option sales, 15 USC 8403 requires clear terms before billing details and express informed consent before charging. It also requires simple ways to stop recurring charges. Have your lawyer check whether your plan falls under that rule. Read the statute.

What is a negative-option feature?

A negative-option feature treats silence or failure to cancel as acceptance. In an ongoing plan, that can mean charges continue unless the customer stops them. Not every budget plan works that way. Read the FTC definition. Ask your lawyer to check the actual signup and charge process. The plan’s name does not decide which rule applies.

What should the enrollment explanation cover?

Write what the office would tell a customer at the counter. What does the plan cover? How is each payment set? What can change? How can the customer stop future charges? Add the terms your lawyer requires. Review the screen before anyone is asked for card or bank details.

How should cancellation reach the people who charge?

Practice a stop request from receipt to the person who controls future charges. Find the record of the request. Check how staff confirm the result. Keep three questions clear: stopping charges, settling an old balance and changing future deliveries. Do not assume one screen handles them all or that the app has a specific cancel feature.

What should we check before launch?

Check the plan from signup through the last future charge:

1. Write down the actual plan terms, charging method and renewal or continuation behavior.
2. Have counsel identify applicable federal and state requirements for that arrangement.
3. Review the disclosures and customer choice before the billing-information step.
4. Rehearse a stop request through the office and the system that controls future charges.
5. Agree on the confirmation, account reconciliation and delivery-plan follow-up the customer receives.

Questions owners ask

Is every propane budget plan a negative option?

The name alone does not tell you. Show your lawyer what starts a charge and what happens if the customer does nothing. Get that review before you choose consent wording. Keep the result with the plan so staff can explain why the signup process uses those terms.

Does signing a budget form answer every billing question?

No. Look at the agreement and the permission to charge as separate parts of the review. Check who can find both records. Ask how staff handle a disputed signup. A form demo helps only if it answers those questions about your own plan and payment process.

Does stopping future charges erase an existing balance?

Do not promise that it does. Have your lawyer check the agreement and the rules for balances or refunds. Give staff an approved explanation. Keep that account review separate from stopping future charges. The customer needs a clear answer about both, without one request getting lost inside the other.

Are we relying on the FTC’s 2024 click-to-cancel amendments?

This answer uses the cited statute. It does not rely on a claim that the 2024 FTC changes are in force. Have your lawyer check the current rules before launch. Save the review date with the plan. Check again when the terms or the way you charge changes.

What should we ask to see before enabling enrollment?

Ask for the whole path: terms, consent, payment approval, office file and a stop request. Use an internal test with no real customer details. Name the person who will close each open question. Settle the stop process before staff invite customers to join through the signup screen.

Primary sources

• U.S. Government Publishing Office: 15 USC 8403, 2024 edition
• FTC rule: 16 CFR 310.2(w), negative-option definition

Bring your reviewed signup and stop process to a Custom Fuel App demo. Related reading: Existing autofill and budget overview, Electronic agreement questions. Find more on the answer hub.

Planning guidance for the office. Check the rules for your work with the agency, your lawyer or a qualified reviewer. A product setting does not prove compliance.

Last updated: 2026-10-17
Author: The Custom Fuel App team