How to cancel a VPN subscription and get your money back: the bot, App Store, Google Play and your bank

A subscription is cancelled where it was set up, not where it is used — and a VPN subscription is no exception. Deleting the app is not enough: Apple and Google say plainly that this does not cancel it. Below — how to find where your subscription lives, how to stop it in each place, and what to do about money that has already gone.

Where the subscription lives: how to find out

A subscription is cancelled where it was set up. There are several ways to pay for the same thing, and each has its own place with the cancel button:

If you do not remember how you paid, open the latest charge in your banking app: it shows the recipient, the amount and the date. If the recipient shows Apple or Google, the subscription most likely lives in the app store. If the name is unfamiliar, it may be the seller’s payment service rather than the seller itself: match the amount and the day with what you paid for.

A bot or a website: turn off auto-renewal and remove the card

The most common case: you paid by card in a Telegram bot or on a website, and ever since the service charges you on its own, once a month. Every service has its own buttons, but the order is the same:

1. Find where the subscription is shown. In a bot — in its menu; on a website — in your account area: where the access term and the payment method are shown.
2. Turn off auto-renewal and delete the linked card, if the service allows it. Wait for the reply that auto-renewal is off, and take a screenshot.
3. No button, or it does not work — write to the service’s support. Briefly and in writing: “Please turn off auto-renewal. I refuse the use of my card details in settlements with you”, your account number, the date and amount of the last charge. Since 1 March 2026 Russian law obliges the seller to accept such a refusal (the rule). The conversation is your evidence if it comes to the bank.
4. Check the next charge. If money left after you cancelled, that is a reason to go to your bank and ask for it back.

Deleting the chat with the bot is not a refusal: the charges run on the card details the seller still holds. The Bank of Russia explains the new rule like this: since 1 March 2026 “online subscription services will not be able to charge a card if the client has removed it from their account” (“Financial Culture”, our translation). So remove the card in the service’s account area, not the chat.

A subscription paid in Telegram Stars

Stars are Telegram’s internal currency. Channels, bots and mini apps can sell subscriptions for them, and these renew every 30 days: Telegram itself debits the Stars from your balance (Telegram documentation). Since it is Stars that are debited, such a subscription is cancelled in Telegram, not at the bank.

Telegram’s help pages do not say where exactly the cancel button is: cancellation is described there only for developers. So we do not name a menu path. Telegram’s rules name one place — the Stars section in Settings (“Settings → Your Stars” in the English interface), where your Stars transactions are listed.

Getting Stars back. Telegram says that all sales of Stars are final and that it does not refund unwanted or unintentional purchases. If a bot or mini app failed to deliver what you paid for, its developer can refund the Stars: send the bot the /paysupport command — every bot that accepts Stars must answer it. If the developer refuses a legitimate refund, take the transaction ID from the Stars section and report it to Telegram (Stars terms, section 3; rules for bots). If you bought the Stars themselves through the App Store or Google Play, your billing relationship for that purchase is with the store (the same terms, section 2.2).

App Store: Apple Account subscriptions

1. Open Settings and tap your name.
2. Tap Subscriptions.
3. Tap the subscription.
4. Tap Cancel Subscription — you may need to scroll down.

If there is no Cancel button, or the expiry is shown in red, Apple says the subscription is already cancelled. Apple advises cancelling a free trial at least 24 hours before it ends (Apple’s instructions). Deleting the app is not enough: “If you delete an app, it doesn’t automatically cancel in-app subscriptions” (Apple).

A refund for an App Store purchase is requested from Apple: sign in to reportaproblem.apple.com, choose “I’d like to” → “Request a refund”, pick the reason and the subscription, then “Submit”. Apple says to wait 24–48 hours for an update (Apple’s instructions).

Google Play: Google account subscriptions

1. On your Android phone, open subscriptions in Google Play.
2. Select the subscription.
3. Tap Cancel subscription and follow the instructions.

Google warns separately: “When you uninstall the app, your subscription won’t cancel.” After cancelling you can keep using the subscription until the paid period ends (Google Play Help).

Refunds are stricter. Google says plainly: “Google doesn’t give refunds for most Google Play purchases.” Within 48 hours of a purchase you may be able to get money back for some purchases through Google: on play.google.com — your profile picture → “Payments & subscriptions” → “Budget & order history” → “Report a problem”; the answer comes in 1–4 days. After 48 hours Google sends you to the app’s developer (when refunds are given, how to request one).

