Legal Question in Business Law in Maryland

Hello. I am being hounded by Shopster, an online dropshipping service. In late 2008 I paid in advance for a one year subscription to the service. I hardly utilized the service and had decided to just let it expire this year. I received no proactive e-mails from them telling me the service was about to expire or renew, but this week have received two e-mails from them telling me the account was in arrears. I told them via e-mail of my intent to cancel it. I was told how to do so. Today I got another e-mail telling them my account was in arrears. I again wrote Customer Service which says that I need to pay off the $300+ annual renewal fee even though the account just renewed and I canceled it on Monday. They do not have a current credit card on file and are not able to charge me the automatic annual renewal fee that they say is associated with my account. It looks like, however, from reading their online terms, that they can go after me for any overdue amounts, charge interest, and have me pay for any costs related to their collection efforts. Is there some law relating to automatically renewing subscriptions that might help me get out of this state of arrears? Shopster appears to be an Alberta, Canada firm. Does this impact their ability to enforce this in anyway? Please advise. Thank you.


Asked on 1/08/10, 9:12 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Robert Sher Wagshal and Sher

While not personally familiar with Shopster, they operate similarly to many such companies. They offer attractive "tease" rates to sign you up, and buried in the fine print (which they expect few to read) it says that your contract is automatically renewed unless you affirmatively cancel. They operate out of "business friendly" jurisdictions that don't prohibit this, and their contract states that the laws of that jurisdiction apply.

Fortunately they don't have the present ability to collect from you, and chances are they won't go after you because of this. I suggest you write them a strong letter saying that you will take legal action if they make any attempt to impair your credit and you consider the relationship concluded at this point. Then periodically check your credit reports to see if they've tried to put something on your record.

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Answered on 1/13/10, 11:10 am


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