McAfee: cancellation problem
Turn off auto-renewal in your McAfee account before the payment date. If you were already renewed, ask for a refund inside the refund window.
What does this mean?
Grade C (use with care: check the source of each value before relying on it). 61% of 23 sources are the organization's own pages or government sites; 4 value(s) were read from a search snippet or an archive copy.
Collect
- McAfee account email
- subscription and renewal date
- screenshot of auto-renewal turned off
Steps
Sign in to your McAfee account by typing mcafee.com into the browser (not from an email link), open the account menu and go to the auto-renewal settings. Turn auto-renewal off before the payment date and take a screenshot.
Path read from search-result text of McAfee pages on 2026-10-13; mcafee.com blocked automated fetches.
If you cannot turn it off, call McAfee.
If McAfee charges you after you turned auto-renewal off, ask McAfee for a refund, then dispute the charge with your card issuer if it refuses.
Rules in force
- Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act (ROSCA) negative option requirements15 U.S.C. 8401-8405
A seller that charges consumers online through a negative option feature (for example an automatic renewal or a free trial that converts to paid) must clearly disclose all material terms before taking billing information, get the consumer's express informed consent before charging, and provide simple mechanisms to stop recurring charges. The FTC enforces ROSCA.
Source: law.cornell.edu, verified 2026-10-12
3 citable points
- Policy
Before obtaining the consumer's billing information, the seller must provide text that "clearly and conspicuously discloses all material terms of the transaction".
Source: law.cornell.edu, verified 2026-10-12
- Policy
The seller must provide "simple mechanisms for a consumer to stop recurring charges" on the consumer's credit card, debit card, bank account or other financial account.
Source: law.cornell.edu, verified 2026-10-12
- Process
A ROSCA violation is treated as a violation of an FTC rule on unfair or deceptive acts or practices, and the FTC enforces ROSCA with its FTC Act powers and penalties. Report violations to the FTC.
Source: law.cornell.edu, verified 2026-10-12
- Policy
Rules not in force (do not cite)
- FTC "Click-to-Cancel" amendments to the Negative Option Rule (2024) Vacated16 CFR part 425 (2024 amendments, published November 15, 2024)
Vacated in full by the Eighth Circuit on July 8, 2025 (Custom Communications, Inc. v. FTC, 142 F.4th 1060). The FTC removed the 2024 text effective February 12, 2026 and restored the pre-2024 prenotification rule. A new rulemaking is only at the ANPRM stage (March 13, 2026), with no proposed text as of 2026-10-12. What remains in force: ROSCA (rules/rosca-negative-option), Section 5 of the FTC Act, and state automatic renewal laws (for example rules/ca-automatic-renewal-law, rules/ny-automatic-renewal-law).
Not in force. Do not cite it as current law.
If that fails, escalate
Go up one step at a time. Keep the reference numbers and dates from each contact.
Customer service
Written complaint
Card or bank dispute
Fair Credit Billing Act billing-error and purchase-dispute rights (Regulation Z)
Electronic Fund Transfer Act error resolution and unauthorized-transfer liability (Regulation E)
Card dispute for charges after a cancellation.
Federal regulator
State agency
Your state’s attorney general. Find it in the list of state agencies (also as JSON:
states/<code>.json, for example states/ny.json).
Watch out
- www.mcafee.com refused automated fetches on 2026-10-13, so McAfee's refund policy, auto-renewal terms, account URL and phone hours could not be read directly. Values marked "search-result text" need confirming.
- Turning off auto-renewal needs sign-in to the McAfee account.
- Do not use "McAfee support" phone numbers from search results, pop-ups or emails; fake renewal invoices with call-back numbers are a common scam.
Let your AI agent handle this
Escalate Anything is a free, open-source MCP server for Claude, Cursor, VS Code, Gemini CLI, Codex and other AI apps. Your agent gets this playbook, keeps a case log with reference numbers and follow-up dates, and drafts each message for you to approve.
1. Set it up (needs uv):
uvx escalate-anything setup2. Ask your agent:
I cancelled McAfee on [date] and they still charge me. Use Escalate Anything to stop it and get refunded.Source code, other install options and the Claude Code plugin