If the seller does not answer: what your bank can do

Your bank will not cancel your contract with the seller, but it can stop letting the seller’s charges through or dispute one that has already gone. Banks differ, so below is only what the banks and the Bank of Russia say about themselves. The quotes are our translation.

A subscription through SBP is cancelled in your banking app. If, when paying, you linked your account to the service through the Faster Payments System (SBP), that is a separate kind of subscription. The Bank of Russia: “Subscriptions set up through SBP can be managed in the bank’s mobile app: the client can see current subscriptions, switch off unneeded ones and set limits on debits” (Bank of Russia website). The SBP operator adds that charges stop immediately after cancellation, and that such a subscription can also be cancelled on the service itself (NSPK).

Not every bank lets you block card charges.

• Sberbank. In SberBank Online, type «Подписки» (“Subscriptions”) into the search — the line «Куда привязаны ваши счета и карты» (“Where your accounts and cards are linked”) appears. Choose the service, then the card, and tap «Запретить списание» (“Block charges”): “SberBank will block every attempt by the service to take money from the selected account”. This is for a SberCard; for older cards the bank sends you to cancel in the service’s account area (instructions, subscriptions page).
• T-Bank says plainly: “You cannot switch off a subscription to third-party services through T-Bank”, and it cannot show a full list of them either (T-Bank help).
• VTB: “If the automatic payment was set up through a third-party service, it has to be switched off there” (VTB).

We have not checked other banks. Ask yours in its support chat: “Can I block charges to this recipient?”

Reissuing the card is the last resort. A new card has new details, and the old ones can no longer be charged: T-Bank says so (it advises a reissue if you do not know where the subscription was set up), and so does Gazprombank. The price: you will have to enter the new details everywhere you need the card yourself. And a reissue does not stop everything: “Some charges are tied not to the card number but to the bank account. So replacing the card does not always stop regular payments” (Gazprombank), and an SBP subscription, according to the SBP operator, survives a card reissue (NSPK).

Disputing a charge that has already gone through. That is what a chargeback is for — “a procedure for disputing a bank card payment the person does not agree with”. The Bank of Russia gives exactly this case as an example: the service charged for the next period, the “auto-subscription” cannot be cancelled, and the seller does not answer emails. Its conditions: go to your own bank, not the seller’s; “the bank will not accept a chargeback claim until you prove you have already tried to get the payment back yourself” — which is why the conversation with the seller matters; “the rules and deadlines of the procedure are set by the payment systems”, Russian law has no such concept, and the bank decides itself whether to use it. For a purchase within Russia the answer comes within 30 days (Bank of Russia, “Financial Culture”).

Getting money back: what Russian law says

Three rules are worth knowing word for word. A paraphrase of the law easily turns into a promise, and how a dispute ends depends on the seller, the terms and how you paid. The quotes below are our translation of the Russian texts.

You may cancel a service at any time. Article 32 of the Consumer Rights Protection Law: “The consumer may withdraw from a contract for work (services) at any time, provided that the contractor is paid the expenses it has actually incurred in performing the contract” (the article, in Russian; the same in clause 1 of Article 782 of the Civil Code). The law names no amount: what the seller has actually spent is settled with the seller, and in a dispute — in court. Put your demand to the seller in writing and keep the reply.

Since 1 March 2026 the seller must accept your refusal of your card. Clause 4.2 of Article 16.1 of the same law (added by Federal Law No. 376-FZ of 15 October 2025) covers subscriptions over the internet: the contractor “is prohibited from using, to receive periodic payments, the consumer’s bank account details or data on the consumer’s electronic means of payment that the consumer provided earlier and in respect of which the consumer has told the contractor they refuse their use in settlements”. And further: “The contractor must ensure that such a refusal is accepted… including in electronic form” (the law, Article 16.1 as in force). In practice it is one sentence to support: “I refuse the use of my card details in settlements with you.” The rule works where the seller can be found and a demand can be put to it; with a bot that has no name and no company details, the bank is what remains.

A charge without your consent — to the bank, and quickly. The National Payment System Law, Article 9, part 11: the client reports such a charge to the bank “immediately upon discovering it… but no later than the day following the day the client received the operator’s notice of the completed operation”. The bank must consider the claim within 30 days, or within 60 if the transfer was cross-border (part 8; the article). An honest caveat: these rules speak of operations “without the client’s voluntary consent”, and you once set up the subscription yourself. Whether the bank will treat a charge made after your refusal as one without consent, the law does not say in advance. So first a written refusal to the seller, then the bank — with that refusal in hand.

