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Polaroo, the home-grown App for managing subscriptions and direct debits
17/01/2021
AN APPLICATION designed in Spain keeps track of your subscriptions and monthly payments so you can check them all in one hit and avoid paying for schemes you did not realise you had signed up to.
According to research by Polaroo's developers, as many as a third of people pay subscriptions they did not intend to – typically through forgetting to cancel when their 30-day free trial period expires – and the figure would probably be much higher if it were not for the fact that 36% of users set up alerts to cancel subscriptions before the payment comes out of their bank accounts.
And around 94% of people in Spain are signed up to film or TV series platforms such as Netflix, HBO, Movístar+ and Amazon Prime TV, among others – double the number who subscribe to music platforms, such as Spotify – and around a quarter of residents subscribe to video game sites.
Even if all subscriptions are intentional, only 42% of people in Spain say they have fewer than three subscriptions – and of these, it turned out 47% had miscalculated and in fact had three or more.
If 'subscriptions' is taken to include electricity, water, mains gas where available, mobile phone and internet providers, charities donated to, gym membership or other club membership, the number of these per person is considerably higher and nearly everyone in the country has several.
Nowadays, figures show that the majority of the population subscribes to Netflix, Amazon Prime, Spotify, or all three.
Some people admit they lose track of how much they pay per month or per year for their subscriptions, and even forget how many they have at all; most are unsure of the exact date of the month these leave their bank accounts, and few remember when the annual renewal dates, if applicable, fall.
Many more users have subscriptions or direct debit payments that do not leave their banks monthly, but instead, annually, bi-annually, bi-monthly, or at other frequencies, and it can be difficult to keep track of them all – until they find their debit card bounces at the supermarket check-out desk.
Even for those who believe they are completely on top of all their payments, price changes or fluctuations can disrupt their book-keeping, especially with those that change every month, such as the electricity bill – although national utility board Iberdrola offers a system where customers can pay a fixed sum every month, calculated according to their average consumption; if they do not spend it all, this is refunded via lower payments after an annual review, and if they spend more, this is added onto each payment the following year, but consumers are contacted every few months if their power use means their payments need to be adjusted.
Polaroo has been operating since the end of 2017, although not everyone is aware it exists - or that it can even organise direct debits into a single monthly payment, or help users negotiate conditions with different service providers, to eliminate the need to spend time on long telephone calls to companies threatening to switch to a competitor.
The Polaroo App is free of charge to download and use, and is compatible with iOS and Android, provided these are able to use Google Playstore or Apple Store as applicable.
Through it, users will get warnings of payment dates coming up and amounts due.
The start-up firm says its statistics come from research on a stratified sample of the population, interviewing around 15,000 people.
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AN APPLICATION designed in Spain keeps track of your subscriptions and monthly payments so you can check them all in one hit and avoid paying for schemes you did not realise you had signed up to.
According to research by Polaroo's developers, as many as a third of people pay subscriptions they did not intend to – typically through forgetting to cancel when their 30-day free trial period expires – and the figure would probably be much higher if it were not for the fact that 36% of users set up alerts to cancel subscriptions before the payment comes out of their bank accounts.
And around 94% of people in Spain are signed up to film or TV series platforms such as Netflix, HBO, Movístar+ and Amazon Prime TV, among others – double the number who subscribe to music platforms, such as Spotify – and around a quarter of residents subscribe to video game sites.
Even if all subscriptions are intentional, only 42% of people in Spain say they have fewer than three subscriptions – and of these, it turned out 47% had miscalculated and in fact had three or more.
If 'subscriptions' is taken to include electricity, water, mains gas where available, mobile phone and internet providers, charities donated to, gym membership or other club membership, the number of these per person is considerably higher and nearly everyone in the country has several.
Nowadays, figures show that the majority of the population subscribes to Netflix, Amazon Prime, Spotify, or all three.
Some people admit they lose track of how much they pay per month or per year for their subscriptions, and even forget how many they have at all; most are unsure of the exact date of the month these leave their bank accounts, and few remember when the annual renewal dates, if applicable, fall.
Many more users have subscriptions or direct debit payments that do not leave their banks monthly, but instead, annually, bi-annually, bi-monthly, or at other frequencies, and it can be difficult to keep track of them all – until they find their debit card bounces at the supermarket check-out desk.
Even for those who believe they are completely on top of all their payments, price changes or fluctuations can disrupt their book-keeping, especially with those that change every month, such as the electricity bill – although national utility board Iberdrola offers a system where customers can pay a fixed sum every month, calculated according to their average consumption; if they do not spend it all, this is refunded via lower payments after an annual review, and if they spend more, this is added onto each payment the following year, but consumers are contacted every few months if their power use means their payments need to be adjusted.
Polaroo has been operating since the end of 2017, although not everyone is aware it exists - or that it can even organise direct debits into a single monthly payment, or help users negotiate conditions with different service providers, to eliminate the need to spend time on long telephone calls to companies threatening to switch to a competitor.
The Polaroo App is free of charge to download and use, and is compatible with iOS and Android, provided these are able to use Google Playstore or Apple Store as applicable.
Through it, users will get warnings of payment dates coming up and amounts due.
The start-up firm says its statistics come from research on a stratified sample of the population, interviewing around 15,000 people.
Related Topics
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