Stores and Stars refund by their own rules: Apple — through a request on its site, Google — within the first 48 hours, after that through the developer, Telegram Stars — through the bot’s developer.

How it works with us: no card charges

We sell access by plan ourselves, so here is how it works with us — from our offer (in Russian), not from memory.

• We have no recurring card charges. We do not store card details, and every payment by card or via SBP (Russia’s Faster Payments System) you confirm yourself on the payment service’s page.
• Auto-renewal runs only from the balance in your account. It is switched on with a separate toggle, and switching it on is the consent. The toggle appears after the first payment.
• Where to turn it off. In your account: the “Plan and payment” card, the “Auto-renewal” row, the “Turn off” button. In our Telegram bot (it speaks Russian) — the /balance command and the button «Выключить автопродление» (“Turn off auto-renewal”). The period you have paid for stays in full.
• We warn you in advance. Three days before the paid period ends — by email if you have one on file, and always in your account. While auto-renewal is on, your account shows a “Next charge” row with the date and the note “from the balance”.
• Not enough money on the balance — nothing is charged, and access simply ends as usual.
• Changed your mind — we refund the unused days. You can withdraw at any time. The money does not come back by itself, and turning auto-renewal off will not return it either: write to support@mayaknetworks.com with your account number from your account area and the payment date. We will refund the cost of the full days left from the day you write: the price of the period is divided by the number of its days and multiplied by the number of days left. The access paid for by that payment is switched off when it is refunded, and the money goes back to the card or account you paid from.
• If we got it wrong — a double charge, or money gone with no access — write to support@mayaknetworks.com with the date and the payment method: that is fixing our mistake, and we refund such a payment in full. Withdrawal, refunds and wrong charges are covered in section 4 of the offer.

What we checked

• Apple’s, Google Play’s and Telegram’s cancellation paths and refund rules — from their official pages, read on 23 September 2026; quotes checked word for word.
• The law — from the current texts of the articles on ConsultantPlus and the text of Law No. 376-FZ on the Kremlin website, read on 23 September 2026.
• What your bank can do — from the pages of the Bank of Russia, the SBP operator and the help pages of Sberbank, T-Bank, VTB and Gazprombank, read on 23 September 2026.
• How it works with us — from our offer (version of 23 September 2026) and the labels in our account area and bot.

What we do not know

• How the buttons work in any particular Telegram service. We do not take apart other people’s bots and do not name them.
• Where in Telegram’s menus a Stars subscription is cancelled. Telegram does not say so on its pages, and we chose not to retell unofficial instructions.
• Whether your bank can block charges. Of the four banks whose help pages we read, only one — Sberbank — writes about it directly. We found no Alfa-Bank pages for personal clients on subscriptions.
• How much a seller will return and what a court will decide. The law names a right and a condition — “expenses actually incurred” — not an amount.
• Whether Apple and Google will refund. They decide each request themselves.
• How long the menu paths will hold. Stores change their interfaces; each path has a link to the instructions next to it, and those are what to trust.

Short answers

How do I cancel a subscription? Where it was set up: in the bot or the service’s account area, in App Store or Google Play settings, in Telegram if you paid with Stars. The table is at the start of the article.

How do I turn off auto-renewal? In the same place as the subscription, and delete the linked card while you are there. No button — tell the seller you refuse the use of your card: since 1 March 2026 Russian law obliges the seller to accept that refusal.

I deleted the app or the bot — will the charges stop? No. Apple and Google say plainly that deleting an app does not cancel the subscription; with a Telegram service you have to tell the service itself that you refuse.

The bot does not answer but money keeps being charged — what now? Keep the conversation and go to your bank. A charge without consent is reported to the bank no later than the day after you were notified of it.

How do I cancel a subscription and get my money back? First cancel, then put a demand to the seller: you may withdraw from a service at any time by paying the seller’s actual expenses. App stores and Telegram refund by their own rules — details. With us — for the unused days, on a letter to support.

How do I cancel a subscription in Telegram? If you paid by card through a bot — in the bot itself or through its support. If with Stars — in Telegram.

What if I want to turn off the connection itself, not the payment? That is done in the app, and it does not touch the subscription. If you turn it off for your bank or Gosuslugi, there is a way not to — send Russian apps past the tunnel.